Slide Show "The Search for Rusty"		M551 as seen at Fort Knox during Armor Board testing. Note the mock up M2 machine-gun added for creating an accurate profile. --Doug Kibbey

The development of US armored fighting vehicles in that early 1960s period was certainly marked by heady ambition, innovation and decidedly mixed results. The M114, a novel scout vehicle rising from a blank sheet and produced by GM at the Cleveland Tank Plant, was soon considered marginal and destined for replacement. The new M551 armored reconnaissance / airborne assault vehicle program went to the same major defense contractor.

While the automotive problems eventually were solved, the troubled 152mm gun - launcher was always a problem and clearly a wrong turn in US weapons thinking. It was a part of the doomed MBT 70 developmental effort and the M60A2 in its limited fielding. A Sheridan with some variety of more conventional cannon would have been a very interesting vehicle. By the time any serious thought would have been given to this, however, the next generation was well down the developmental path and M2 - M3 ended any further need for pursuing a new light tank or extensive remanufacture of the M551. Lasting well past the micro fleet at Fort Bragg, the long lived Sheridan program continued at the NTC, even if only a fraction of its former self and helped train the tens of thousands of US servicemen who twice won decisively in the desert war they had so long rehearsed.

Eaglehorse troopers at Wildflecken in 1977. --Dan Thompson		M551A1 on static display at the 11th ACR area of Fort Irwin, California. The vehicle seems complete with the exception of the " surf board " on the front slope and the " tea cup " shielding that once surrounded the TC's hatch. Currently no indoor space is available at the Blackhorse / NTC Museum at Irwin. --Doug Kibbey

What wonderful twists to the Sheridan story; early on fitted with the Army’s first widespread laser rangefinder, the M551 lived long at the NTC dueling with MILES laser light against visiting battalions in the California sun. The design requirement specified that it be able to swim, we can find no record that it ever did this in a combat theater. The number of Sheridans destroyed in Vietnam probably is equal to the number written off in parachute accidents at Fort Bragg. Its combat record was built in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam in a role it was never designed to play and decades later, it was key in training a new generation of officers and men in every nuance of desert warfare. If Waterloo was first won on the playing fields of Eaton, then at the NTC, in the dust and heat of the high desert, the Army learned to fulfill former Chief of Staff Collin Powell’s statement that in part, "...we do deserts" and a very important aspect of this was the realism in threat vehicle array that the M551 Sheridan VISMODs provided. From Vietnam to Germany to the United States, through the decades and across the continents, the Sheridan is recalled by thousands of troopers, each with their lasting memories, good and bad.

There probably are surprisingly few Sheridans left. The fleet has already been depleted by foreign sales, REEFEX projects, the smelters oven and the coda of down range target details. Those on static display range from well kept monuments to sad reminders of past glory. Built in Cleveland, they are scattered now to their fates. The guys who assembled them are now long retired, the factory is closed, configured as a convention center, it now features an indoor Ferris Wheel.

Lost in the far Pacific, a foreign sales Sheridan sits in the rear of a Singapore Motor pool.		REEFEX Sheridan on its last SWIMEX. --New Jersey Dpt of Coastal Management

At Fort Knox, along with the Patton Museum and the static display of both US and foreign tanks, a "living museum" of running vintage tanks is maintained. Periodically, they are taken out on a road march for the entertainment of the crowds; the crews wear uniforms appropriate to the period of their tank. Tankers of all ages, kids and wives line up for the show. In the near future, as that mixed column of Shermans and M48s snakes by, towards the end, we hope they add a Sheridan. With so many just coming out of the inventory, it would be a shame to not keep at least one in full running order.

In that crowd, standing roadside on a hot 4th of July, an older veteran shepherding grand children might catch sight of this last runner from the fleet of 1662 and, as so often an old song or half forgotten image can suddenly transport you decades to the past in an instant, this Sheridan would be the catalyst for a cascade of memories. In that instant he would hold his breath and then recall with vivid detail, all the facts, the sights and the very feel of days so far past and then exclaim under his breath to no one in particular, "the Ho Bo woods in 1970 ... Jimmy, Gunner and me ..." and for another slightly younger veteran further along in the crowd,"... so many road marches to Camp Wollbach ... and then Range 80 at Graf ..." and further along still in the crowd, an NCO at a professional development class, "... look at that, just like at ‘planet Irwin‘ ..." as this last running Sheridan goes by.

At the Fort Bragg Airborne and Special Operations Museum, a nicely preserved display Sheridan. --Doug Kibbey / Dr. John Duvall - Curator		Picked clean in the California sun, the remains of a former VISMOD Sheridan are ready for the smelter. --Doug Kibbey

Under all the paint and through all the years, if one could find the first bumper number of this particular Sheridan and talk to the crew that proudly and hesitantly took possession of the tank, as they stripped away the manufacturer and depot pack, perhaps it had been initially assigned to some Troop L in the regimental cavalry. On that day, that first crew held a meeting, half joking and half solemn, maybe in Vietnam, maybe in Germany or maybe at Fort Bliss and discussed a gun barrel name. When they walked back to their billet that night, in the setting sun, on the 152mm cannon barrel, still shining as wet paint, it read "Lucky One".

At Fort Knox, this Sheridan is under restoration. We hope it will be a runner. --Neil Baumgardner