Sam Peck - U.S. Navy Seabee 1963-67
Sam Peck - U.S. Navy Seabee 1963-67
Sam Peck comes from a military background; both of his parents served in the Navy and his great-grandfather Cassius Peck served in the Union Army, U.S. sharpshooters and was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1862. Sam’s father wanted both Sam and his brother to join the USMC but plea-bargained it down to the Navy were Sam eventually joined the Seabees for two reasons; the John Wayne movie The Fighting Seabees and the tv show McHale's Navy.
Sam was assigned to Mobile Construction Battalion (MCB) 10 eventually being deployed to both Chu Lai (1965) and Da Nang (1966). In Chu Lai MCB-10 were the 1st Seabees to be deployed. The job was to build an aluminum-matted runway. “Chu Lai was just rolling sand dunes, and we had to start immediately on this runway. This runway is supposed, technically, theoretically, is supposed to be built in 72 hours, but you can’t build a runway in sand.”
While in Chu Lai Sam was witness to the aftermath of Operation Starlight where 45 Marines were killed. “All those Marine bodies were lined up on a runway. And one of the sad spectacles was that a C-130 would come in, and the new kids, the replacements, would come off the back of the C-130 in their shiny new greens, you know, and they would have to walk past all these marine body bags who were being loaded on that same airplane to fly back to the States.”
After the war Sam worked for numerous airlines including Thai Airways. First working in sales and photography and eventually moving on to corporate design and re-branding. Sam would eventually be hired by Boeing to head its team on a project to re-brant Vietnam Airlines. This took him back to Vietnam on numerous occasions in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
