From: Neil E. Amrhein (neil@netfox.net)
Date: Tue Oct 08 2002 - 15:16:30 PDT
I happened to be looking at the front of my M274A1 the other day, and
the way the light was hitting it, I thought I could see an 82 AA and some
other numbers/letters that I could not make out. I took to lightly sanding
and scraping with a razor and uncover several different sized sets of 82nd
Airborne markings. What appeared to be the second "A" may still need to
be uncovered, but I did uncover "82 AB" in 2 different sizes. The problem
is, the
"intermediate command" numbers/letters must have changed several times and I
could hardly get one unique pattern without running into another one. I
thought the first set was like 4900 or 4905, but that does not contain any
letter designations. Then, I uncovered what appeared to be an "H3" and an
"8". As I cleaned, it seemed to become an "H5" or, possibly, an "I-5", maybe
followed by a "0" and something else I have yet to clear up.
I looked around on an 82nd Airborne website, and found some information
about the units, but does anyone know if there is a way to figure out what
commands under the 82nd would have or would not have used mules? If I had a
list of possibilities, it would probably be easier to determine what the
command was. I know there were some Infantry units, and I suppose some
headquarters units, but I'm not positive.
I have not even started to try and uncover the unit activity or vehicle
number (order of march), but I could see what looked like "HQ 49" to the
right of the 82 AB. There seems to be some other numbers under those, but
I did not get to them yet.
I believe there are at least 3 different sets of numbers on this front
panel, each of which was apparently painted over with a brush, before the
next unit was assigned.
The mule is a 1963, and since it is the original 4 cylinder, I'd assume
it was already
out of service before the A3 & A4 models were being built. I don't know when
it was
released for sure, but I'd guess it was sometime in the mid-late 60's?
Any help with unit possibilities would be appreciated.
--Neil
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