Just after back at the material, i unloaded new alcohol, put it on a cut right out-off 55-gallon drum and you will iced it off

There was not in any manner we are able to weight one to pallet back to the the newest lighthearted truck, so being the an effective Samaritans we had been, we stacked as numerous circumstances once we you may to the our V-100-such we could not turn new turret. Needless to say, there had been particular disappointed MPs that nights and you can lots of awful headaches the following 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 https://escortbabylon.de/en/switzerland/canton-of-solothurn/solothurn superheroes painted on the front of the V-100s made for an interesting article in 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 all of our minutes, such as the big date as soon as we was in fact escorting a convoy within the An Khe Citation plus one of cars lost a complete pallet of alcohol

David A beneficial. Swisher lives in Marshall, Unwell. The guy obtained the Army Commendation Medal which have V Product having his measures inside ambush at A keen Khe Violation into the April 1970. For further studying, see: Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando 1960-71, by the Richard Lathrop and you can Jim Laurier; and you may Combat Police: U.S. Army Military Police in Vietnam, because of the Rick Younger.

A lot of the trouble appeared to the QL-19, but I always experienced more comfortable thereon path than simply towards the QL-step 1, simply because they there were more convoys with the QL-19 and that greater odds of copy. My baptism out-of flame arrived into the plant at hairpin curve throughout the An enthusiastic Khe Pass. The V-100 had currently come through the new hairpin and you can was going off the fresh admission, in the event the westbound convoy are struck. The language “Get in touch with! Contact! Get in touch with!” came over the radio net while i was operating, so i turned into the latest V-100 as much as and you may oriented back up the new citation. Whenever we surely got to the hairpin, We saw particular Korean soldiers pinned down. One of them got their case stuck-up in the air leading towards the south area of the hairpin turn. I removed new V-100 between your Koreans therefore the standing he was leading to, so we you may provide them with a little more shelter and now have engage with the firepower.

My personal V-100 was escorting an excellent convoy regarding Tuy Hoa one day when there can be a good amount of design manage the road, causing somewhat an accordion feeling

Some thing about running the brand new roads daily is actually that you never ever realized what uncommon thing was going to occurs next. When the top of convoy avoided, the back tightened up. Then your front create initiate once more, in addition to convoy spread out before bottom you certainly will start. Due to this, I told the V-100 rider Reno Catalano to get in the middle of the fresh roadway therefore we could keep most other automobile away from the convoy up until i got outside of the design urban area. Whereas i usually let faster automobile go ahead and admission the newest convoy cars, since there is actually so much construction I desired to store the newest convoy clear of another subscribers.

Using one convoy to Da Nang, one of our trucks struck an effective Lambretta packed with Vietnamese. It absolutely was somewhat in pretty bad shape. This new Lambretta ran off of the highway and you can down an embankment. Once we got a beneficial dustoff truth be told there and you may got things eliminated up a bit, there had been all kinds of black pajama-clad people who have guns updates up to speaking and you may yelling. By the language barrier, a misunderstanding can potentially have arisen, but before you to took place we had of around and you may straight back to your convoy.