Road March

by
Tom Currie
Jul '68 - Jul '69

I remember living in that mud hole on the back side of Ton Son Neut shown in several of the 1968 pictures in the gallery. I especially remember the road march getting there because supposedly we had to have a full squadron to take the mission and we had one tank hit a mine the afternoon before -- it should have been a combat loss for a warped hull -- but instead we all stayed up all night to replace a complete road wheel arm and housing assembly - in the field - with no support except the M88 to lift the side of the tank. We worked all night, tried to grab a few minutes sleep in the morning, then made the long road march to Saigon - at the tail end of the Squadron column policing up whatever broke down along the way. By the time we pulled in, we were dead on our feet. They'd staged a barbecue when the Squadron arrived but we were so far back that almost everything was gone when we got there -- especially since it had started to rain by then. No cokes left, only warm beer and lots of BIG chunks of ice. I used a P38 to open the whole top of a can of beer, mashed a fist sized piece of ice into it, swallowed the little that didn't splash out or foam out in one gulp, and lay down on the back deck with a poncho over me to get some sleep -- that wasn't comfortable so I wadded up the poncho, stuffed it under my head as a wet pillow, and slept in the rain.