After reenlisting for six years, I was assigned to the tank section of Headquarters company, 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 4th Infantry Division. We had four tanks in the section, three M48s and one M48A1, to which I was assigned. The M48A1 had a cupola for the .50 caliber machine gun rather than mounted on the roof of the turret, I thought I got a good deal with the cupola until I found out the cupola-mounted gun rarely worked properly and resulted in many skinned knuckles.
My tank was named Hornet. The names of all of the headquarters company’s tanks started with H. While went on field exercises on Fort Lewis, we could not fire our 90mm guns on the post due to safety restrictions. For gunnery we went to Yakima Firing Center for limited ranges. We went to Fort Irwin, California for extensive training, including the Tank Crew Qualification Course (aka Tabe VIII) and testing of the three tank companies. Our section and two engineer tanks provided the opposition force for their tests.
In late December 1959 we received two M67A1 flamethrower tanks. I got one of them, which I named Zippo. In the picture below, I am standing in front of the fender of my tank. Hover your cursor over the picture to scroll up or down.
On January 2nd 1960, an instructor arrived to train the two crews. I had a problem as I was scheduled to get married on the 9th of January. It was decided I would be allowed to miss two days of classes for a honeymoon.
I married Marilee Ann Mayo as scheduled on the 9th of January.
