[archy]

Wright was a passenger and was sitting on the front edge of the tank."

Been there. Done that. At Ft. Knox on an M-48, instructing an AIT trainee-driver (the commlink was broken) as the tank slowly teetered on its tracks at the top of a small hill, then tottered over and we rode down. The main gun was in the locked position to the rear.

On the driver training range/ vehicle recovery area, where a newbie driver sped up going into a mud-filled waterhole instead of while climbing out of it. And I knew the hole was deeper than the driver's hatch, about halfway up to the turret. I bailed, and the gunner side track missed me by about a foot and a half.

[Carl Vehse]

Back even earlier when I was an AIT-trainee at Ft. Knox and driving an M-48 across a wide snow-covered gully, I told my tank instructor the ground ahead didn't seem too solid. He said to go ahead, upon which I drove on and sank the tank in oozing thick mud up to the top tread (sort of like the M-41 tank below). I was told the penalty for an instructor getting his tank stuck was a case of beer for each tank needed to help. It took two other tanks with tow cables to pull us out.