I went through Cam Ranh Bay in 1968 and was assigned to the 359th Trans Co which was in the process of moving from An Khe to Pleiku. I still remember the jeep the 240th QM Bn XO sent to pick me up at the airport in Quin Nhon. I had his flac jacket and his helmet with that big gold major’s leaf for all to see on the what seemed like ages ride back to the 240th HQ. I stayed there a couple of days for orientation (one part was drinking with the Lt Col Co two nights in a row.) I joined the 359TH Trans Co in An Khe for a couple of days as they were in the process of moving to pleiku. Lt Meadows was the Co at that time. Lt Bob Yankow followed him as Co. I was the 1st Plt Lt to start and had a great group of NCOs and enlisted. SP5 Greene was my jeep driver and SP5 Bird later drove Brutus. We were pretty much on our own on the road and I remember running convoys at 45 mph because we did not have a lot of security. One of my convoys actually passed another convoy led by LTC Bing the Co of the 124TH Trans Bn who ranted and raved about passing his convoy (which was moving about 20 mph) We were transferred to his Bn and he was more generous that he could have been, even though he did not ever let me forget it. I saw the Co of the 240th one more time when he came to Pleiku to go with us on convoy to Dak To. It was monsoon season raining, the staging area out of Pleiku was wet, wet, wet, the Engineers had oiled the road to keep down the dust earlier and it was a skating rink going down a big hill to start the convoy. We had two tankers in the ditch in no time and had to drop the loads on the ground in order to pull them out. The LTC decided he had urgent business back in Quin Nhon before his jeep ventured down the hill. I enjoyed the 240th as they were pretty independent. We used to alert the pump stations that we were on the way. If Charlie hit our convoy, he would usually hit the pump station too. Lt Butch Childers was my XO when I was CO and I think he had been on one of the pump stations when he first came to RVN. He was a great guy that I wish I could find again. Good memories of the 359TH and 240TH people.

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