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1972 ~ HQ Detachment Time Line ~ 720th Military Police Battalion Reunion Association ~ Vietnam History Project ~ This Page Last Updated 8 March 2008 |
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5 February LTC Albert A. Ackerman passes command of the 720th MP Battalion to LTC Charles A. Hammaker. |
May LTC Charles A, Hammaker passed command of the Battalion to LTC Gerald G. Gibbons who returned its col,ors to the Fort Hood, Texas. |
1 July The 8th MP Group was inactivated in Vietnam. Information available indicates that the 720th MP Battalion's daily reports were being delivered to the headquarters of the USARV, MP Group (Provisional) until it departed Vietnam on 13 August 1972. |
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13 August The 720th MP Battalion cased its colors and departed Vietnam. |
31 August All three Battalion letter companies were inactivated and the Battalion was reactivated at Fort Hood, Texas, when the 518th MP Battalion was redesignated as the 720th with LTC Gibbons commanding. The 720th MP Battalion which is now a HQ Detachment is stationed at Fort Hood under the 89th MP Brigade (formerly the 89th MP Group when in Vietnam). HQ Detachment's motto is, "The Best Support The Rest." A Company is now the 401st MP Company "Always First," B Company is now the 410th MP Company "Bravo Spirit," and C Company is now the 411th MP Company, "Speed and Power." |
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Throughout the HQ Detachment tour in Vietnam the Battalion would be tasked with unique and ever changing missions. In addition to performing its standard and historical MP Corps missions of: physical security; traffic; discipline, law and order; prisoner of war transport and confinement; and convoy security, it would also conduct the unique and historic, first ever MP Corps, combat MP infantry mission in the Battalion Tactical Area of Responsibility (TAOR). As the years would pass with each tour, HHD would constantly see new changes and accept new challenges in its ability to coordinate the addition and reassignment of subordinate units, the unpredictable fluctuations in morale, and staffing levels, the availability and scarcity of routine and specialized logistical supplies, just to name a few. It was their ultimate responsibility to insure that no matter what roadblocks the ever changing and unpredictable circumstances of war, weather, and the military bureaucracy would present to them, they would make available to their soldiers in the field the necessary supervisory support and logistical means to carry out their assigned missions as efficiently, and safely as possible. In retrospect, the 720th MP Battalions HHD, and the soldiers that staffed it, can take pride in the fact that it continuously and successfully met these challenges, and insured that the history of the 720th MP Battalion in Vietnam is one we can all be proud to have been a part of. |