Story behind this M928A1:
I got into MVs several years ago. Although I hadn't had much in-person experience, I was nevertheless somewhat familiar with them.
A friend (Who isn't online at all) who had about a dozen Deuces and 5 tons hired me last July to house-sit for him and do some other projects/duties as assigned. Upon turning 18 in December 2015, the first thing I had ever done on my own was go visit him and climb around on his trucks.
I got to drive and work on his trucks quite a bit. One day, while perusing one of the M939 series 5 ton Facebook groups, I came across an ad for a decrepit M928A1, water in the oil, painted fire engine fluorescent day-glo yellow. Immediately messaged the guy. Long story short we got to talking via Facebook Messenger and I put a deposit in on this thing. As it turned out, he was a fellow member here (Forget the username) and had known of me for quite awhile, including my aspiration to finally get a truck.
And so I set out to buy a non running M928A1 in Oklahoma as the first vehicle I ever owned, as a 20 year old college student that still didn't drive legally on my own. Between standing up walls on a framing crew, I would be messaging about this thing. I didn't dare tell anyone, despite being around several "Army truck people".
I contacted fellow member 98G and he put me in touch with fellow member Lindsey97, who went and inspected this thing. One evening, I returned back to the place where I was living at the time, which had sketchy at best, slow, 4G cell phone service only really usable with a booster, and had my phone go crazy in my pocket with something like 50 photos of this thing.
I was payments on this thing because the seller is super generous to me. I couldn't believe I finally had a 5 ton, or was about to. Next thing I knew, my stint house-sitting and doing carpentry and assisting with someone's bible boot camp event for troubled teens on their remote homestead was over.
This whole time, I'd been talking with another member, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I have been attending college. I anecdotally texted him on layover at the airport in Anchorage that I'd be in town that week before classes started (It was late August, I first found out about the truck on August 1). I get a response back offering a ride from the airport. I take him up on this, and we meet for the first time in the loading zone at Fairbanks International Airport. Couple nights later, he brings me over to his home to "meet" his M923A2. We got to know each other real well that fall and became close friends. I will omit details here for obvious reasons but suffice to say they ended up offering to rent me a room, I was looking to get out of the college dorms, an offer I gladly accepted. I somehow doubt if it hadn't been for a mutual connection to these trucks it would have happened the way it did.
Around this time I finally got this M928 paid off. Plans were made to go recover it, but an emergency prevented that from occurring as planned. I contacted the gentleman I bought the truck from and offered to sell it back to him or scrap it if it was in the way, since it wasn't going to be able to move as soon as hoped. (Another small crisis was brewing, preventing me from hardly even paying tuition and fees; it was a story about near-eviction from campus housing that resulted in my present living situation being offered to me).
The guy I bought her from responds with (And I will never forget this text exchange, Verbatim:"
"Oh man, I couldn't let you scrap it!"
"No way!"
"I'd cry if you scrapped it!!"
I about cried myself. Not even sad, just emotionally moved. I was told the truck was fine where it was, it wasn't hurting anything. Life hasn't been kind to me at all in the last few months in terms of surplus time or money, so she continues to sit.
In talking to people, she has become a charity case- I have had many offer to help donate time to get her running, as well as discounted parts. She needs a lot of work but she's an oddball and was crying to be saved. She has indirectly introduced me to several other people and has helped me get well-known, being she stands out like a sore thumb even among trucks: Everybody knew what trucks she was, she had been for sale a few times in the past.
Getting her titled was a little interesting. In frustration I put her up for sale in the Facebook groups, and within short order was getting barrages of Facebook Messenger exchanges encouraging me to keep her.
That is the tear-jerking story of my M928A1. Photos by Lindsey97. I still need to go pick her up and it's driving me crazy! There have been days I've considered scraping this thing or cutting it up for the axles but I'll never be able to actually bring myself to commit such a blasphemous act. .
