Activity

[rickf]

Well, There were some good (as in fair) MP's over there. Face it, you give a kid a badge and power to push people around and he IS going to abuse it. That is when it is up to his superiors to step in, which is where the problem was, they seldom did. And that is where a LOT of young people learned about the Blue rule of cops taking care of cops. And that made it additionally hard for the good cops. And sorry Ron, I forgot to include you in the veterans group of members from Nam.

[199th mp]

Well, There were some good (as in fair) MP's over there. Face it, you give a kid a badge and power to push people around and he IS going to abuse it. That is when it is up to his superiors to step in, which is where the problem was, they seldom did. And that is where a LOT of young people learned about the Blue rule of cops taking care of cops. And that made it additionally hard for the good cops. And sorry Ron, I forgot to include you in the veterans group of members from Nam.

there is definitely some truth in that. growing into that job was difficult at best. some guys didn't take to it very well. guys like me, who never did garrison MP work at all, still get tarred with the same brush. we did convoy escort duty and handled the PW cage. the MP's who ran LBJ really had a tough time. back then there was zero training for corrections work. some guys were just picked, sometimes at random, and sent there to work the cage. i know a few of them today, on the MP page, who had that duty. silver city and big red were not happy places for the detainees or the MP's.the riots were bad, one in particular. lots of dissension between black and white troops, not just between MP's and detainees either. out on the road running convoys was probably about the best job for MP's. rick, you would have loved driving a V100. it had a chrysler hemi with a holley four barrel, a five speed box, four wheel drive, a PTO winch and it was amphibious as well. throw in the twin barrel machine gun in the turret, and even when you were under fire, you felt invincible. we weren't, of course, but we felt like it. until we got hit personally. the blue rule still apples today, rick, even in my small town with my MP sticker in the back window.