War Stories 11

[ikar]

One night near the back gate at Korat, K-9 alerted on some movement between the local air base and our side, near the E.O.R. As soon as they were challenged they started to fire. A call went out and the local M-706 Q.R.T. that was checking on a couple posts in his sector, came down and parked alongside the road near the gate. Its two M-60s and M-174 were trained on the area but were told to hold their fire until the K-9 S.A.T. could arrive and make a sweep.

Bravo 4 asked for a E.T.A. and was told about 10 minutes because they were on the other side of the base. He then asked to make the sweep before the people got away but was told that K-9 found them so they had it.

The local on the 174 got sick of the whole thing, said something I won't repeat, pulled the bolt back, and fired his loaded clip of 12 rounds on full auto. I was some distance away listening but could see the flashes, even if I couldn't hear the explosions over the aircraft.

When they finally made the sweep, they found a .38 and one large and very smashed air conditioner.

Every day at Korat a convoy of tanks and jeeps or trucks would pull into P.O.L. and fill up and then load the trailers they each towed with gas.

Finally one day a question was asked, "What does a tank need with gas?"

Sometime later a jeep trained the convoy and found that they were selling the gas to a station down town.

On the main gate at Korat someone decided they should also be doing random vehicle checks. A simple procedure, pick a number and every vehicle that hits that number gets a quick search.

All went well until the local Air Force police version of our 13 man Q.R.T. arrived in their large truck. They were told what was happening and the A.F. cop requested everyone to get out of the truck and stand with his Thai Guards. It didn't go over well. Three guys with .38s facing a truck load of guys armed with carbines, Thompsons, and rifles it in the truck was to leave. We were told to leave them alone but call in when they entered and left the base.

On a straight line from the back to the front gate it would take them 2-3 hours to travel approximately 4-5 miles.

One night I was on the main gate and checking I.D.s, and talking to the women waiting for their escort to show up when I felt the ground vibrate. I looked around and at first couldn't see anything until I spotted a slight reflection some distance away but heading toward me.

A 113 stopped just outside of the glare of the gate lights and its driver walked up to me and pulled me aside. It seems that they were going to stop the next the next Thai police truck that was somewhere on base. They had assembled an all G.I. team and would stop them and check their truck. All I had to do was watch for the truck to come down the hill and signal them then get out of the way.

When it started to come down the hill the A.P.C. was put into drive and walked its way to the gate. As it slowly moved onto the road I blocked traffic until it passed and watched the tail ramp lower to horizontal. It blocked the outbound land and two squads of cops got out and surrounded the truck as the turret with its 60 turned and trained it weapon on the truck. Not having much choice, they surrendered their weapons, dismounted, and were detained by one squad while the other one cleaned out the truck.

They pulled out T.V.s, bikes, type writers, bedding, various supplies and food and beer. They even had a nit-noy (moped) from who knows where.

Their weapons were stored in the track and they were escorted back up the hill to Defense COntrol to wait for their commander.

[Drifterdon]

Great stories ikar. Keep them coming!