On a similar note, I ran into a guy in Vietnam who claimed that a buddy of
his had sent home (to Puerto Rico) a box containing an M-14 rifle, an M-16
rifle, a case of grenades, and several pounds of C-4 plastic explosive. I
have no way of verifying this story, but shipping of personal gear from
Vietnam was not as tightly controlled as I have heard that it was during the
Gulf War.
I also talked to a guy, who I trust, back in 1970, who told me that he was
inventorying a storage yard for the Engineer Battalion that he belonged to
in Vietnam. He found a Conex that wasn't on the inventory list, so he opened
it to find out what was inside. It supposedly contained a couple hundred
Thompson submachine guns, packaged for shipping, along with a couple of 100
round drum magazines for each weapon. Since these weren't on the Battalion
Property Book, and nobody could account for them, they did the only logical
thing that they could think of at the time. They borrowed a bull-dozer and
dug a hole and buried the entire Conex. True or not, it still makes me wince
to think of all of those Thompsons rusting away in a hole in Southeast Asia.
As far as vehicles are concerned, again in Vietnam, the Engineer Battalion
that I was assigned to had a self-powered multi-wheeled pavement roller (you
know, the kind that looks like a big box with a row of tires across the
front and back) that was nothing but trouble. The Motor Pool could never get
it to run right, or for very long. It was constantly broken down. The Motor
Sergeant had finally had enough of this thing, but it wouldn't be replaced
as long as it was in "repairable" condition. We were getting shelled by the
Viet Cong every day, at that time. He just waited for the next bunch of
in-coming rounds and set off the 40 pound cratering charge that he had
affixed to the top of the roller. Battle damaged equipment was quickly
replaced.
Brings back memories. I had three different vehicles assigned to me in
Vietnam, none of which were on the books. The first was an M-37. I had to
drive it without an air cleaner because the oil bath filter was so clogged
with dirt that, even though I literally soaked it in gasoline for days, I
could not get it clean enough to pass enough air for the engine to run. (I
was 19 and not real mechanically inclined, at the time.) The second was a
6,000 lb. capacity rough terrain fork lift that we borrowed from an ammo
dump. They gave us the fork lift, for an unlimited time period, in exchange
for a pallet of plywood. The third was a 2 1/2 to truck (M34, I think) that
had a diesel engine with, I assume, the transmission from a gas engine deuce
installed. 4th and 5th gears were in the wrong positions when compared with
any other diesel engine deuce that I had driven.
When I was in the Reserves, there was an AMSA shop (Area Maintenance Support
Activity) just across the fence from our Motor Pool. The number of parts
that "migrated" from the AMSA Motor Pool to our Motor Pool was truly
amazing. No entire vehicles, well not quite. We did turn in a truck to the
AMSA shop. It was excess to our Battalion, and scheduled for turn in to
DRMO. For some unknown reason, that deuce sat at the AMSA shop for a couple
of years. Since we turned it in without a steering wheel lock, it sat there
unlocked all that time. The combination on the AMSA shop Motor Pool gate was
common knowledge. Whenever we needed a spare vehicle, we just walked over,
fired up HQ44, and hit the road. That truck probably had more unauthorized
miles on it than it did legal miles. The funny thing is, the Museum that I
now volunteer at is located at that same AMSA shop! Now we're the ones who
are concerned about people sneaking into our exhibit area and stealing parts
off of our displays. What goes around, comes around, I guess.
Give me some time and I'll think of some more situations like this, but
enough is enough.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: paul carrier [mailto:paulc@teleport.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 11:39 PM
To: mil-veh@mil-veh.org
Subject: Re: [MV] Moonlight Motor Pool
At 07:55 PM 1/4/01 -0700, you wrote:
> I've got a question here for the entire mil-veh list, but
> specifically
>for the Active Duty or prior service members. Everyone has heard some
>version of the classic Army Myth: stealing a government jeep by
>disassembling it into many prices and then mailing home a lot of large
>and small boxes to a friend or your brother.
I know of a buy who thought he could bring a M242 25mm gun home from
Saudi.
He got caught.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 05 2001 - 07:13:45 PST