After reenlisting for six years, I was assigned to the tank section of Headquarters company, 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 4th Infantry Division. We had four tanks in the section, three M48s and one M48A1, to which I was assigned.  The M48A1 had a cupola for the .50 caliber machine gun rather than mounted on the roof of the turret,  I thought I got a good deal with the cupola until I found out the cupola-mounted gun rarely worked properly and resulted in many skinned knuckles.

My tank was named Hornet. The names of all of the headquarters company’s tanks started with H.  While went on field exercises on Fort Lewis, we could not fire our 90mm guns on the post due to safety restrictions.  For gunnery we went to Yakima Firing Center for main gun firing ranges.  We went to Fort Irwin, California for extensive training, including the Tank Crew Qualification Course (aka Table VIII) and testing of the three tank companies.  Our section and two engineer tanks provided the opposition force for their tests.

In late December 1959 we received two M67A1 flamethrower tanks.  I got one of them, which I named Zippo.  In the picture with Hornet below, I am sitting at far left in front row. In the picture with Zippo, I am standing by the fender of my tank.  Click on pictures below to enlarge.