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That's the *M551* Sheridan. I had the interesting [read meaning as : real unplesant] experience of being on the 7th Army's Test Delivery Board that helped develop the LAPES technique for C130 delivery of the Sheridan. The good news was that it meant that I got to go to the West German parachute school course at Altenstadt put on by the Bundeswehr's airborne division. The bad news was that about the time two battalions in 7th Army's tank divisions and one in an infantry battalion received their new vehicles, some bright staff officer found out that the Russians had the capability to airdrop their BMD and ASU-57 airborne vehicles with crews inside...and could we also develop that capability. Since 7th Army's *deivery board* was responsible for such things as writing the railcar loading and securing procedural SOPs for movement on the German Bundesbahn railways and for disseminating flatbed truck shipment and aircraft delivery safety procedures in Europe, they got tasked with the *project.* Happily, the experiments were less than successful, though the LAPES method of yanking a M551 [or other pieces of equipment] from a C130 during a touch-and-go landing was developed and adopted around that time. The idea was to be able to have a company-sized unit [17 tanks] of Sheridans as a reserve unit for Corps commanders needing a tank recon unit or replacement for a chewed-up company, capable of being delivered anywhere in our operational area there was a operational airstrip or half-mile straight section of multilane highway. We were NOT to be commandos to be airdropped behind enemy lines, or at least that's what they told us.

Later, when I got to Vietnam, I bounced from unit to unit and job to job for a while, as I'd arrived in-country during the Tet 1968 festivities. It was quite a welcome for a young troop, and they really didn't have to go to all that fuss just for me, but I tried to show my appreciation. Eventually, though, my paperwork caught up to me and I was to be sent off to a swell cav outfit called the *Blackhorse* that operated- surprise, surprise!- the M551 Sheridan. There were three ways out of that assignment: I could volunteer for duties as a tunnel rat, as they liked to get tank crewmen, who they figured were at least not claustrophobic and could handle working in the dark [as a tank is inside while buttoned up a lot of the time.] I could sign on as a door gunner on a Huey, as they liked getting tankers who knew how to keep the machineguns running and weren't inclined to fire short choppy little bursts. Or I could volunteer as a LRRP in one of the divisions, since I'd been through jump school, and I'd likely end up as far away from Sheridans as I wanted, and that was the route I took, though I did eventually hook back up with an M48 outfit later.

So most of my time with the Sheridan was spent with 'em in Germany instead of Vietnam, and I count that as one reason I came back home more or less in one piece. My opinion of the Sheridan is not a terribly fond one, and the aluminum *armor* on those things wouldn't stop a .50 round, let alone a B-40 or RPG-7 antitank rocket.

Most of the things are now either out of service or used as substitutes for enemy vehicles at the National Training Center [*sandbox*] at Ft Irwin, CA, though the 82nd Airborne still has 57, since nothing similar can be air-transported and air-dropped; the introduction of the C-17 aircraft, which can haul M1A1 tanks may change that [the M2/M3 Bradley can't be air-dropped; the integrated gunsight/computer mechanism won't take it] but there'll be few tears shed by me for final passing of the things. But some of those who've crewed in them have genuinely liked 'em.

Sheridan from H troop, 17th cav provides security for 59th Engineers land-clearing detail, near Hill 43/ Binh Son, in the 198th Infantry Brigade's operational area, circa 1970.