Toys

This is a great story and video about saving lives by adapting technology

The reason I appreciate the video about using toy cars as tools to check for mines and trip wires is because I remember the suicide runs we made in VN.

In Apr-Oct 1967 our Cav squadron was operating in I Corp of VietNam. Usual ugly stuff.

For 5-6 weeks we had a troop perimeter on top of a hill close to Highway 1, the main North-South highway.

We ran search and clear, search and destroy, recon, and support for a battalion of the 25th Infantry, regular stuff.

Highway 1 was elevated because of the monsoon rains. Charlie began digging into the sides of the highway to place pressure detonated mines.

I remember one afternoon coming back from an op I was point track as we came back onto the highway from a mission in the bush.

A Lambretta went by in front of me. These were motor scooter-type vehicles with a small "pickup bed" on the back.

This one had maybe 12-13 Vietnamese jammed into it.

I had the driver keep our speed at 5mph while the rest of our platoon made it onto the road.

We picked up speed when we had all our tracks on the road, and began to close on the Lambretta.

It was maybe 70 meters ahead of us, still moving, and pulled to the right shoulder to let us by.

I was about to tell my driver to go ahead and pass when there was a tremendous explosion where the Lambretta had been.

They had run over an anti tank mine intended for us. There weren't any survivors. We continued on to our perimeter.

A couple of days later we got the mission to do mine clearing operations from our location north on Highway 1 for about 8 miles.

The best part was that it had to be completed by 0600 each morning, and we only had an hour to complete the sweep.

All the track commanders looked at each other because we had no way to accomplish this mission to clear 8 mi of hwy by 0600.

This is a pic of an M-113 ACAV which was the only tool we had to clear the highway.

The tactic was going to be simple: two tracks would make the sweep. The lead track would put one track close to the edge of the road. The second track would follow 50 meters behind with one of its tracks right next to that made by the lead track.

This way we could "clear" about a 6 foot wide area on the edge of the road.

Mike Gahn, our scout section leader, and I volunteered for the first run. The plan was to get our crew on top of the tracks while moving.

The gunners would ride on top, behind the M-60s. Mike and I put a 24" wide board across the top of our gun shields and sat on those.

The driver was the only one left inside. No way to help that.

As soon as it was light Mike and I pulled out of the perimeter and onto the highway.

We aligned our tracks as planned. Mike gave the command to move out. the drivers raced down the side of the road at top speed (35-40 mph)

Our one chance was that by having everybody on top (except that driver), when we hit a mine maybe we could get blown clear.

It seemed to take a long, long time to go 8 miles. When we got to the end we turned around and I took the lead. Same drill.

No mines that day. Nobody else was anxious to make these suicide runs in the morning so Mike and I wound up doing them for 2-3 weeks.

Finally the squadron commander came down to find out how we could clear this much road in less than an hour. We explained what we did.

We got word that afternoon to discontinue the road clearing mission. Good idea...

I remember that Mike and I sort of missed the adrenalin surges first thing in the morning.

So to see our troops in A-stan adapt a toy truck for road clearing ops made my heart grin!