Here wasn’t in whatever way we can weight one pallet straight back towards the fresh new lighthearted truck, so being the an effective Samaritans we were, i loaded as much circumstances once we you will to the our V-100-such that people could not change this new turret. Obviously, there have been particular disappointed MPs you to definitely night and you will a great amount of dreadful headaches a day 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 fresh new Roundup, our local GI newspaper. The April 1970 article was headlined, “66th MP Co. Super Heroes to Combat VC Wrong Doers.”
From time to time we’d all of our minutes, for instance the big date whenever we were escorting an effective convoy up the An Khe Pass and something of your automobiles lost a whole pallet out-of beer
David A great. Swisher resides in Marshall, Ill. The guy obtained the brand new Military Commendation Medal having V Unit to possess his procedures within the ambush within A keen Khe Violation within the April 1970. For additional discovering, see: Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando 1960-71, because of the Richard Lathrop and you will Jim Laurier; and you will Combat Police: U.S. Army Military Police in Vietnam, by Rick More youthful.
A lot of all of our issues came on the QL-19, however, I always believed much warmer thereon street than towards QL-step 1, simply because they there are a whole lot more convoys to the QL-19 and therefore deeper likelihood of content. My personal baptism from fire showed up into the plant at hairpin contour throughout the An Khe Pass. The V-100 had currently break through this new hairpin and you may is actually oriented down the latest citation, if the westbound convoy is actually strike. The words “Contact! Contact! Get in touch with!” came over the broadcast net while i was riding, therefore i turned into the new V-100 to and headed back-up this new pass. When we have got to new hairpin, We saw specific Korean soldiers pinned down. One of them had his sleeve stuck-up floating around pointing south region of the hairpin turn. I pulled the new V-100 between the Koreans in addition to standing he had been directing in order to, so we you certainly will let them have a bit more coverage as well as have build relationships our firepower.
My V-100 try escorting an excellent convoy of Tuy Hoa one-day when there is certainly a good amount of construction manage the road, resulting in quite an accordion feeling
Some thing about powering the fresh new courses every day was that you never ever know just what unusual point would definitely happen second. When the side of your own convoy avoided, the trunk fasten. Then side would start once again, while the convoy spread out before the bottom you can expect to start. Because of that, We informed the V-100 rider Reno Catalano to get in the middle of the fresh path so we keeps almost every other auto of all of our convoy up to we had from the construction area. Whereas we always help quicker Thun escort ranking auto go ahead and admission the newest convoy vehicles, because there is actually a great deal framework I needed to keep the convoy free of others travelers.
On a single convoy in order to Weil Nang, one of our automobiles struck a great Lambretta loaded with Vietnamese. It was a bit a mess. The brand new Lambretta ran off of the road and you may off an enthusiastic embankment. Once i got a beneficial dustoff there and you can had anything cleaned up a while, there were all types of black colored pajama-clad people with guns reputation doing speaking and you may yelling. By the language barrier, a misconception could easily has arisen, prior to one to happened we had of there and you may back to the convoy.