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A-109E

Here's the ubiquitous Mutt and trailer dumping off dirty skivvies at the Ho Chi Minh Laundry (well...the sign says "New York", but that's just a front...) north of Camp Enari on the road to Pleiku. I still itch....

In the Central Highlands we never saw Viet Cong; we fought the regular North Vietnamese Army. We had great respect for them: they were good fighters, they had courage, and they seemed to be as well equipped as we were. (Thanks, China and Russia....we appreciated your help.)

This image is of a M151 which was hit by an RPG whilst on its way from Camp Enari to Pleiku. All occupants were injured but they all survived.

Pleiku could be a bad neighborhood....

In Pleiku we see a Province Chief's home with his own private mobile bodyguard.

"Traffic cops" in Pleiku: an ARVN M-41. Sorry, I wasn't about to crawl through the concertina wire to get a better photo.....

Hmmmm....what does this have to do with armor? This is not your average Beech U-21 taking off. Taken at the Dak To airfield (north of Pleiku and Kontum) during the Tet Offensive in 1968, we see a bit of history here. The red placard bearing four white stars tells us we're looking at the great man himself: General Creighton W. Abrams departing after a conference with his on-the-scene commanders.

Dug into the perimeter defenses at Kontum Airfield is this tableau of a home-away-from-home.

Not an armor portrait, per se, but somewhat dramatic noneless. Taken from the cockpit of a UH-1C gunship during the Tet Offensive from an altitude of about 300 feet we see an M48 entering a treeline, heading for a vicious little firefight about 1/4 mile beyond. Smoke may be seen at the site of this altercation. The burned area in the foreground is part of the Army's Urban Removal program....

This image shows us at about 500 AGL flying cover for a convoy traversing Route 19 from An Khe westwards to Pleiku. It's a brave soul standing up in the back of the Mutt, waving his pintle-mounted M60 MG threateningly.

Later on (1968) when I transferred to the 189th Assault Helicopter Company based at Camp Holloway (also in Pleiku), I found myself doing things then I probably wouldn't do now......like landing on a muddy road by a firebase to extract some wounded while a guntruck covers my foolhardy actions...

Don't laugh: it's coming back to this everywhere. An ARVN M24 providing security at Tan Son Nhut Airport in the city formerly known as Saigon.

Another view of this spectacularly-camouflaged M24 with "add-on" armor piled around it.

The Signal Corps liked to string wire. Oh, yes, they did indeed. A mobile box on patrol outside the wire at Camp Holloway in Pleiku.

An old French armored car (can anyone ID this? I think it might be a GM of Canada C15TA 4x4) being tinkered with by CIDG troops at FOB II, a Special Forces Forward Operating Base south of Kontum. The Special Forces didn't feel themselves bound by ordinary military conventions... Laughing