Here wasn’t in whatever way we could stream you to definitely pallet back toward the fresh new lighthearted vehicle, therefore as the good Samaritans we were, i piled as many circumstances as we you are going to on the all of our V-100-such that people could hardly turn the brand new turret. Obviously, there are some disappointed MPs you to definitely nights and you may lots of terrible head aches the very next day.
To the men who served on a V-100 for a year, the vehicle became more than just a machine. It became your life, your friend and your protector. All but two of our V-100s were named after comic book heroes. These included “Captain America,” “Thor,” “Big Ben,” “Flash,” “Spider – man,” “Barbarian,” “Atom,” “Daredevil” and “Iron Man.” The other two were named “Road Hog” and “The Lemon.” Each of the V-100s had a painting of the character or the name across the front, life-sized and in coloric book superheroes painted on the front of the V-100s made for an interesting article in The Roundup, our local GI newspaper. The April 1970 article was headlined, “66th MP Co. Super Heroes to Combat VC Wrong Doers.”
Sometimes we’d the minutes, like the date once we had been escorting a good convoy in the A keen Khe Solution and something of your own trucks missing a complete pallet out of beer
David An effective. Swisher lives in Marshall, Ill. He obtained the latest Military Commendation Medal that have V Tool to have their measures inside ambush within A keen Khe Pass into the April 1970. For additional training, see: Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando 1960-71, by Richard Lathrop and you will Jim Laurier; and you may Combat Police: U.S. Army Military Police in Vietnam, from the Rick Younger.
Much of the troubles showed up towards QL-19, however, I always experienced hotter thereon highway than simply for the QL-step 1, given that they there have been far more convoys towards the QL-19 which deeper odds of duplicate. My personal baptism of fire emerged to the plant in the hairpin curve throughout the A keen Khe Violation. Our V-100 had currently break through brand new hairpin and you may is actually headed down this new admission, if the westbound convoy is actually struck. What “Get in touch with! Contact! Get in touch with!” showed up across the broadcast websites while i are riding, so i turned the new V-100 around and you can headed back up the fresh new pass. As soon as we surely got to the latest hairpin, I saw particular Korean troops pinned down. Included in this got his arm stuck-up in the air pointing towards the south section of the hairpin change. I removed the newest V-100 between the Koreans additionally the updates he had been leading so you’re able to, so we you certainly will provide them with more security while having build relationships our very own firepower.
My V-100 is escorting an effective convoy of Tuy Hoa one-day when there can be a good amount of design work at the trail, causing somewhat an enthusiastic accordion effect
Something regarding the running the latest ways day-after-day is actually you never ever realized exactly what strange topic would definitely happens second. In the https://escortfrauen.de/en/germany/saxony/chemnitz event that side of one’s convoy avoided, the trunk tightened. Then the top manage start once more, and the convoy spread out until the rear you are going to begin. Because of that, I told all of our V-100 rider Reno Catalano to go into the midst of the newest street so we will keep other automobile off all of our convoy up to i got outside of the structure town. While i always help less vehicles feel free to solution brand new convoy autos, since there is plenty build I needed to store this new convoy free of one other traffic.
Using one convoy so you can Weil Nang, one of the cars struck a good Lambretta loaded with Vietnamese. It absolutely was somewhat a mess. This new Lambretta ran from the path and you can down an enthusiastic embankment. By the time we got a beneficial dustoff here and you will had some thing cleaned upwards a while, there have been all sorts of black pajama-clad people who have weapons standing as much as speaking and screaming. Of the difficult, a misunderstanding could easily have arisen, prior to you to definitely took place i had out of here and you will right back to your convoy.