Well, its been almost 50 years, so I can tell this beer truck story, without going to jail. We were driving in convoy to a field problem.
Here goes.
I don’t remember the year this happened. 1974 or 1975? BUT, I do remember how it all started, and how it ended. We pulled into the rest stop going to Schweinfurt, to do some saftey checks and take a leak. I was in C-99, a 5 ton, M818 drop side, driven by Rick Warner. Everyone got out to walk around a bit, and Rick Warner, a farm boy from Illinois, walked over to a parked German trailer. He was always interested in trucks, trailers and tractors. Well Rick looked inside the trailer. He calmly, coolly and slowly walked back to me and whispered in a high pitched and excited voice, “Sarge! There’s a shi* load of beer in that trailer!” He had that look in his eyes. Rick had been kind of a good boy when he came to C-3/7 ADA. Several years in the unit and a few million beers later, Rick had a taste for beer! And for doing crazy things.
As my goal in life at this time, was to sample as much beer as possible, I took a gander myself. INDEED, a shi* load of beer! Well, who would miss a case or three of beer? In the back of C-99, Rick had mounted a small German refrigerator. In the trailer behind C-99 was a 5 KW generator. A power cord went from trailer to truck. Can’t drink warm beer you know. Rick and I got three cases of beer. One went under the shotgun’s seat, and the other two in the reefer in back. Rick started the generator and we were set! As several other people saw what was going on, they too made the decision that a “few” cases of beer would not be missed. So by the time the LT got us started again, at least 30-40 cases were “requisitioned”. And off we drove to training Area Sierra, (Slime).
WHAT we didn’t know, was some Germans up on the hillside above, had seen us and called the Cops. It takes the cops a while to respond. The next convoy serial pulled in, and parked. As they are God fearing Christians, they never even looked in the trailer. Up roars the cops! Everyone has to move away from the trucks and a search is conducted! And no beer found. How can this be? So the poor soldiers are allowed to go on. Someone must have been playing a joke on the poor old Cops. Later that night we had a little party. Even shared beer with the second convoy!
