Vietnam veteran reflects on service and resilience: ‘I just did my job’

In retrospect, Dan Biske’s thought is to let it go.

The 79-year-old Vietnam War veteran believes that many others went through far more than he did.

“I just did my job,” he said about his time in the war. “I’ve been through combat areas, but was fortunate that nothing happened. The guys that went to war were ordinary guys, not trying to be heroes. It was rough for me all of those years to keep it quite, but I’m proud of what I did.”

Dan Biske, far right, was part of the 36th Engineer Brigade in Vietnam.

Biske, of Grosse Pointe, has been part of the Men's Club of Grosse Pointe for over 15 years. The club regularly meets at The War Memorial for fun, fellowship and festivities. In 2025, some of Biske’s artifacts from his military service were on display as part of The Long Vietnam War exhibit in the Patriot Gallery. The exhibit, in partnership with the Grosse Pointe Artists Association, explored the complexities and history of the Vietnam War. 

He grew up in Hamtramck and attended St. Florian High School, graduating in 1964. After high school, he went to University of Detroit Mercy for a mechanical engineering degree. While in college, he was involved in ROTC.  

By 1969, Biske was a college graduate and had the opportunity to go into the Army as an officer. 

“The war was in full bloom,” he said. “From my economic level, the chances were that I was going to be drafted. I never thought you could get out of being in the Army.”   

Early in his Army life, Biske went to Fort Riley, Kansas for boot camp. Having the choice of which area of the Army to work in, he chose engineering. 

“I went to engineering school at Fort Belvoir with the Army Corps of Engineers,” he said.  “ROTC grads weren’t like West Point grads, so you had to learn the Army way.   

With the Army “getting short” on officers to be in Vietnam, Biske volunteered to go overseas. 

“I was able to get the type of unit that I wanted to get into,” he said. “I wanted a construction unit, but I was still a combat engineer.” 

Part of the 36th Engineer Brigade, Biske was in an advanced unit. He arrived in the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam in March 1970 with the rank of second lieutenant, spending exactly one year there. 

“It looked similar to the show ‘Mash’ and we had our own security,” he said. “If they were building a road here, we would be 20 miles out from that, building the road further and they would be coming up to us. We were our own security.”   

With Vietcong in the area and North Vietnamese streaming in from Cambodia, Biske recalls there was an effort to bomb Cambodia, without boots on the ground. 

“I had three squads underneath me and there were three platoons in the company,” he said. “One platoon was with heavy equipment, like bulldozers. My platoon was vertical construction, such as constructing a building and we had all of the dump trucks.” 

Biske was tasked with building a structure for Vietnamese soldier advisors near the Cambodian border.    

“You could hear B-52s in the background doing carpet-bombing in Cambodia, that’s how close we were to the border,” he commented. 

Twice, he was assigned to lead a high-speed convoy at least 50 miles convoy into Saigon for supplies.  

“I’m in a Jeep and we’re driving like 45 miles an hour, blitzing through everybody,” he said. “They asked me a second time and we were in traffic. All of a sudden, this motorcycle jumps into my Jeep and slammed into my leg. I don’t know if that was on purpose, but he disappeared and I was in agony.” 

Biske was then taken to a Vietnamese hospital, and his leg was placed in a cast. He would spend the next five months in a cast, continuing his service in Vietnam as a supply officer, ordering materials for various battalions.  

It wasn’t until he read Ken Burns’ book on Vietnam, “The Vietnam War: An Intimate History,” that Biske believed Burns hit the nail on the head. Initially, after watching “The Vietnam War” documentary by Burns, Biske thought it was propaganda, depicting Americans out to be the “bad guys.” 

“The war was run by amateurs,” he said. “I was an amateur, and didn’t have all the bells and whistles for the military. I knew I was a smart guy and knew how to deal with people. I worked for Ford Motor Company before the war, and as an engineer, I needed to get things done without yelling.”  

After the Vietnam War, Biske was briefly in the Army National Guard, then went into Individual Ready Reserve, the reserve component of the U.S. armed forces. 

“They had all these extra officers after the war,” he said. “With Individual Ready Reserve, you could go anywhere in the country, as long as they wanted you, and spend two weeks in the Army in different units.”   

He spent 20 years, 1970-1990, in the Individual Ready Reserve. 
 
Biske and his wife Denise married in 1982. The couple has three kids, and five grandkids.  
Biske had a career at Ford for 40 years, retiring as an industrial engineering supervisor in 2007.    

To view more veteran stories and upcoming patriotic programming at The War Memorial, visit warmemorial.org/patriotic.