I had just arrived at the 101st Airborne and was still the newest member when Rick Solerno who was already past midway point on his tour asked me to help him recover some equipment from Phu Bai. We got a deuce and a half ton truck and drove to the Phu Bai airfield some twenty miles south. I asked him what we were doing, and he replied casually “Aw, we’re just going to recover a 30 Kilowatt generator that we loaned these folks.” We got to the airfield and drove up to the 30 KW generator by the side of the fully open and occupied helicopter maintenance facility and stopped.
“Okay, I’m going to back up to it, so you get out and stand by the generator and guide me back,” Rick said so casually as if we belonged there.
I did as told and started guiding him back onto the generator trailer when I noticed the bumper markings on our truck had been taped over making them unreadable but thought nothing of it. I guided Solerno squarely onto the tongue of the generator trailer. Solerno nonchalantly got out of the truck, grabbed an adjustable wrench and proceeded to remove the grounding strap and cables hooked up to the generator’s power panel. I asked him if I should pull out the ground stake, and he replied “Naw. We have enough of those sonnavabitches. Let them keep it. That’s the least we can do for them.”
With the generator ready for transport, we raised the tongue and hooked it up to the truck. He told me to get in the truck, but I suggested I’d better stay until the generator was clearly on the road to make sure there were no problems. Solerno sternly told me “Get in the fucking truck so we can get the hell out of there!” I did as told and we left the area abruptly. We were clearly out of the airfield and on the main road going back to Camp Eagle when I noticed Solerno smiling. “Do you realize we just stole a 30 KW generator?” he asked.
“You asshole!” I shouted at Rick. I was very highly incensed. “I helped you steal a piece of government equipment? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You’d probably be nervous if you knew or you would have refused to help. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
The taping over of our truck’s bumper markings now made sense. Solerno had taped over the 101st Airborne markings to thwart anyone’s efforts to identify us or associate us with to the 101st Airborne.
We got back to Camp Eagle and parked the truck with attached 30 KW generator right in front of our commander’s office. We walked up the hill into Captain Black’s office and Solerno proudly announced to Captain Black “We got you a generator, captain. That 1 KW generator we use for the two hour period at night just doesn’t cut it anymore, and you’ve been crying for a bigger generator. Now you can power up all of Camp Eagle if you want.”
"Good !" said Captain Black. "Where did it come from?"
Solerno responded with, "Don’t ask, captain. We’re going to remove all the data plates and serial numbers.”
Captain Black who had just been selected to attend graduate school for a Masters in Electronics upon completion of his Vietnam tour had a nervous nature and was always worried about his career. “Solerno, you can’t do that! You can’t just go and take somebody else’s equipment. Did you steal it?”
“Well, you needed one and now you got it. Where do you want me to park it?” asked Solerno.
Captain Black panicked. He simply would have nothing to do with it. “Well, I don’t care where you put it, but don’t put it anywhere near my company area. Go put it back from wherever you two got it! And, Ogeeda, you’re new here. I’m appalled that you would participate in this theft. This is not the way we do things here!” Captain Black grabbed his shirt and hat off his field desk and stormed out.
No way, no how were we going to take it back. I refused to take part in it. They’d probably already found out it was missing and were on the lookout for it. We left the generator in front of Captain Black’s office while Solerno figured out what to do with it. I left Solerno telling him he was on his own now, and I would no longer be a part of this theft. Walking to my Electronics Maintenance hooch, I stopped at the Batcave for a cold beer. "How the hell did I get mixed up in this shit?" I kept asking myself.
There was a ravine not more than some two hundred meters from our work shop. Solerno got another person to accompany him. They backed the generator into a low part of the ravine which was partially grown over with tall weeds. The plan was to leave the generator hidden there for a couple of weeks to insure it was not discovered in our company area should the military police be looking for it.
I asked Solerno about the generator a couple of weeks later. He responded with “Hell, Tony, I don’t know what the fuck happened to the damn thing. We parked it there. A couple of days ago I went to check on it, and it was gone. Some sonnavabitch stole it from us.”
The 30 KW generator had been the property of the army’s aircraft maintenance facility at the Phu Bai airfield. They used it as backup power during power failures. This was their emergency power, and Solerno and I had removed their emergency power capability.
In 2003, I attended the 101st Airborne Division reunion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, current home of the 101st Airborne Division. Solerno was not in attendance, but I asked a few people there if they knew about the incident regarding the 30 KW generator “acquisition”. Doug Bonnet, author of The Sentinel and the Shooter, was very well familiar with the grand theft. He had it on good authority that the generator had been driven to our sister unit at Quang Tri, the 407th Radio Research Detachment. It was solid information. Doug himself arranged the transfer and led the convoy to the 407th Radio Research Detachment. Solerno never knew.
Rick passed away last year, and I do hope he is still rejoicing in the potential he offered our unit by acquiring that 30 Kilowatt generator. Unfortunately, cowardly Captain Black lacked the intestinal fortitude to provide our company with a much-needed uninterrupted power source.
Rick, forever rest in peace, brother.
30 Kilowatt Trailer Mounter Generator similar to the one Solerno and I stole
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