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Security Police, 1970s


ikar

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I didn't get any time over in 'Nam, but I do recognize the vehicles. I was in Security Police 81130 from 1971 through 74 , stationed at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, guarding Minuteman missle silos. I almost got a round trip ticket to Thailand, but they scrapped my orders at the last minute. I would like to try those models in 1/72 scale, if they have them both. Very nicely done :smiley20::smiley20:

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That's the Verlinden XM-706. The hobbyboss people are a bit mixed up. From what I see, what they call a 706 is actually a V-100 used by the Army's M.P units. I wish they would come out with a real 706.

I added a 90mm recoiless rifle and a XM-174 grenade launcher

 

davewahl:

 

You were just behind my class. I was in the first class to go through the new revised course where they specialized in L.E. or Security. I was supposed to go D.D.A. but they held us while the school re-arranged for the new course. Afterwards I went to the 821st at Ellsworth where after a couple months I was assigned to the 366th at Danang. I returned to Lackland for AZR with defective orders being told that they would send me a new copy after the typo was fixed. The correction moved me to the 635th at U-Tapao. From there I went to the 436th at Dover and returned to S.E.A. after another trip to Lackland and went to Korat in 1974.

 

Did you know that there was another 821st SPS? The emblem was identical except that one said Combat Security Police. I picked up both patches when I found them.

 

While at U-T I took the armor driving course and learned to drive the 706 and the M-113. They were used on the bases for deploying 13 man Quick reation teams in case of trouble in their assigned sector of the base. We had one called "Devil's Deciple" that was a rolling C.S.C. and was manned by no one under a staff sgt. I carried all the communication equipment necessary to handle a fight and was more heavily armed than the mormal vehicles. They carried a .50 cal with a night scope while everybody carried M-60s.

 

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A few more:

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I put this one in because if you look closely at the guard standing, you can see his lunch hanging from his pack just below his metal cup.scan0275.jpg

 

 

Stateside:

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Perhaps the worst, Chevy Luv. This thing was so small they had to but special light bars and mount the siren onto the firewall in the engine compartment. Getting out when you were carryying a shotgun or M-16 was an experience in itself.

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That's the Verlinden XM-706. The hobbyboss people are a bit mixed up. From what I see, what they call a 706 is actually a V-100 used by the Army's M.P units. I wish they would come out with a real 706.

I added a 90mm recoiless rifle and a XM-174 grenade launcher

 

davewahl:

 

You were just behind my class. I was in the first class to go through the new revised course where they specialized in L.E. or Security. I was supposed to go D.D.A. but they held us while the school re-arranged for the new course. Afterwards I went to the 821st at Ellsworth where after a couple months I was assigned to the 366th at Danang. I returned to Lackland for AZR with defective orders being told that they would send me a new copy after the typo was fixed. The correction moved me to the 635th at U-Tapao. From there I went to the 436th at Dover and returned to S.E.A. after another trip to Lackland and went to Korat in 1974.

 

Did you know that there was another 821st SPS? The emblem was identical except that one said Combat Security Police. I picked up both patches when I found them.

 

While at U-T I took the armor driving course and learned to drive the 706 and the M-113. They were used on the bases for deploying 13 man Quick reation teams in case of trouble in their assigned sector of the base. We had one called "Devil's Deciple" that was a rolling C.S.C. and was manned by no one under a staff sgt. I carried all the communication equipment necessary to handle a fight and was more heavily armed than the mormal vehicles. They carried a .50 cal with a night scope while everybody carried M-60s.

 

Cool!!! I went to tech school in Dec. of 1971 and graduated at the end of march 1972. I got to Ellsworth in time to standby while everyone got around to cleaning drainage ditches around the Missle silos. They talked me into doing AirSat in the missle complexes until late June of 72. I was in the missle wings Missle Support Flight, meaning we went with the maintenance teams to guard the missle hole while the security system was down. I enjoyed AirSat and Air Convoy duty the best. When I started, we were the 821st missle support f;ight. After a while, we were integrated into the 44th strategic missle wing and became the 44MSF. Those vehicles sound pretty interesting. I'll have to look some of them up, as I like doing MP/Security Police vehicles.

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A few more:

 

THERE YA GO, YA DUN WENT AND GAVE ME SEVERAL NEW IDEAS FOR MODEL PROJECTS. Several in 1/25 and several in 1/35 or 1/72. Darn it all, as if I don't have enough crazy assed projects going now. Thanks for sending the extra pix.

scan0229.jpg

scan0377.jpg

scan0287.jpg

scan0286.jpg

I put this one in because if you look closely at the guard standing, you can see his lunch hanging from his pack just below his metal cup.scan0275.jpg

 

 

Stateside:

scan0003-5.jpg

scan0232.jpg

scan0231.jpg

scan0230.jpg

Perhaps the worst, Chevy Luv. This thing was so small they had to but special light bars and mount the siren onto the firewall in the engine compartment. Getting out when you were carryying a shotgun or M-16 was an experience in itself.

scan0290.jpg

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This is one of my favorite vehicle shots. It's not a cop vehicle but it still looks good and has a sense of humor:

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This was the Christmas Tree area at Ellsworth in 1971:

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Here's a couple interior driver's side shots of a 706:

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This M-113 track was taken during AZR class at Camp Bullis:

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We got these 706s from Ubon:

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Righteous alert pad shots from Ellsworth. Do you have any B-52 pix that show the wing shield on the right side of the bomber's nose? Especially the silver ones. Looks like they were all D-model BUFFs. Any F-models in the mix? Shots of the SP Peacekeeper vehicles?

 

...I have ulterior motives here...

 

CHEERS!

 

Von_L

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They were all "D"s as far as I knew. We got in some "G"s just before I left.

I've got a shot or two of a wing patch that I took at the same time I took these, I just have to find it. It looks like a set of talons pointing to the ground against a shield with latin below them. I'll see if I can find them and post it for you.

 

The Peacekeeper armored car came out somewhere in the 80s. I remember seeing them at Minot when I was with the 5th FIS. I got a chance to look inside one while I was talking to a friend of a cop I worked with before I cross trained into fighter operations and they were not as cramped as our 706s. From what I heard, they had a lot of trouble with them because the weight of the armor was straining the vehicle too much.

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They were all "D"s as far as I knew. We got in some "G"s just before I left.

I've got a shot or two of a wing patch that I took at the same time I took these, I just have to find it. It looks like a set of talons pointing to the ground against a shield with latin below them. I'll see if I can find them and post it for you.

 

The Peacekeeper armored car came out somewhere in the 80s. I remember seeing them at Minot when I was with the 5th FIS. I got a chance to look inside one while I was talking to a friend of a cop I worked with before I cross trained into fighter operations and they were not as cramped as our 706s. From what I heard, they had a lot of trouble with them because the weight of the armor was straining the vehicle too much.

I remember seeing some tall tail and some short tail BUFFs when I was there until 74. Those shots of the line were a memory kicker. All our L.E. cars had red lights on them, and not the blue lights that I saw in those pix. Now I gotta save all those pix for a photo reference for the projects. Now all I gotta do is find a Chevy Luv to make that one tiny truck. Did they use that for flightline duty, or was that a road truck?? Seems to me that just about anything could outrace that silly thing. Thanks again for the mind jogger. :smiley17::smiley20:

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Remember the wreckage of the B-52 that was above the alert pad? I've got some shots on a disc that I'm having trouble accessing. If I can, I'll post them for you.

While at Ellsworth in 1972 did you notice a decrease in how many "G" models you had on base?

 

The two sedans and the six pack were taken at Dover when I was there in 1973. The picture with the two trucks and the LUV were at Littlerock. The one with us behind our vehicles was posed for the papers. The LUV was used on and off the flightline. Mostly, I'm happy to say, off. It came in that baby blue color because Jimmy Carter said that the military was using too much money on vehicles and had to take off the shelf vehicles. When you add in the cost of the special light bars and other things we had to do with them I think it cost more. It took them a while to figure how to carry a shotgun in that thing. Sometimes an M-16 had to be laid down behind the seat or what ever way you could manage, and getting out with w web belt full of ammo, handcuffs, flashlight, and radio took some time.

Those things were death traps. One of our K-9 guys was working with his dog one night in a LUV and as he was comming down the hill toward the desk, he hit his brakes hard to avoid an accident as his window exploded. It was weeks before it was replaced. It had to be shipped from Japan. That was about the same time that he said no government would operate over 55 MPH.

Not long after that I was paced by the Arkansas State Police doing somewhere over 100 during a chase off base. He never did tell me how fast, just generally and told me not to ask questions.

 

 

Littlerock was unique in that as long as you were assigned to the 314th SPS, Law Enforcement and Security worked both jobs. One day you could be sitting around in your vehicle watching maint. fix the C-130s and the next day you could be on a gate or base patrol.

 

The weird thing about Security Police vehicles is that you never knew exactly what you would drive until it was assigned at guardmount. I have patroled in anything from that LUV up to a 1 1/2 ton steakbed truck. Try and pull somebody over in one of those things with a plug-in beacon on the dash.

During alerts other squadrons might have to give up a vehicle or two, stepvans normally going to the flightline and their trucks to L.E.

 

Police light colors vary from state to state. My home township went to red and blue when I was in high school.

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Remember the wreckage of the B-52 that was above the alert pad? I've got some shots on a disc that I'm having trouble accessing. If I can, I'll post them for you.

While at Ellsworth in 1972 did you notice a decrease in how many "G" models you had on base?

 

The two sedans and the six pack were taken at Dover when I was there in 1973. The picture with the two trucks and the LUV were at Littlerock. The one with us behind our vehicles was posed for the papers. The LUV was used on and off the flightline. Mostly, I'm happy to say, off. It came in that baby blue color because Jimmy Carter said that the military was using too much money on vehicles and had to take off the shelf vehicles. When you add in the cost of the special light bars and other things we had to do with them I think it cost more. It took them a while to figure how to carry a shotgun in that thing. Sometimes an M-16 had to be laid down behind the seat or what ever way you could manage, and getting out with w web belt full of ammo, handcuffs, flashlight, and radio took some time.

Those things were death traps. One of our K-9 guys was working with his dog one night in a LUV and as he was comming down the hill toward the desk, he hit his brakes hard to avoid an accident as his window exploded. It was weeks before it was replaced. It had to be shipped from Japan. That was about the same time that he said no government would operate over 55 MPH.

Not long after that I was paced by the Arkansas State Police doing somewhere over 100 during a chase off base. He never did tell me how fast, just generally and told me not to ask questions.

 

 

Littlerock was unique in that as long as you were assigned to the 314th SPS, Law Enforcement and Security worked both jobs. One day you could be sitting around in your vehicle watching maint. fix the C-130s and the next day you could be on a gate or base patrol.

 

The weird thing about Security Police vehicles is that you never knew exactly what you would drive until it was assigned at guardmount. I have patroled in anything from that LUV up to a 1 1/2 ton steakbed truck. Try and pull somebody over in one of those things with a plug-in beacon on the dash.

During alerts other squadrons might have to give up a vehicle or two, stepvans normally going to the flightline and their trucks to L.E.

 

Police light colors vary from state to state. My home township went to red and blue when I was in high school.

Thanks for the info on the different bases. I know what you mean about Jimmy Carters energy saving bit. When I joined the National Guard MPs in January of 78, the day before the blizzard in Buffalo, I was at the federal building in Buffalo, which is near the waterfront, with the building air temp. around 55 degrees. The tile floors in that 12 story building were down right cold. There was a bunch of people waiting for physicals, but when they asked how many prior service people were in the group, guess how many raised their hands. You guessed it, just little old me. I got to be first in line for heart rate check. You hit that ice cold floor in bare feet and it'll definately put a rise in the heart rate. Anyway, we didn't have any patrol cars when I was in the MPs, but we did have some Dodge Pickups for our duty in AT. We used the Base MP cars when we held Base police duties or used our own 1/4 tons for the job. We mostly were an EPW chaser outfit. I liked doing the duty in the field as opposed to base "white hat" duty. Base duty was kinda boring when compared to working in the field. :smiley20:

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I don't know. Sometimes it had its moments.Chasing speeders, breaking up fights, responding to alarms and fires. My last working day at Littlerock I was sent to a disturbance in housing to find the first patrol and a husband holding down his topless wife who had gone over the edge and tried to stab him with a garden steak.

Have youiwver noticed that you could get a table at the dining hall and noone would sit there except other cops? The only time someone else did was at Lorning and just as we started to eat we got a call about a possible bomg=b in base housing and had to leave. You loose a lot of meals in the cops, but you also learn how to eat anything while you drive. Anything except soup and salad that is. It just doesn't seem to work.

 

Did your vehicles carry fire extinguishers? One of our trucks had the thing bolted to the passenger floor and when I got a call to respond and back up another patrol, I left the ticket I was writing at the NCO club, headed for the main road and slowed down for the light and turn. As I stopped, it broke loose, rolled across the floor and went off. I was going through the intersection by that time and pulled over and it fired again. I got aou and a cloud of grey powder followed me. Someone comming from the other way stopped and asked if I needed an extinguisher. I looked at my now grey uniform and said "No thanks, I've got one."When the response, and the laughter was over, I went by the clinic E.R. to see what the effects of breathing that stuff might be.

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I don't know. Sometimes it had its moments.Chasing speeders, breaking up fights, responding to alarms and fires. My last working day at Littlerock I was sent to a disturbance in housing to find the first patrol and a husband holding down his topless wife who had gone over the edge and tried to stab him with a garden steak.

Have youiwver noticed that you could get a table at the dining hall and noone would sit there except other cops? The only time someone else did was at Lorning and just as we started to eat we got a call about a possible bomg=b in base housing and had to leave. You loose a lot of meals in the cops, but you also learn how to eat anything while you drive. Anything except soup and salad that is. It just doesn't seem to work.

 

Did your vehicles carry fire extinguishers? One of our trucks had the thing bolted to the passenger floor and when I got a call to respond and back up another patrol, I left the ticket I was writing at the NCO club, headed for the main road and slowed down for the light and turn. As I stopped, it broke loose, rolled across the floor and went off. I was going through the intersection by that time and pulled over and it fired again. I got aou and a cloud of grey powder followed me. Someone comming from the other way stopped and asked if I needed an extinguisher. I looked at my now grey uniform and said "No thanks, I've got one."When the response, and the laughter was over, I went by the clinic E.R. to see what the effects of breathing that stuff might be.

Yeah, our cars and trucks all had extinguishers in them, but not quite as loose as yours obviously were. I guess the LE guys had it a bit harder than us "Ground Pounder" types as far as getting meals down. O do remember one time, when I got a mission out to the field and drew a box lunch and drew an extra "In Flight "meal (Kinda like the older MCI meals) that had a can of fruit juice in it. I took the juice can out and took a big gulp. Well, I almost puked getting it out. I looked at the can and noticed that it was packeged in 1949!!!!! Everything else was edible, but not that stuff. Needless to say, I check every juice I got from then on. I don't seem to remember the wreckage of a BUFF on the upper pad, course missle people didn't see any Flightline duty. If you find them, I'd like to see tose pix. :smiley20::smiley12:

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They were all "D"s as far as I knew. We got in some "G"s just before I left.

I've got a shot or two of a wing patch that I took at the same time I took these, I just have to find it. It looks like a set of talons pointing to the ground against a shield with latin below them. I'll see if I can find them and post it for you.

 

The Peacekeeper armored car came out somewhere in the 80s. I remember seeing them at Minot when I was with the 5th FIS. I got a chance to look inside one while I was talking to a friend of a cop I worked with before I cross trained into fighter operations and they were not as cramped as our 706s. From what I heard, they had a lot of trouble with them because the weight of the armor was straining the vehicle too much.

 

Way cool. Be advised that the patch you describe sounds like the 22nd Bomb WIng that flew BUFFs out of March AFB, CA, with a lion's paw on the shield and the motto "Ducemus" ("We lead"). The 28th BW (BMW) at Ellsworth is a more simplistic blue & gold shield, divided vertically with a wavy line (the fleur-de-lis crest is usually omitted after about 1992). Here's the B-36 in the Castle AFB museum, same as what the silver BUFFs would likely have worn, if any:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view...;sigh=116a9m9k9

 

This shield does appear on the starboard side of black D-models and SIOP 4-color H-models. It would just be cool to do a silver 'D', if the info is out there. Your thoughts?

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At U-Tapao I came up with a system for box lunches. When they arrived I would take the milk cartons and put them in my water container and wait. Eventually the food(?) would get to C.S.C. and they would eat it. Everyday they would come over the radio and tell up what was and wasn't safe to eat. Usually the strange asting milk was bad because it sat in teh sun for hours at the kitchen on top of the hill behind me after it was trucked in from the deep water port. The mystery meat remained that, and what you were usually left with was a turkey sandwich, a piece of candy, and a hopefully hard boiled egg. One time I took the egg and went to crack it against the handle of my GAU and found that it was only partly boiled if at all. It ran all the way down and dried off the flash suppressor. I had to dump a lot of my water supply on it to get it clean.

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At U-Tapao I came up with a system for box lunches. When they arrived I would take the milk cartons and put them in my water container and wait. Eventually the food(?) would get to C.S.C. and they would eat it. Everyday they would come over the radio and tell up what was and wasn't safe to eat. Usually the strange asting milk was bad because it sat in teh sun for hours at the kitchen on top of the hill behind me after it was trucked in from the deep water port. The mystery meat remained that, and what you were usually left with was a turkey sandwich, a piece of candy, and a hopefully hard boiled egg. One time I took the egg and went to crack it against the handle of my GAU and found that it was only partly boiled if at all. It ran all the way down and dried off the flash suppressor. I had to dump a lot of my water supply on it to get it clean.

Well, I'm guessing that anything "fresh" at U-T wasn't worth eating anyway. You would have to try to get down what you could, and anything that couldn't spoil were the canned stuff, some of which may have been palateable. I remember guys coming back with horror stories of the dreaded Ham & Limas. We had one that the guys similarly hated, Ham & Eggs. They weren't too awfully bad, but my least favorite was the Pork Patties. They had the reputation of being mini hockey pucks in some kind of mystery gravy that acted and looked like 40 weight oil, and youcould use the patties to re-sole your shoes or re-pave the road, ROTFLMBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :smiley17::smiley17::smiley17::smiley20:

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What I found out after I returned to the states and was assigned to the 436th at Dover was an after effect I didn't consider. Since I grew up in Jersey and was stationed in Delaware, I would go home once in a while. My first Thanksgiving back I went home because I was scheduled to work over Christmas. When it was time to eat I discovered that somehow after a year of turkey in those box nasties, I couldn't eat the stuff for a couple years. My mother was a bit surprised but I got the feeling that my father expected something like that would happen. Fortunately we also had ham that year.

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What I found out after I returned to the states and was assigned to the 436th at Dover was an after effect I didn't consider. Since I grew up in Jersey and was stationed in Delaware, I would go home once in a while. My first Thanksgiving back I went home because I was scheduled to work over Christmas. When it was time to eat I discovered that somehow after a year of turkey in those box nasties, I couldn't eat the stuff for a couple years. My mother was a bit surprised but I got the feeling that my father expected something like that would happen. Fortunately we also had ham that year.

Well, I would expect that there would be some complications setting in after the constant "Box Nasties". I think my system would have decided not to try anything palatable for a while, ROTFLMBO!!!!!!!! :smiley12::smiley12:

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