Richard Piper

Dickey Piper Remembrance

Feb. 1 2021

Dicky Piper was a sheriff’s deputy in Bernalillo County, and managed Paul’s Monterey Inn, worked in car sales. He spent two tours as a Special Forces officer in Viet Nam. Volunteered to track traffic along the Ho Chi Minh trail. He and his team would hike out for 4 days from Laos.They hired Montinard men to help carry their equipment into North VietNam. They carried supplies and batteries for the radios to last 30 day s.They carried AK-47s, the same rifles as the North Vietnamese to make them harder to locate in a firefig ht.They would set up an observation post and moved o ften.They would look for truck parks and depots. He said the North Vietnamese were excellent at camouflage.

When they located a target they had a Burst radio to transmit the location to US Forces for a strike. He joked his luck was such that he got shot in the same leg twice. He graduated from Notre Dame with a Masters degree in literature. To pay for his degree Dickey would get up at 4:30 AM and drive a coal truck. RIP Dickey. From Friends at O’Neill’s Pub.