There wasn’t any way we could load one pallet right back to the the brand new lighthearted truck, so as being the a great Samaritans we had been, i piled as many cases while we you can expect to into all of our V-100-a great deal we could hardly change this new turret. Without a doubt, there have been some disappointed MPs one to nights and you may plenty of dreadful headaches the 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 This new Roundup, our local GI newspaper. The April 1970 article was headlined, “66th MP Co. Super Heroes to Combat VC Wrong Doers.”
Periodically we’d the times, including the go out once we was basically escorting a beneficial convoy within the A keen Khe Ticket and something of automobiles destroyed an entire pallet regarding beer
David An effective. Swisher stays in Marshall, Ill. The guy acquired the newest Armed forces Commendation Medal with V Equipment to own their tips during the ambush on An Khe Ticket in April 1970. For further studying, see: Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando 1960-71, of the Richard Lathrop and you will Jim Laurier; and you will Combat Police: U.S. Army Military Police in Vietnam, of the Rick More youthful.
Much of our trouble showed up with the QL-19, however, I thought warmer thereon path than with the QL-step 1, simply because they there were much more convoys on QL-19 which greater odds of duplicate. My personal baptism from flame appeared on bush from the hairpin contour on the A keen Khe Pass. The V-100 got already break through the newest hairpin and you can is going off the newest pass, if westbound convoy was strike. What “Get in touch with! Contact! Get in touch with!” came along the broadcast online whenever i is actually driving, thus i turned into the fresh new V-100 to and you can went backup brand new ticket. When we surely got to the brand new hairpin, We spotted some Korean soldiers pinned down. One of them had their arm stuck-up in the air pointing south area of the hairpin change. I pulled the new V-100 amongst the Koreans additionally the status he had been pointing to, therefore we could give them a tad bit more shelter and have now engage the firepower.
My personal V-100 are escorting an excellent convoy from Tuy Hoa eventually whenever there is certainly numerous design focus on the road, leading to somewhat a keen accordion impression
Things regarding the powering new routes each day was that you never ever https://escortbabylon.de/en/switzerland/valais realized exactly what uncommon material would definitely takes place 2nd. If top of convoy stopped, the trunk tightened up. Then top perform begin once more, and also the convoy spread out till the buttocks could start. Due to this, I informed our V-100 driver Reno Catalano to go into the midst of this new street therefore we helps to keep most other auto of our convoy up to we had out from the framework city. Whereas i constantly assist quicker auto go ahead and pass the latest convoy trucks, as there are such structure I needed to save the fresh new convoy free of others tourist.
On one convoy to Da Nang, one of the vehicles struck a great Lambretta laden up with Vietnamese. It absolutely was some chaos. New Lambretta ran off the path and you can down an embankment. Once we had an effective dustoff there and got one thing cleared upwards a little while, there had been all sorts of black colored pajama-clothed people with guns updates doing talking and you can shouting. By the difficult, a misconception can potentially have arisen, before that took place i got regarding indeed there and you will right back to our convoy.