M-16 Cartoon Booklet

[commygun]

This may be in the wrong forum, but today at the library I came across a reprint of a cartoon booklet drawn by Will Eisner and titled The M16A1 Rifle: Operation and Preventative Maintenance. It's historically interesting and darn useful as an easily understood guide to AR care. I was wondering if any of our members who are Vietnam-era veterans remember this booklet and what their opinion of it was back in the day.

 

[106rr]

Booklet

I served with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade in I Corps RVN. 1967-68
We were issued cartoon booklets showing M-16 maintenance. A higher than a average percentage of infantry troops had difficulty reading. A cartoon booklet showing a sexy blonde cleaning her M -16 was printed up. It included the admonition to clean as often as five times a day.
This was political propaganda to blame the troops for the failure of command. We were prohibited from contacting our legislators, or journalists concerning the jamming rifles. Mail was censored. One guy in our unit had a coded message to his girl friend, she contacted her congressman. A Bird Colonel arrived on our fire base in the highlands near Laos unannounced. Officers were relieved of command or given Article 15s. First they gave us new bolts. Then new buffer groups. Then a lubricant called LSA. We were required to fire our full basic load of ammo every day. 400 rounds for an M - 16. They hoped that would weed out the bad rifles, but 20% jammed at random. Finally, we were given new improved rifles and cleaning kits. After January 1968 we had rifles we could use for war. America lost more than 14,000 service men between June 67 and June 68. The highest casualty count for any year of the war.
This was a scandal that resulted the death of many good Americans.

 

[O-neg]

I remember that comic. M16 Preventive maintenance. If I remember right the blondes name was " Connie ".

 

[fpgt72]

Caring for your sweet 16.

 

[45_auto]

I remember it well. Only thing that had ANY pictures of females that we could look at sometimes .....

PDF of the whole book is here:

https://archive.org/details/DaPam750-30

 

[Willie Sutton]

The Army had a long list of other PM (Preventative Maintenance) cartoons for maintaining just about everything from trucks to generators to rifles. This was just one of that series, and is one of the best known for the obvious reason. All of the ones I've seen have the same basic look, and the same style of artwork.


Willie

.

 

[Byron]

To you who went: Welcome Home. I was an 11B in the 4th Inf 68-69.I recall the booklet well. A little known fact is project 100,000 in which men with low IQ's were drafted and put inthe infantry. Such booklets were developed fpr them. When I got to Nam in Oct 68,the powder had been changed back to the original Dupont powder.The other that The Army substituted made a lot of carbon and jams.I recall opening a crate of ammo in the field and all boxes were marked Dupont Powder.I did not know what that meant at the time but it stayed with me.

 

[towerC]

They still put them every national guard armory should have a few. They used to be a lot funnier. My dad works TACOM and he has quite a collection of older ones.

 

[fpgt72]

I remember it well. Only thing that had ANY pictures of females that we could look at sometimes .....

PDF of the whole book is here:

https://archive.org/details/DaPam750-30

There is/was an entire series that the same cartoonist did. Heavy weapons, vehicles...everything.

I think they are an interesting bit of US military history.

 

[moxie]

Those booklets were all over Vietnam. Terrific!

When I was on my first tour in Germany, my AF weapons technicians were untrained in M-16 maintenance and but we carried M-16s routinely. The AF had nothing helpful. We had a small cadre of Army commo troops and I was able to get them to order a bunch of the booklets through their channels. Our M-16s never looked and functioned better.

 

[theotherwaldo]

As a Gov Docs Librarian trainee (and long-time Eisner fan), I spent a bit of time on this pamphlet and the rest of the individual system info booklets. The PM sets were fun too, even after Eisner left that genre.

When I finally got an AR I just had to get a reprint of the Eisner M-16 pamphlet to go along with it!

 

[kBob]

I still have mine.......

I was not a VN vet but darned close.

The later Black girl was named Bonnie or vice versa. I believe in lat71 or 72 there was briefly an Asian girl.

Of the PS magazines the favorite in my unit was the blond cleaning her M1967 Body Armor "Frag Vast" by wearing it in the shower. I never saw her in our shower bay on stand downs when we could was the armor and let it dry a few days...........

I did find that page of a PS magazine taped to the back of a stall door in the John......eeewww....

-kBob

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I could not figure out how to download the pdf embedded at that sight but here is a downloadable version:

https://armsroom.com/files/m16.pdf

Mike

 

[commygun]

AM,
Thanks for the PDF. Now I have a copy!