Posts by JOHN PORTER

THIS IS A LETTER WRITTEN HOME ON:  16 MAR 1968 Dear Dad an Mom Well guess you thought I was dead and like to run. We had three ambushes yesterday. My truck was the first one that got hit. I was driving along and my windshield started cracking and I fell to the floor and…

On Feb 23 1971 we were in our convoy on the way to An Khe our delivery of fuel from Qui Nhon to Plieku. We got a call to come help out another Gun Crew. Who were under fire on top of the An Khe Pass. We went and started unloading massive gun fire. After we…

THE BIRTH OF BRUTUS I am CW3RET Louis Brittingham, formerly the Maintenance Warrant of the 359th in 1968-9. During my tenure as maintence tech/officer of the 359th, it was my custom to occasionally ride the convoy to experience what the men and epuipment had to endure and to enhance the maintence precepts for convoy operation’s.…

Christmas 1971 we had our own “Boxing Day” where the Officer’s and Senior NCO’S drove, except for the gun trucks. Would you know it, They could have made the run without the gun trucks. Because they had the smoothest run I had seen in about 5 month’s. If I remember correctly, Cpt Rast drove a Tanker…

When I got to Pleiku in April 1968 Brutus had a gunner named Prescott. Brutus was equiped with a 50 Cal machine gun on the front and two M60 machine gun’s on the back. A few month’s after I got there Prescott and I went to the air force base next to us and struck…

The gun truck Brutus was not done when I seen it. It was started and had the spare tire boxes started. When I started helping the fabricator at the motor pool, when it was just north of Camp Schimdt. If I remember you had to walk through a path between two compounds to get to…

I was the gunner on the day Prescott as NCOIC of Brutus got thirty some confirmed kills just east of An Khe. The date was late Aug. The 2nd platoon suffered one wounded, blown out of the gun truck by an RPG, and then shot in the back with a pistol by a VC in sandals…

These stories are written around a series of e-mails between James Huskey, and John Porter. James to John:  Yeah I do remember you. You questioned my ancestry I beleave! Something about only a moron could blow 2 head gaskets in one week. From James: First story: A mortar hit on the front of my tanker…

15 Jan 1968 as I remember it. I had 85 days to deros. We were in convoy from An Khe ( Our base camp ) to Pleiku. We had about 40 trucks in the convoy. I was the first in line for the first time out of abour 250 convoy’s. Just as we were leaving George Anderson…

My most memorable experience while with the 359th was in nov 1967. We left An Khe in the morning convoy to pleiku hauling JP4. At pleiku I was directed to Dak To with several guys hauling the same fuel. We actually went to a fire base out side Dak To. The only place I”ve been…