Posts by JOHN PORTER

For a while we were doubling up drivers on the run from Qui Nhon to Plieku. Seems like it was one of the few times we actually had a surplus of drivers. SP5 Jenkins and I were assigned together and were hauling JP4. We had made the run several times in a row without incidence…

In December 1968, I had just extended my enlistment, which Lt Dedge and the 1/Sgt had talked me into doing and I would get the job of unit mail clerk. The day before my extension leave was to begin, my tanker broke down in Kontum. The following morning all road traffic was halted due to enemy activity…

SSG Rapold and I were TDY with the 3rd platoon, with 20 trucks with trailers, 2 gun trucks (Brutus & Head Hunter), & a gun jeep. We were to haul from Quin Nhon to An Khe with as many trips as we could make. But sometimes we went from An Khe to Quin Nhon to Plieku…

On 11 feb 1969 I was on convoy to Pla Gerang. I went to the 4TH ID checkpoint to meet my escort to the Oasis. We left about 8 and had not gone more than a mile, when the two M.P. jeep’s ran off and left me. I kept going by myself. I got to the…

This is an excerpt of a story Mike Little wrote for the Plieku MP web site a few years ago. It is about the ambush when George McDonald was killed.  Just before reaching our checkpoint, a VC sniper put an AK-47 round through the door of your 5000 gallon tanker truck, killing you. Losing control,…

THIS STORY WAS WRITTEN BY MIKE BORCHARDT THE NCOIC OF THE GUN TRUCK KING COBRA FROM THE 597th TRANS CO. ABOUT THE AMBUSH WERE JIMMY RAY CALLISON WAS KILLED. THE PICTURE’S HE QUOTE’S ARE IN JIMMY RAY CALLISON’S PROFILE IN THE HEROS BULLET AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS PROFILE. IT WAS A FOGGY MISTY DAMP DAY.…

I LEFT MY RIG IN DAK TO. IT HAPPENED WHEN I STARTED DRIVING FOR THE  359th. IT WAS MY FIRST TRIP TO DAK TO AND I MISSED A TURN. I DROVE OUT OF THE COMPOUND AND TRIED TO TURN AROUND IN A FIELD, AND I GOT STUCK. NEEDLESS TO SAY THE GUY’S WITH THE WRECKER WERE NOT…

I think it was around the 27th of march 1972, when the 27th Trans Bn made it’s last convoy to Plieku, when we convoyed back that afternoon, we drove directly to the Port in Quin Nhon, and turned in the trucks and tankers to be washed to be put on ships to be returned to the…

This was taken from an E-mail to John (Crowbar) Porter. He was the SSG, that put him in the mud! Yuck, Yuck, Yuck…Mr Secretary…It’s on of the most inedible memories when I first got there, Cold, Night, Raining, Mud everywhere… “Specialist, you are going to perform second echelon maintence on this truck.”, ” But  Sargent”,…

John Dodd was a career soldier and had begun his second tour in Vietnam December 1968. He was assigned to the 359th Transportation Company. The 359th had just transfered from An Khe to Pleiku in November and December 1968, and was attached to the 124th Transportation Battalion. It had been attached to the 240th Quartermaster…