The retracing of the 1919 military convoy route made headlines at it crossed the U.S. the past month. The tour commemorated the 90th anniversary of the first transcontinental U.S. Army motor transport convoy, most of it along the Lincoln Highway. Some of the participants also posted updates. Marilyn Boots reported on her travels with Dennis in “Jezebel,” a Vietnam-era jeep that he restored.
Dennis is a former Army captain who served with the combat engineers, with one tour of duty in Vietnam. Their blog is bootsadventure.blogspot.com/ (also the source for these photos). He was maintenance officer for the convoy so his Jeep brought up the rear of the convoy. Marilyn was “chase lead,” responsible for seeing that civilian vehicles carrying family members of convoy participants stay on schedule.
Here is a comment from June 16, just a couple days after the launch:
Wow! The journey had been incredible so far and extremely busy. I just thought I could blog every evening! We’ve start with breakfasts at 6:30 and have not reached our hotel rooms until after 10 each night. Today is our first rest day, so I want to share some highlights. We are so filled up with memories already that we could stop now and be content.
And the end:
WE MADE IT!!! We all arrived safe and with NO BREAKDOWNS about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Western Terminus of the Lincoln Highway on the edge of San Francisco, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Golden Gate Bridge to the east…. We have never been so grateful for police escorts! There were 32 motorcycle policemen helping us through the enormous amount of traffic over the Bay Bridge and through the hills of San Francisco…. Again, we were cheered on by waving crowds and lots of picture taking as we made the final climb to our destination.
Tags: 1919, Convoy, highway history, Jeep, Lincoln Highway, military convoy retracing, military vehicles, San Francisco, Vietnam-era Jeep
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