It’s September 1966 and the Vietnam war is in full, fiery bloom. Troops, vehicles and supplies of all sorts are pouring in, a tiny few of them destined for the 15-man detachment for which I’m supply officer. I’m on the pier at Cam Ranh Bay, on the coast of the South China Sea, waiting to get my stuff off a ship that’s just come in.
My commander sent me up here on verbal orders, so I’ve got nothing on paper to identify me as a member of the 7th Public Information Det., which owns certain items in the ship’s hold. The officer in charge of the stevedores is sympathetic, partly because he’s a second lieutenant like me, and we very junior officers must stick together. The ship’s manifest lists four trucks, four trailers and four steel cargo containers for the 7th PID. “But,” he says, “how do I know they’re yours?”
“Here,” I say, suddenly remembering a slip of paper in my wallet. “I’ve got the USA numbers written down.” Those are the numbers stenciled in bold, white paint on the hoods of trucks and jeeps during this era, just before camouflage paint became seriously fashionable. I had recorded the numbers just after we finished lashing them to railroad flatcars at Fort Hood, Texas. From there they were carried out to the Port of Oakland, Calif., and put aboard this ship.
At trackside at Hood, the tie-down work done, I started to get into my car, then stopped and looked back at those vehicles and containers. Something told me it would be a good idea to jot down those identifying numbers. I found a scrap of paper and scribbled quickly, stuffed the paper into my wallet, then got back in my car and drove away.
Now, almost two months later, I was handing that decidedly informal document to the lieutenant. He glanced at it, then said, “OK, let me go look.” He went aboard ship and climbed down into one of its many holds, then returned to the pier. “OK, they’re there. You can have ’em.”
Several hours later, the ship’s cranes retrieved “my” vehicles: an M35A3 2-1/2-ton truck with 1-1/2-ton cargo trailer; three M151A1 jeeps with 1/4-ton trailers; and the 8x8x8-foot “conex” containers, with materiel we needed. To this day, I wonder if that second louie would’ve released them if I hadn’t had that convincing scrap of paper.
On that night, everyone on the pier was assigned to the U.S. Army’s 1st Logistical Command, which ran the supply show in Vietnam. We wore the shoulder patch you see here. Its round shape signifies the flow of supplies, and the arrow, pointing at 11 o’clock, means the ammunition, fuel, food and everything else get to combat troops by the 11th hour – in time for the shoot-’em-up guys to use them.
But, the arrow also looks like a “leaning outhouse,” which is what we called the patch. In late March, I visited Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and found many soldiers wearing it and using the same slang term for it. They’re not in the old “1st Log,” but the 101st Support Group (Corps), which handles logistics for the “Screaming Eagles,” among others.
