Vietnam Souvenir M21 SKS

[VietnamBuff 1963]

Vietnam souvenir M21 SKS brought home by unknown serviceman in 1970. The 48th Motor Transportation Group was under the 8th Transportation Brigade. Here is some info on the Brigade:

8th Transportation Brigade

The mission of the 8th Transportation Brigade is to produce soldiers that are highly motivated, disciplined, physically tough, and proficient in battlefield skills, sustain the skill of the permanent party personnel and ensure cadre are combat ready for world-wide deployment during mobilization for war, provide common schools support (administrative and logistics) for the United States Army Aviation Logistics School, the United States Army Transportation School, and the Non-Commission Officers Academy, and to on order, assume command, control and conduct sustainment operation/support for TOE and TDA units.

The 8th Transportation Brigade was originally constituted on 9 December 1943 as the 8th Traffic Regulation Group. The unit was trained at Fort Lawton, Washington, prior to serving in the European Theater in World War II in the Northern France and Rhineland Campaigns. In June 1946, the unit was inactivated at Reims, France, and later reactivated at Frankfurt, Germany, in October 1949.

Allotted to the Regular Army on 27 March 1951, the designation 8th Transportation Group was given to the unit on 3 January 1955. The Group served in Germany until deactivation in December 1963. In June 1966, the Group was reactivated at Fort Lewis, Washington and served in Vietnam from October 1966 until its deactivation in April 1971. On 14 July 1986, the unit was reactivated and redesignated as the 8th Transportation Brigade and organized at Fort Eustis. The 8th Transportation Brigade presently consists of 3 battalions totaling 13 companies with approximately 3,200 personnel. The Brigade provides command, control, and administration for both students and faculty assigned or attached to the U.S. Army Transportation and Aviation Logistics Schools and permanent party assigned to the U.S. Army Transportation Center.

The primary mission of the 8th Transportation Brigade is training and its reputation for sending high quality, fully trained soldiers to units throughout the world is well known and highly respected. The Brigade conducts soldierization training including common task training, field training exercises, and physical training. In all of these areas, emphasis is on learning basic soldiering skills thus enabling success in combat and completion of assigned missions. The enforced soldierization program for advanced individual training (AIT) soldiers goes beyond the requirements for common task training and places soldiers in a variety of leadership and training scenarios. These scenarios require an independence that simulates the field environment that they will enter after graduation.

The mission of training soldiers is not limited to Fort Eustis or times of peace and the Brigade supports the Army mission regardless of the difficulty. During Operation Desert Shield in 1990, the Brigade assumed command and control of 16 FORSCOM units remaining at Fort Eustis, and during Desert Storm processed more than 1300 Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) soldiers. In addition, it trained 300 replacements and provided reinforcement training for 1500 reservists. The mission continued in Somalia and Haiti when the Brigade provided much needed technical assistance to Transporters supporting Operation Restore Hope and Operation Restore Democracy. Today, Transporters from the 8th Brigade can be found supporting Transporters in Bosnia to strive for excellence. The 8th Transportation Brigade is truly WITHOUT PARALLEL. (GlobalSecurity.org) Adrian Van Dyk photos.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Very nice piece. I have what I believe to be a VC Chinese SKS bring back but alas no documentation.