Winter, 1964, snow falling like goose feathers, just drifting down and landing with a wet "plop". We marched up to the "fuel dump" where we parked our fuel tankers and stopped to warm up in the platoon sergeant's "hooch". The air was biting cold, the snow was heavy and wet, and all the vehicles were reluctant to get a start on the day. As clearly as I remember the shivering cold and wet, what I remember best are the sounds of those early winter mornings. The snow acting like a muffler, dampening all the sounds and giving them a heard-through- a-cotton-ball quality. The Engineer motor park was just across the fence from us; the pony engine on the big bulldozer would start up, after a little coaxing and ether, and then after sputtering a bit, would smooth out to a loud buzz. Then the operator would engage the pony engine to turn the big diesel engine that powered the dozer. You could hear the pony engine strain; the big diesel would crank over and blow vapor out of the exhaust. Then it would pop real loud. Then another, and another, then two or three in a row, some of them blowing perfect smoke rings, then a pop and a pop, and then a string of stuttering pops. Then just the pony motor again...then the pops started in earnest until a long string of them kept going, sputtering and staggering until the big diesel caught with a roar...then settled down to a steady rumble. I don't know why but that sound always thrilled me. The memory of it still does.
The scout platoons had small track-vehicles called M-114s. In the days before we switched everything to diesel engines, the M-114s were powered by small- block Chevy engines. When the 114s were moving, the drivers would punch the pedal hard and the little tracks would take off with a noise like a '55 Chevy in a race.
The command tracks, M577s, and the commo and medic tracks, M113s (actually the same vehicle with the command track having a punched up roof to accomodate radios and such) were powered by Chrysler motors, larger than the 114s and loud, too.
The maintenance platoon in each troop and the recovery section in Squadron Maintenance had M-88 tracked recovery vehicles. Huge armored wreckers that looked like moon probe vehicles out of the Disney "Man in Space" stuff from the fifties. Before they were switched over to diesel, each was powered by a twelve-cylinder gas-burning dragon of a motor, about 1100-1200 cubic inches with three magnetos and no mufflers. When cold, it sounded like Mickey Thompson's twin Buick rail, all snorty and poppy and backfire-y. One morning in the field I was awakened to two 88s from Squadron drag racing across an open field. They practically shook me out of my sleeping bag...and they were a couple hundred yards away. At night you could see blue flames shooting out of their exhaust ports... two-to three-foot long.
So every morning we had what was called "Motor Stables", which I suppose hailed back to the "horse cav" days, when all the vehicles were checked out and started up. Those start up periods were music to the ears of a seventeen year old Southern California kid who lived on Cars and Beach Boy music. Even now, when I hear a good rumbly set of pipes, my head snaps in that direction to see who is singing my song...I don't expect it to be a 114, anymore, though.
M-88
M-113
M-114
I know, silly little memories...but that is what I am all about.