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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Stig / Major Tom on June 05, 2019, 01:03:35 AM
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I'll try to make this short...
I was a medic in the central highlands of South Vietnam serving with the 4th infantry and later flying dust-offs with the 71st Evac. Hosp. in Pleiku.
Near the end of my time in country my paper work got all "Army-ed" up and I was mistakenly ordered to prepare to head State-side.
As I wandered around in-country with fouled up orders trying to get back to my unit in Pleiku... I spent a stormy Christmas eve. night with some brothers sorting Xmas mail in a hangar in Phu Bai.
Eventually I caught a ride on a C-130 with the boys from graves registration hauling a midnight load of sad cargo.
Back in Pleiku I was essentially orderless & jobless for the next 3 weeks - so I volunteered to do the daily mail run on route 19.
"OK Stig, you have a military driving license, right?"
"Well, no." (as a medic, why would I - and my driving experience was on 2 Honda motorcycles - period!)
"No problem. Go down to the motor pool and get a license issued and select a vehicle from the best of the broken vehicles there."
The PFC there told me to try a certain row of crashed and broken trucks and see if I could get one started.
I found a likely 3/4 ton truck, played with the gears as I had as a kid sitting in my Dad's parked Jeep - got it started and into gear and headed around to the repair shed....where I promptly rear-ended the motor pool SSgt's nice jeep.
This gave me driving lesson #1: stepping on the brake to stop does not work unless you also push the clutch in! Bam!
When the SSgt. finished cussing, he gave me a paper license and ordered a couple of Vietnamese fellows to bolt a large sheet of white plywood to the front of my truck, lettered: "US MAIL DO NOT DELAY".
My trucked leaked gas badly up front but with no windscreen, nor driver's door I figured it was OK to smoke. The roads were cleared of mines nightly by the brave ARVN's - consequently I drove extra fast figuring I could outrun any explosion.
For the next 3 weeks I terrorized myself and those on the roads speeding between 3 distant compounds - and learned to drive!
2nd driving lesson learned: when a speeding armored personnel carrier painted with dragon teeth and lettered "BAD MOON RISING" approaches at a cross road - HE has the right-away!
My truck looked somewhat like this.
(https://i.postimg.cc/sDT7gkg7/00.jpg)
Stateside, I passed the driving test and my wife and I drove cross country in our new VW Bus.
Stig
(Today, my teenaged daughter asked me how I learned to drive.)
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Yep, I drove “Buffel†(buffalo) armoured vehicles during the Namibia / Angola bush war, as well as Samil 20 and Samil 50 logistic trucks during training in South Africa.
These are military vehicles built in South Africa. The Buffel and Samil 20 vehicles were based on Mercedes Unimog chassis. The Samil 20’s were 2 ton (2000kg) trucks, and the Samil 50’s were 5 ton (5000kg) trucks.
We were not allowed to take photos during the the Bush War, so unfortunately I do not have personal photos of these vehicles. Photos of these vehicles can be seen at Wikipedea.
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Really GREAT stories, you two!