I had a soldier approach me while I was wrenching for the 359th and ask me to “SOUP” up his 5 ton truck as it was so slow it hardly could make it up the pass to Plieku. I remember he was from Ohio and either had a young son, or his wife was pregnant. I can’t remember. But I told him that it was against regs to tamper with the injection pumps and I could get in trouble. My truck at the time I cranked up however and instead of 2500 rpm’s it would spool up to around 3300. I could get “FLAMES” out the stack at that high of rpm’s and it would pass lots of trucks going up the pass even though we were not supposed to. He was concerned about the VC running beside him and opening his valves and throwing a satchel charge in to the mix and blow him up because it was so slow.

I finally relented and adjusted his injector pump against regulations, as I figured what the hell were they gonna do to me anyway…”SEND ME TO VIETNAM”!!!  Evidently later according to your information it wasn’t running well. I am pretty sure this was George Anderson but I remember him as having lighter hair so it may have been someone else. I remember that day as we had a number of people hurt and as I recall that his truck was hit with a rocket right in the passenger door in the white star and a passer by said he was hanging out of the truck.

While I remember some things clearly, other events are cloudy at best. I remember that my truck blew a head gasket at the top of the pass going to Plieku and the bastards left me out there for 4 days. I stayed with some guy’s with a a.p.c. guarding a bridge and they called “PUFF” in for night-time entertainment. It in this case was a Chinook with mini-guns and quad 50″s out the back door along with rockets. It was quite a show blowing up a bunch of trees. I finally in frustration stuffed my t-shirt around the head gasket, filled 5 gallon containers with roadside water and drove back, stopping when it got hot and added water all along the way by myself. Man I was pissed off.

I also had an officer who found out I cranked up the pump and threatened to article 15 me if I did it again. I went ahead and cranked it up anyway and that’s when I blew a head gasket. A motor pool sergeant said if I ruined the engine my ass was grass. The engine was fine and my ass is still not grass.

 

Posted in 1967-8

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