"The Impatient ARVN Lieutenant"

         The only incident that I recall after all these years was one involving an Army Of The Republic Of South Vietnam (ARVN) 2LT and three ARVN Duece-and-a-half trucks carrying nothing. That morning we just formed up the convoy and were outside the main gate of Cu Chi getting ready to leave when a tanker truck from some other unit/convoy hit a land mine that was hidden in the road. It didn't do much damage to the vehicle and the driver was not hurt but it held up our convoy for quite a few minutes.

While they were clearing the road I received a radio message from the trail party gun jeep that an ARVN 2LT was giving them a hard time about not being allowed to go around the convoy and the situation was getting pretty tense. I told the MP to let the ARVN Lieutenant come up to the head of the convoy in his jeep to my location but not to let his trucks pass the march units.

When he got to my location he was hopping mad and ranting and raving. I tried to explain to him that permitting his vehicles to pass the convoy would endanger all of us, not only from oncoming traffic but an ambush that might be laying in wait for us. I invited him to join in the rear of the convoy and we would furnish him security for a far as he was going. He then informed me that he was a 2LT and I was just a SSG, that he outranked me and I had to take his orders. He also told me that I was a guest in his country and to act accordingly. That last comment was all I could take so, in no uncertain terms I told him that if it wasn't for me and thousands of other "guests" in country just like me he wouldn't have a damned country and as far as rank was concerned his being an officer didn't mean shit to me, I was in charge of the convoy security and what I said goes. I also invited him to make a formal complaint to anybody he liked, in fact, if he wanted I would take his young ass onto the Cu Chi compound and he could complain to the 25th Division Commanding General.

About that time we got the okay to start moving the convoy so I told him get back to his vehicle and stay behind the convoy and if he tried to pass and endanger my people, I would instruct my escorts to blow the tires out on his vehicles. He was madder than hell and kept threatening me with a court martial and at that time I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He returned to his trucks at the rear of the convoy. I was informed by the rear escort vehicle that he stayed behind the convoy for some distance and then turned off on some other road.

I put in my after action report what had happened and I never heard anything more about it.

SSG (CW3 Ret.) Archie E. Moss, C Company, 720th MP Battalion, May 1969 to April 1970.