on Highway 509. It gives a pretty good idea of the terrain in the area and the clearing going on.
Here's the story of what happened. The guy in the tank in trying to explain said that it was a World War II tank.
They went up to the top of the hill to pull security so we'd be real safe while we worked at the clearing of the
brush 100 meters out from the road. They eased out for a better view. After getting up there, they found out that
the brakes were gone. There was no way to hold the tank, so it started rolling down the hill toward the dozer.
They burned out the reverse gear trying to avoid the collison with the dozer. You can see from the picture that it
wasn't very successful. It was explained to me that they did succeed in turning the muzzle a little to keep from
hitting me in the head. I was backing up and looking over my right shoulder. I heard what was a loud bang and got
slammed side ways a little. In the battle between the tank at 55 tons and the dozer at 25 tons, the dozer lost.
I turned around, and there was the muzzle to look at and the track was about a foot from going over my left leg. My
hand was already bandaged from a prior incident. I had jumped from the gooseneck of the lowboy earlier in the day
and sort of sprained my wrist.
Somebody took me back to Pleiku to get checked out. Someone else got the job of separating the dozer
and the tank. As for the dozer, the battery boxes were damaged and the A-frame got busted.
Tank engaged with dozer Larry with hand on muzzle
Damaged dozer in motor pool
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