Learning To Drive A Stick Shift the Army Way

So here I am, an E-4 with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment at Quan Loi Base Camp, Vietnam, when the First Sergeant calls me to his tent. He tells me he wants me to fly down to Long Binh and pick up a 3/4-ton truck. I tell I do not have a drivers licence. He says no problem, you drive the truck back and I'll give you your licence. I load up in a Huey (helicopter) with Sgt. Bailey and we fly to Long Binh. We get the paperwork and the truck and head back to Quan Loi. Sgt. Bailey was trying to teach me to shift gears, driving all the way back in 1st gear would have been a pain, and I was not picking up as quickly as he would have liked. My steel pot (helmet) probably had some new dents in it from his motivational methods. Then there came a point my motivation peaked and I quickly began to learn to shift gears. The increased motivation came in the form of bullets hitting the truck. We were traveling though an area where the Viet Cong liked to ambush vehicles. We were in a serious ambush. While the Sgt. return fire, I suddenly understood what he was trying to teach me, and became a master stick shifter and had us flying and bouncing down the road at a break neck speed. You might say my "pucker factor" was extremely high. When we finally got back to base camp, the 1st Sgt, after checking the truck, began to chew me out shouting, "I can't believe you brought my new truck back shot all up. You got your drivers licence, now get YOUR truck out of my sight!"

I was sitting on my truck when the above picture of me was taken. Me and that truck had a lot of adventures together, but they are for telling in another story. (The picture of the truck to the left is not of me or that truck - just one like it with someone I don't know)

This story did not end in Vietnam. When I got back to Maryland, and needed to get my civilian drivers licence, I found out that, since I had a military driver licence,  all I had to do was take the Maryland written test. Doesn't it make you feel good to know that I got my Maryland driver licence without ever having to demonstrate that I could actually drive a vehicle.

(By the time I got my Maryland licence, I had learned to drive among other things, an armored personnel carrier (tracked vehicle), a 2 1/2-ton truck, a 5-ton truck and self propeller howitzer, so I guess you really do not have too much to worry about my driving.)