The Following is a letter written by Jim may for the September 2001 Triple Deuce Newsletter.
Jim has edited the version for reproduction here.

HELLO VIETNAM TRIPLE DEUCE

Hello everyone. This would be easier if I could say I was the mess sergeant or a mechanic or a 4.2 guy or a track driver in a certain company between certain dates. I can’t because I wasn’t. I don’t have a CIB or CMB. I’ve never been on an AP or RP. In fact I wasn’t in the Triple Deuce at all so I think I owe you all an explanation as to who I am and how I became involved with the Triple Deuce back in 1968 and now.

I’m Jim May. Then it was LT May. I am a Dau Tieng soldier. I worked with the Recon Platoon running the convoy from February “68 until you all left in August “68. There were times when other BN elements filled in as convoy escort, but for the most part it was Recon that I worked with. From the day that Eric Opsahl, who left shortly after I arrived in Dau Tieng, and Don Skrove told me what was expected of me I was in constant contact with Triple Deuce Guys. From wake up until the convoy returned from Tay Ninh, we worked as a single unit. One of my Jeep radios was always on the Recon push. The other radio was on the Brigade push. If anything happen on The Road I would be able to immediately call for response from supporting units. It wasn’t following the chain of command, but it would have been much quicker that way. It was the Skrove-May method. Fortunately we never had to use it. My call sign was Papa 3 until we started using different call signs every week or so. I got the call sign Cloudy Peaches 30 and the “Peaches” part stuck. So, some of you might remember me as “Peaches.” I was also responsible for supplying and acquiring items of importance such as “road blocks” and “track wheels” so some might remember me as the “beer man.” I would take the convoy out to meet the escorts, usually at the Bridge, sometimes the first turn in the Rubber and every so often I’d go all the way to the laterite pit beyond the Rubber. The convoy and escorts would leave and I would return alone, so some of you might remember me as the crazy LT or Zorro.

Of course, those of you who were not in Dau Tieng in “68 would have no way of remembering me. It is easy for you to relate to other Triple Deuce Guys that were in other Companies or there at different times once you know what they did. Unless you had convoy escort duty in the Ben Cui Rubber you have no frame of reference so I will explain to you what my job was. Keeping men from getting wounded and killed. Not fighting, if you like. A very simple concept to understand. If you look at the KIA list you will see that no one in Recon was killed during the time that Don Skrove and Jim May ran The Road. In fact the only wounded Guys were truck drivers. There were six or seven PHs awarded and they were all from trucks hitting mines. You won’t hear anyone tell a story about LT May charging in somewhere and rescuing a PC full of wounded Guys. That’s not what I did. I kept them from getting wounded in the first place. You don’t get a CIB for Not Fighting. However, you do get the satisfaction of knowing that a lot of truck and track drivers went home in one piece. That was most important to me then and it gives me a lot to be proud of now. No other unit, before or after, had the kind of success that the 2^nd BN(Mech) 22 Inf Reg had in escorting convoys in a forward area. Not one ambush was successfully carried out against the convoy between March of 1968 and early September of 1968.

Well, that’s what I did and how I got involved with the Triple Deuce back then. I was adopted, if you like.

As for now, a 2/14 friend told me about the 25^th Inf Div WEB site and I started looking around and found the link to the 22 Inf Reg site. I said hello and immediately got a response from Colonel Norris. Andrew Alday of the 3/22 said hello and Magnet said hello. Well, Norm did more than say hello. He gave me the third degree. He wanted to know where I had been and what I had done in Dau Tieng and then he said he remembered me, not LT May, but he remembered the LT that ran The Road with the Triple Deuce. Norm and I went back and forth with a few stories about Dau Tieng. Norm talked with other VN Triple Deuce Guys and then invited me to join. At first I was overwhelmed and then I was hesitant because I had not been out there fighting with you Guys, the men I see as the Real Soldiers, I didn’t want to be seen as a “wannabe” or a pretender. Norm said, “… think about it, you were right there with us…”and I thought about it and took him up on the offer upon the condition that he would put this “Hello” in the NewsLetter.

In closing I would like to tell a brief story. When the convoy came back from Tay Ninh in the afternoon I would track its progress by listening to the tracks call the checkpoints as they went by them. Radio communication was nearly impossible when the tracks were in the rubber. They could talk to each other, but communication into or out of the rubber was difficult at best. The only way to know what was going on was to watch the dust coming up from The Road and hope you didn’t hear any shooting. Once the lead track came out of the rubber, you could see it from the bridge, radio communication was again possible. Trucks would cross the bridge and head through the town towards the gate and we all knew that it had been a good day on The Road. It was then that I’d get on the radio and say, “What do you need?” I have told you this story because I want you all to know the offer still stands. What do you need?

I look forward to playing an active part in this organization and hope to meet all of you at some point in the near future.

It was my good fortune to be thrown in with you back in Dau Tieng in 1968 and it is my great honor to be associated with you, the Real Soldiers, once again.

In his note to the album editor Jim also noted:

" On 21 Jun 2006 I was made an Honorary Member of the
22nd Infantry Regiment (HMOR) by order of the Secretary of the Army.
It took 38 years for me to get transferred to the Triple Deuce."

Jim May