Camp Holloway Discussion Forum Archive 02 - 05/07/01 to 02/28/03

The Unoffical Supply Guy

In the army every unit has one guy that could get almost anything that you would need. Our guy was Sam Stella. When he wasn't crashing somebody elses aircraft he was able to get most of the stuff supply couldn't. Parts for our machine guns was the most important. The two things which we needed most were operating rods and barrels. Both were almost impossible to get. He had a buddy he grew up with that was stationed at the depot near Lane Airfield. He would gather the stuff which we would borrow and put a load together and then crew the II Corp bird on the day it was headed that way and get the things we needed.

For some reason the two things that the REMFers on the coast wanted was C-rats and SP packs. Go figure. The two things we had no trouble getting. Maybe those were the best things for the black market. I remember that I lost my survial knife during a LRRP extraction in Nov. and I was unable to get a new one to replace it. In Dec we were TDY to Lane and I was down town in Qui Nhon and the venders had boxes of them for five dollars a piece. I ended up buying one. The other thing which I can always remember needing was spray paint for the ship. That lead base paint the army had was like painting with tar.

Sam was the crew chief both times when somebodys ship was messed up. He was crewing mine(Gator 488) while I was on leave. It had a hard landing and was sent to the 608th for repairs. It ended up going to the 189th as a replacement ship. The other was Gator 834. Bob Kilpatrick was on R&R when it got rolled in an LZ near An Khe. Sam's leg was caught between the the side of the ship and the gun mount. A grunt was in the ship trying to help him get out and somebody handed him an axe the use as a pry bar to free his leg. The grunt miunderstood the the use of the axe and yelled to guys outside the ship that he couldn't chop off this guy's leg. Sam hearing this informed him that no way was he cutting off his leg and to re-enforce the point he pulled out his .45 to make the point very clear to everyone. They ended up untieing his boot and by lifting the side of the ship up he was able to slide his foot out of his boot and free himself. He spent the next couple of weeks walking around the company area in his shower sandals because supply couldn't get him a pair of boots that would fit. It seems that sizes 8-10 were the common size so those was the ones we couldn't get. He ended up crewing a ship to the coast with a pair of somebody else's boot in order the get a new pair. His favorite saying was "Beatin Feet". Instead of walking some where Sam was always "Beatin Feet".

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