Truth be told there wasn’t any way we are able to load one to pallet right back on the the fresh new lighthearted truck, thus being the a great Samaritans we had been, we loaded as much circumstances as we you will definitely toward our very own V-100-much that people could not turn brand new turret. Of course, there have been some disappointed MPs you to definitely evening and you may plenty of terrible headaches 24 hours later.

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.”

Sporadically we had our very own minutes, like the date once we was basically escorting a great convoy within the A keen Khe Admission and one of vehicles destroyed a complete https://escortfrauen.de/en/switzerland/vaud/lausanne pallet of alcohol

David Good. Swisher stays in Marshall, Sick. He received this new Armed forces Commendation Medal which have V Equipment to own their tips when you look at the ambush within A keen Khe Solution when you look at the April 1970. For additional reading, see: Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando 1960-71, by the Richard Lathrop and you will Jim Laurier; and you will Combat Police: U.S. Army Military Police in Vietnam, from the Rick More youthful.

A lot of the difficulties appeared towards QL-19, however, I experienced much warmer thereon roadway than into the QL-step one, simply because there have been much more convoys with the QL-19 and this deeper likelihood of copy. My baptism off fire appeared to your plant within hairpin bend on A keen Khe Admission. All of our V-100 had currently come through this new hairpin and you can was on course off the latest ticket, if westbound convoy is actually struck. What “Contact! Get in touch with! Contact!” appeared along side broadcast net when i is operating, and so i turned into brand new V-100 as much as and you will going back up this new admission. Once we have got to the fresh hairpin, I noticed specific Korean troops pinned off. Among them got his case stuck-up floating around leading towards the south side of the hairpin turn. We taken brand new V-100 involving the Koreans together with reputation he had been directing so you can, therefore we you are going to let them have a little more protection and also have engage our firepower.

My personal V-100 are escorting good convoy off Tuy Hoa one day when there is certainly lots of framework work on the trail, ultimately causing a bit an accordion effect

Some thing in the powering the newest channels daily try which you never realized exactly what strange point was going to occurs next. If front side of your own convoy avoided, the back fasten. Then your front side do start again, and convoy dispersed till the buttocks you’ll begin. Due to this, We advised our very own V-100 driver Reno Catalano to get in the midst of the newest highway so we could keep almost every other automobile of our convoy until i had outside of the construction urban area. While we usually help smaller vehicles feel free to ticket the fresh new convoy autos, as there is plenty build I needed to save brand new convoy without one other customers.

Using one convoy to Da Nang, our cars hit a great Lambretta packed with Vietnamese. It absolutely was a little chaos. The fresh Lambretta went off the path and you may off an embankment. By the point we got a great dustoff indeed there and you will had anything cleaned upwards a little while, there were all kinds of black pajama-clad people with firearms position to speaking and you will yelling. By difficult, a misconception could easily has developed, before one took place we had from there and back to your convoy.