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Br.IanVonTurpie · Sun 27 Aug 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsgysfkhDKw

Br.IanVonTurpie · Sun 27 Aug 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0vMIPIT63s

Br.IanVonTurpie · Mon 28 Aug 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3but7VEvZY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9pPLLNldg8

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U4sjuL9io0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjjJVZe99Sw

Rev.Cambeul · Thu 31 Aug 2023

From the Australian War Memorial: Action in Vietnam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRQjTUuxBQQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyKWl0fAEsE&t=509

At 21 minutes, you will see 86 TPT PL RAASC (Transport Platoon Royal Australian Army Service Corps). By the time my father joined them at age 36 in 1978, they were 86 Platoon/Troop - 26 TPT Company/Squadron RACT (Royal Australian Corps of Transport). Those same trucks you see there - 5 ton Mark 5 Internationals - I rode around in as a kid. And I wore the "Hell On Wheels" badge on a jacket to school. It did not make me popular with the civilian kids. LOL!

By the time I joined the army in 1987, the Internationals had been replaced by similar sized Mercedes Unimogs and bigger and heavier Macs. 86 Troop rebuilt an International for the TPT Museum - which I worked at for a short time during my service at Puckapunyal.

F1 Mark 5 Internationals & the replacement Mac Truck - Cargo
Stolen from the RACT Website
http://www.ract.org.au/gallery/road-transport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Australian_Corps_of_Transport

I was in 5 TPT Squadron, Bravo Troop. Macs - Cargo and Tankers. I ran the Q Store while there. Did my job, for which I was imprisoned and thrown out ... Got into Army Reserve, then rejoined the Regular Army during Iraq 1, and worked in Ordnance. I hoped to be posted to a Combat Supply Group, but it never happened. Previous service bit me in the arse when I was recognised. End of story.

Extra: After I was discharged from 5 TPT, the Squadron was shut down. The Squadron Sgt Major was having a contest with another SM: Who could get the most charges in a year. This resulted in more than a hundred soldiers discharged in under a year from a Squadron of one hundred and fifty men. The OC - a Major - was given a Captain's desk job in Canberra with his records marked never to be put in charge of men again. The SSM was promoted to RSM.

While I was in 5 TPT in Enoggera in Queensland, a young Lieutenant joined the Squadron named Lt Dick. He was actually my defence on one of a dozen baseless and sometimes illegal charges. I was only 19 and hardened, while he was maybe 21 and wet behind the ears. That Dick became Head of Corps - Colonel Dick - and brought back 5 TPT, carrying on in the Corps magazine about how his time there had influenced his entire career for the better. The Twat! Good memories for some ....

And I went to school with Lt Dick's cousin. We got drunk together in Seymour (the civilian town near Pucka) for New Year 87/88. Woke up the next morning in a caravan in his uncle's back yard. That's (at that time Cadet Dick) Lt Dick's father, Warrant Officer Dick, again in Pucka, whom I also worked for. The Australian Army was under 40 thousand in those days. You were guaranteed to meet with somebody you knew, wherever you went. Add multiple generations to it, and you, as a civilian cannot guess how interconnected it becomes.

Even when I worked in the Brisbane City Council, there were people that recognised my name and asked - me or my father? Same name. Same Corps.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brisbane+city+council

Jerry & Skippy Charge Beersheba