Neither Sleet Nor Snow Stopped Army Vet Truett

GREENOUGH – Glenn Truett chose the U.S. Army over cotton farming. Looking back at age 86, he said he couldn't have made a better choice.

Truett was raised in the mountains of North Carolina and said he was very happy there. He was no longer happy, however, when his dad moved the family to South Carolina and started raising cotton.

Truett said, "That was no life for me. So when I turned 17, I joined the Army – to get away from there, to be honest with you."

After Infantry Basic Training, Truett ended up at Camp Hale, Colo., where he became part of the Mountain and Cold Weather Training Command. The troops there were taught skills such as skiing and mountain climbing. Truett specialized in the Transportation Division, driving a small tank-tread vehicle called a "Weasel."

When the Blizzard of 1949 inundated a twelve-state area from Kansas to the Canadian Border with an unprecedented amount of snow, Truett was assigned to the disaster response code-named Operation Snowbound. He earned a Commendation Ribbon for his efforts.

According to the Citation, "Private Truett made numerous trips over difficult and hazardous terrain seeking out and delivering badly needed food, fuel and other emergency supplies to marooned and isolated families. In his first week of operation he drove over 500 miles. Typical of these missions was taking necessary medicine to Mrs. Mitchell on her snowbound ranch nine miles south of Springview, Colo. She had been unable to get to town for six weeks. Another mission was taking food and fuel to the Sheppard family eight miles from Springview. They were burning corn for fuel and had been unable to go to town for five weeks. Despite huge snow drifts, raging blizzards and sub-zero temperatures, Private Truett successfully accomplished each mission."

His next deployment was to the Yukon Territory, engaging in maneuvers with Canadian troops.

After that, Truett was sent to Fifth Army Headquarters in Chicago. As an Army representative, he demonstrated the Weasel at the 1950 Chicago Fair. That same year the United States sent troops in support of South Korea after the outbreak of the Korean War.

Before being shipped to Korea, Truett was sent to Aberdeen, Md. for training. Part of that training involved learning how to waterproof tanks and trucks. He said they used "a lot of grease and stuff." Adding, "That was the most miserable thing." To verify the vehicles were truly waterproof, the men then had to drive them into the Chesapeake Bay.

By the time he shipped to Korea, Truett was leaving a wife and two-week-old daughter behind. In Korea he worked as the Company Motor Sergeant for B Company, 73rd Tank. He and the 10 men working under him did repair and maintenance on all the company vehicles, from tanks to helicopters.

Truett said, "We didn't have any garages or anything. We worked on 'em wherever we were. We'd tow 'em in and do whatever needed to be done to keep 'em combat ready the best we could."

Though Truett said he saw quite a bit of action during the war, he said the closest he came to getting killed was when a caravan of troops and vehicles were navigating a mountain road one dark night. One of the tanks suddenly veered and went over the side of the mountain. As it later turned out, it had a broken steering mechanism. Truett said he pulled his jeep over to the side of the road and got out to help.

As he tells it, "An armored personnel carrier came through and ran clean over that jeep. I never will forget that. We were lucky! It was dark, you're moving at night and all you got was what we called the "cat's eyes" [head and tail lights were taped so that only a sliver of light was visible]. He didn't see the jeep until too late."

After a year in Korea, Truett was returned to the United States where he served as Battalion Motor Sergeant at Camp Polk, La. He said that was a very busy place. They had two shifts working all the time on vehicle repair.

After six years in the Army, Truett received an honorable discharge from Fort Carson, Colo. Initially he picked up odd jobs and eventually started his own vehicle repair garage in Black Forest, Colo. where he and his wife Constance and their growing family had a home.

During his tour of duty in Korea Truett had suffered frostbite. Recurring problems with his feet finally landed him in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Denver for a month. When he returned home he decided to give up the garage and take a job with the Civil Service instead, which put him to work once again at Fort Carson. He said he was there when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) facility was built in Cheyenne Mountain and also when the Air Force Academy was built.

It was a 1964 vacation trip that introduced Truett to Montana and convinced him and his wife to move the family to Missoula. Truett transferred within the Civil Service to the U.S. Forest Service, again doing vehicle maintenance and repair. He also got involved with the newly formed Job Corps Program, delivering surplus equipment and supplies to the camps.

In 1989 Truett and Constance found a plot of land in the Greenough area. The family, now consisting of seven children, which had expanded to include some of their spouses, built the home where Truett presently lives.

Even after retirement and despite his frostbitten feet, Truett still retained an attraction to cold weather machines. He groomed snowmobile trails for the Seeley Lake Driftriders for six years.

Truett showed pictures of himself in the groomer facing an avalanche spill. He explained, "This is one where I was going across the pass into Holland Lake. The guys used to tell me I was crazy to go around there at times. I guess I was half crazy. They actually quit using that road because it got so dangerous. There's a lot of snow slides in there. On that particular day, you just had to find the road. It wasn't visible. But I enjoyed the challenge."

Looking back on his years of military experience and his life afterwards using the skills the Army taught him, Truett summed it up simply, "Met a lot of people. Enjoyed most of them."