Milsurp After Hours

Saw a book review for this in my Viet Nam magazine and it looked interesting as I love mechanical
things and should have info and photos of the M102 howitzer I served on. Got the nice hardcover version
and to my surprise, there is no mention of the M102. There is some about the old split-trail M101A1 that were
left over from WWII and Korea. And I do mean old, they stopped making them in 1953. The only old split-trails
I saw in Nam were ARVN and Marine units. All the Army 105mm batteries that I saw had the newer closed-trail
M102 that was first issued in Nam in March 1966.
So basically I am very disappointed that I spent $30 for a book that didn't have one word about the main reason
that I bought it.......

.

Point out the error of the author and demand a refund Vern.

Reminds me of a book I bought years ago about the Cambodian incursion. The 9th Division was hardy mentioned and when it was it was described as a tank division. Obviously the writer didn't know his subject.

The most blatant fuck up that I'm aware of is a book by a recent years former British paratrooper named Ian Gardner. He has latched onto the 506 Infantry as a cash cow after the famous Band of Brothers HBO success. Instead of the Second battalion of the 506 he has latched onto the 3rd Battalion as his bullshit writing subject. In 2009 he wrote a book entitled Tonight We Die As Men about that 3rd battalion in WWII. The last sentence in the books Epilogue states: "Several years later, the 506th, minus 3rd Bn (which became the 10th Infantry Battalion), was reactivated and saw action in Vietnam. The 506th is currently on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, forming part of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division". I've reminded him of this statement on a couple of 3/506 facebook sites over the years.....and that the 3rd battalion was very much in Vietnam. And his response is that I should stop continuing to rub it in.

The 3/506 did serve several years in Vietnam and even started out fully jump qualified the same as the WWII guys. By the time I got transferred to them in September of 1970 being jump qualified was unnecessary as the Division never made any parachute jumps in Vietnam.

Now recently Ian Gardner has discovered that the 3rd battalion was definitely in Vietnam and has written a new book. Sign Here for Sacrifice: The Untold Story of the Third Battalion, 506th Airborne, Vietnam 1968. Can't wait to NOT read it. He must have found one guy to quote who went over on the boat to Vietnam in 1968. The battalion was in Vietnam until sometime in 1971.