Subject: The Sea Land Tractor Trailers in Vietnam



Subject: The Sea Land Tractor Trailers in Vietnam.

I often see Maersk Sea Land tractor-trailers on our Interstate highways.  They always remind me of another time.

Before Maersk and Sea Land merged, Sea Land existed by itself.  Strangely our 319th Transportation Company drivers saw these rigs mixed in with our otherwise military convoys supplying our troops on the roads of Vietnam in 1968-69.  They certainly stood out:  they were painted bright commercial colors and driven by plain-clothed civilians.  They were unarmed.  I never knew what cargos they carried in their closed trailers.  Often only one or a few of them would convoy with our green military tactical trucks.  Of course our trucks  were armed and painted to blend in with existing ground colors to reduce our target image.  Our drivers were uniformed army soldiers.  The Sea Land rigs would enjoy the same protection the military trucks enjoyed:  tanks, armored personnel carriers, gun trucks, aircraft, infantry.  The Sea Land rigs seemed out of place to me.  I suppose the rigs were necessary to the war effort.  I'm sure the military trucks could not supply all our military needs.  But I wondered how such a civilian operation could exist and prosper in a war zone where trucks were constantly in danger of being destroyed by enemy action.  Did the enemy know the difference in the two types of trucks he saw in the same convoy?  Did a little man holding a rocket-propelled grenade not fire on a Sea Land truck in battle?  How much did politics enter into this war? 

In today's news Lady Bird Johnson died at the age of 94.  She was the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson who managed most of the Vietnam War.  I was told that Mrs Johnson was a major stock holder of the Sea Land Corporation while we were convoying with their trucks.  I don't know if that was true or not but the person who told me was sure of it.  If it was true, some of my questions about the Sea Land tractor-trailers were answered. 

Enlisted truck drivers were of course given almost no information about such matters.  But even us drivers knew politics were and are in every big-money situation.  Today I pray the powerful will use their power wisely and for good purposes.....

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