Joel Nichols

Highway Platoon Joel Nichols

In 1967, the Highway Platoon of B Company, 504th MP Battalion worked out of Pleiku in the central highlands of South Vietnam. Each day the platoon's patrols were scattered over nearly seventy miles of road. The men of the platoon worked with weapons that they had never been trained to use, and they did a job that they had never been trained to do. What they lacked in training they made up for in spirit, ingenuity, and courage. They learned from experience as they did the job, and they did the job well. In the Autumn of 1967 the Viet Cong hit the highland roads hard, and they did not stop hitting them. When the time came to fight, the men of the Highway Platoon did that well too.