I read somewhere that the mule was introduced to the Army in 1956. Four different manufacturers built 11,240 of them. Production stopped in 1970, the year I was in Vietnam. The Army used them for various tasks. They were even used as a weapons platform for the 106 mm recoil-less rifle and the 50-caliber machine gun. I only saw them used for carrying supplies.
They were about ten feet long, four feet wide, four feet high and weighed about 900 pounds. The seat was so far forward, your legs had to be supported out in front of the thing on a metal frame where the brake, clutch and gas pedal were. They had a neat little air-cooled, four-cylinder engine, two-wheel and four-wheel drive and a manual three-speed transmission. There was no suspension in them at all other than those large, rubber tires. Flat out, they would do about 15 mph, which was fast enough because you bounced around a lot on the dirt roads we ran them on.
When we pulled guard on Firebase Buttons, there were always day jobs to be done other than pulling guard. A day job may include guarding a dump run, burning shit or moving supplies between the supply tent and the airstrip. Buttons was large enough, where it needed its own airstrip for landing Air Force planes and large helicopters.
Running supplies back and forth on a mule was pure joy. You felt like a race-car driver out there shifting up through the gears, racing along, down shifting, then hitting the brakes to a skid stop. It was enough to make you forget you were in Vietnam, at least for a while. They were so narrow, we were lucky they didn't tip over on turns.
Back home, three-wheelers made by Honda and other companies starting to appear in the early seventies. Four-wheelers replaced the three-wheelers around 1985 due to safety issues. My son-in-law has two four-wheelers. When I look at those vehicles of his, it reminds me of a time back in 1970 on the other side of the world when I raced around on the granddaddy of them all, the Army mule.
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