2017 November PASO Magazine

TRAVELING REUNION OF VIETNAM VETERANS NOW IN 15 TH YEAR
8 TH TRANSPORTATION CORPS
VISITS ESTRELLA WARBIRDS MUSEUM
By Melissa Chavez
In mid-September, Estrella
Warbird Museum hosted an
annual reunion of Vietnam War
veterans who were assigned to
United States Army 8th Transportation
Group. In its fifteenth
year, over 75 vets and their wives
from throughout the United
States gathered to meet on the
Central Coast. A commemorative
convoy to Paso Robles
preceded the group’s visit to the
museum from Morro Bay.
On display was a replica of
the museum’s own gun truck,
emblazoned with the “Snoopy”
moniker. The original truck was
used by the 8th Transportation
Group, and is one of many
themed 2.5-ton trucks, which
transported essential fuel and
supplies of every kind during
the Vietnam War.
The veterans and their families
have developed a camaraderie
in traveling annually
to reunite at various locations
throughout the United States.
Often perceived as part of a
logistical chain to the Army,
the 8th Transportation Corps
proved itself a fierce, fearless
and resourceful band of brothers
who both sacrificed and survived
often overwhelming odds
to provide invaluable supply
support to U.S. troops and our
allies during the Vietnam War.
The 8th Transportation Corps
was assigned to Qui Nhon, a
coastal port facility near the
South China Sea in Central
Veterans of the 8th Transportation Corps: Joaquin Martinez, Greg Belknap
(rear), Roger “Willie” Williams, Jack Pin, Jack Horvath, Jesse Gonzalez
Vietnam. The “deuce and a half ”
or sometimes 5-ton vehicles
were used to perform line haul
transport operations from Qui
Nhon. They traveled on Highway
19 to make the 110-mile
trek northwest to the Central
Highlands of Pleiku.
The return to the coast, however,
was a painstaking and
painfully slow journey in which
2.5-ton trucks inched their way
northeast into more varied and
grueling terrain. For soldiers
new and seasoned alike, it was a
daunting task.
The 8th Transportation Corps
has been described as having
“braved every horror and misfortune
of war and weather.”
And brave they were, for these
were not fortified vehicles of
modern-day fighting. One
such moment awaited soldiers
in a three-mile stretch of road
below at Devil’s Hairpin just
before reaching An Khê that
would become known as “Ambush
Alley.”
Plodding heavy equipment
needed trucks outfitted with
armaments. Initially, gun pedestals
were mounted on wood and
weighted with sandbags, but
constant jostling across bumpy
roads proved unstable. More
sandbags, metal platforms and
scraps of metal or whatever their
drivers could find were used to
fabricate their trucks for protection.
Mine placements and sniper
attacks by a very determined
enemy were of a daily concern.
The scramble to somehow fortify
a very visible target that moved
an average of 4 mph seemed
improbable, if not impossible.
Ambushes were all-too-frequent
Please see VETERANS page 23
22 PASO Magazine, November 2017