[This article was first published in Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin, which was then called Army Logistician, volume 2, number 6 (November–December 1970), pages 26–29. The text, including any biographical note, is reproduced as faithfully as possible to enable searchability. To view any images and charts in the article, refer to the issue itself, available on DVIDS and the bulletin’s archives at asu.army.mil/alog/.]
WITH A LURCH AND A ROAR, the convoy moves out. Twenty intent eyes gaze from the lead vehicle, searching the bordering foliage for the ambush they were warned to expect. Suddenly, at a bend in the road, automatic weapons fire cuts the air. A mortar hits with a deafening roar. Ten men vault from the truck bed and return the fire. A perimeter is set up and one fire team is directed to close with the enemy. An enemy machinegun emplacement is located and neutralized through fire and maneuver. As suddenly as it began, the firing stops. Only an occasional shot and scattered shouts break the quiet. A casualty check is quickly made, damage is evaluated, and the convoy moves out to continue its mission.
This might be a record of an ambush in Vietnam, but it is not. It’s part of a training exercise conducted by the Preparation for Overseas Replacement/Preparation for Overseas Movement (POR/POM) Detachment of the Quartermaster School Brigade at the U.S. Army Quartermaster Center, Fort Lee, Virginia. The 10 men are new quartermaster troops who have recently completed their military occupational specialty training at Fort Lee and are now preparing for an assignment in Southeast Asia. The mortars are simulators, the machineguns fire blanks, and the ambushers are fellow-members of the detachment. But the lessons taught are real: combat service support requires combat knowledge as well as service support skills.
No Real Rear Area
The war in Vietnam has shown that enemy emphasis is on quick strikes at selected targets, strikes designed to inflict maximum destruction, create confusion, and produce casualties. Such quick strikes against “rear area” units are often doubly effective. Rear area units are less equipped to deal with sneak attacks, and damage inflicted on these units often hampers or reduces support to combat units. The lack of a real “rear area,” which is characteristic of guerrilla warfare in Vietnam, has made protection of these units and the whole subject of rear area protection (RAP) very important.
What this means is that the petroleum, or stock control, or laundry and bath, or materials handling specialist is expected to man a bunker, walk interior guard, act as a reaction force platoon member, or patrol the area surrounding his base camp. In addition, he must competently perform the duties of his specialty. Combat troops are not assigned to guard combat service support base camps. The withdrawal of some combat units from Vietnam heavily increases the necessity for RAP. Combat service support units staying in the combat area to assist and support our troops and those of allied nations remain responsible for their own rear area protection.
RAP consists of security and damage control. Both are the responsibility of combat service support troops, but security — that means to prevent or neutralize enemy threats to rear area units and activities — is the focal point of the training given by the POR/POM detachment. POR training prepares a new quartermaster specialist to recognize the combat duties contingent with his new job and to assume these duties with minimal transitional problems.
The POR/POM detachment was organized as a part of the Quartermaster School Brigade in February 1968 to continue a mission that had been assigned originally to the Fort Lee-based 4th Logistical Command. From late 1965 to early 1967, over 10,000 officers and men had been prepared for oversea movement by the 4th Logistical Command. As personnel requirements in Vietnam switched from unit deployment to individual deployment, training was changed to facilitate individual preparation. Early in 1968, the responsibility for training was assumed by the detachment.
The POR/POM detachment training mission rests with 5 officers, 32 NCO’s, and 33 enlisted men. Most are combat veterans, recently returned from Vietnam. Their instruction is frequently highlighted with personal experiences, not just “war stories” but examples that add accuracy to their presentations. They’ve been through it. The Combat Infantryman Badges, Purple Hearts, and several Bronze Stars with “V” device attest to that fact. The training is just as accurate and informative as these men can possibly make it.
To meet the changing conditions in Vietnam, the detachment has continually modified and improved the training area and the course content. The training area includes an ambush trail, a booby trap trail, a Viet Cong bunker and base camp complex, M16 training ranges, and a model Vietnamese village complete with live chickens, pigs, bamboo huts, and a Buddhist temple. The course consists of a four-day training program incorporating twelve hours of classroom instruction and twenty-four hours of field training.
The first full eight-hour day consists of classroom instruction devoted to a general introduction. The men are oriented to their host country, with emphasis on in-country conduct. Classes on jungle survival, field sanitation, duties of a sentry, perimeter defense, and communications follow. The classroom “theory” is documented with practical “lessons learned.” Topics range from the banalities of making a sanitary latrine to the importance of memorizing key call letters of medevac and fire support; from the necessity for correct interior guard procedures to the way to survive upon becoming “temporarily disoriented” in a jungle. Such mysterious devices as the M72 LAW (light antitank weapon), the M18A1 Claymore mine, the M60 machinegun, and the AN/PRC25 radio are displayed and their correct operation and various uses thoroughly explained. The first day’s instruction makes very clear to the students that these instruments are as much a part of their jobs in a combat area as the petroleum pumps and forklifts they learned to use in their school courses.
Things Not What They Seem
The next day the 25-acre training area becomes the classroom. Armed with M14 rifles, equipped with blank adapters, and two magazines of blank ammunition, the men take their first look at a “Vietnamese” village. They see how a false well can serve as a booby trap or tunnel entrance; how a haystack can store hay or supplies and men; and how a Buddhist temple can be the center of worship, or the center of a maze of tunnels. They learn how to deal with each situation.
Next they encounter the “booby trap trail” where common booby traps, currently in use in Vietnam, are demonstrated. Some traps, such as the punji pits, cross bow, and Malayan gate, are fixed simulations. Others, like spider holes, rigged bridges, and trip wires, are attached to artillery simulators or smoke bombs to fix very clearly in mind what happens to men who fail to take necessary precautions. Simulated mounted and dismounted ambushes follow, as the now-wary troops travel the ambush trail in combat platoon formation. An occasional booby trap trip-wire along the ambush trail reminds them that booby traps are not confined to booby trap trails in the future. A Claymore mine ambush and an assault on a tree line Viet Cong emplacement complete the activities for the morning.
The afternoon training is in the form of an assignment to search and clear a Viet Cong base camp. The men are read a combat order giving all available intelligence. They must then put the morning’s training into supervised practice. The assault is made through a wooded area filled with “snipers” and ending up in a bunker complex rigged with smoke bombs, artillery simulators, and guarded by Viet Cong armed with automatic weapons. Two other days and one evening are devoted to mechanical training, familiarization, and qualification on the M16 rifle, and the training is completed.
Since a quartermaster specialist does not do an infantryman’s job, the training is not meant to be infantry preparation. Rather it is an introduction to and familiarization with the security role of a combat service support soldier. It prepares the quartermaster specialist for this role in two important areas. First, it serves as a refresher for skills learned in basic combat training and extends specific skills that will be useful in Southeast Asia. Most of the men taking POR training have had at least eight weeks or more of formal schooling between basic training and POR. The refresher training helps him regain confidence in the skills he learned in basic and serves notice that he will be using some of these skills in future duties. Second, and often more important, POR training gives a man something with which to meet the threat of the unknown, something of what he might expect in Vietnam. He gets an idea of what a Vietnamese village looks like, what a common booby trap looks like, and how it feels to be in an ambush. He learns that “useless junk” can be used by the Viet Cong to construct a booby trap, backfiring on those who discarded the “junk.” He is prepared to take simple, defensive precautions against many threatening situations, all while he is still in a familiar environment. The knowledge enables the quartermaster specialist to move from a school environment to the new combat environment more quickly and efficiently.
Staff Sergeant Clarence O. Stokes, a senior NCO with over seventeen years of infantry experience, explains POR training this way: “In 9 out of 10 cases, commonsense will tell you how to survive in a combat situation. Our instruction increases your awareness of commonsense reactions.”
Using the philosophy “Stay Alert, Stay Alive,” the POR/POM Detachment of the Quartermaster School constantly modifies and updates training to prepare the quartermaster specialist for his combat service support role in all of its varying aspects.
Specialist Fifth Class Perry O. Ballard, Jr., was the information specialist for the U.S. Army Quartermaster School Brigade, Fort Lee, Virginia. He was graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in advertising and industrial design in 1966, and an M.A. in advertising in 1967. He entered the Army in 1968, taking basic training at Fort Bragg, N.C., and, before serving as information specialist, was an instructor in the Enlisted Supply Department of the Quartermaster School.
| Date Taken: | 06.17.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 06.17.2025 14:32 |
| Story ID: | 500855 |
| Location: | US |
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