My Worst Day In Nam

[Andy]

When we were saddling up for a convoy I used to swing by the trucks and ask the guys what they were hauling. Our APC never pulled into a convoy behind a fuel truck loaded with JP-4. #2 on the list of bad places to be was near the arty rounds. Course, I always looked for a truck pulling a load that included beer, just in case.

Had a conversation with some truckers who were going to be bringing all sorts of implements of destruction to a Green Beenie camp called Pick Lock, about 2 clicks from the Cambodian boarder, just south of War Zone C. When the convoy was over we were going to pull out of the mini base and set up in the jungle on our own. One of the truckers said something to the effect, ?Sucks to be you guys?. We were all standing there shaking our heads thinking, this guy is hauling 1,000?s of pounds of things that go boom, we are definitely going into Injun Country and he?s feeling sorry for us???

Don?t you ever say, I was just a truck driver, not in front of me.

Stay healthy,
Andy

[splummer]

Beer was my favorite thing to haul. We always had a problem getting it to its rightful destination in tact though. #2 c-rations

[phuloi]

SF Camp...Pek Lok.Pick Lock works just fine though.

[DMZ-LT]

Did you ever haul any beer other than Black label ?

[Bill Farnie]

Hey LT, Good question but as you can see Black Label wasn't the only beer to be had in Nam , although it sure seemed like it.

L-R Len Burdine , me , Bob "LiL Ike" Icenhour and Matt Angeletta

Taken at the MP Club in Camp Evans the night before Burdine and me left to go down south the start processing out of Vietnam

[DMZ-LT]

Hey home boy ! I can't see real well ( I am also half deaf and have hair growing in the palm of my hand , but that's another story ) so what kind of beer was that ? We NEVER got anything but Black Label

[Bill Farnie]

The pics came out a little blurry when I scanned it.

It's Pabst Blue Ribbon and I can honestly say that it wasn't my worst day in Nam!!!!!

[splummer]

We didn't get many chances to haul beer. I don't think the Army trusted us. On the few times that someone was loaded with beer in our convoys we all would grab a few cases. I kept mine in the tool box behind my cab. Warm beer is better than no beer and I didn't have any tools. I think I do remember other brands. Maybe blue ribbon, but was there one called balentine? You are right though, mostly black label

[splummer]

The 506th, were you the 101st guys with the heart [or something] on the side of your helmets?

[Bill Farnie]

Steve,
The 506th were spades. Red for the 1st Bn , white for the 2nd Bn and blue for the 3rd Bn. That was more of a WW II thing. As far as I can remember no one, in my company at least, had the spade on the side of the helmet. We did have decks of cards with the red spade and our companys nickname that we would leave on an enemies dead body. There was a name for the decks but I can't remember what it was.

If anyone is interested here's the link to the 506th Inf. Association of which I'm a member

http://currahee.hispeed.com/