STG2 Dave Suminski

In a few of the reunion that I have been attending I have heard the story of GMGSA Robert J. Summerhill talk about the Joey Boat destroying a tank on the beach in Vietnam. Well for awhile it sounded to good to be true. Well, as Paul Harvey used to say “here is the rest of the story”.
I now work for the VA Hospital in North Chicago, IL (aka: Great Lakes, IL) and I have known this person named Charles for about 4 years. He saw that I was wearing my VFW shirt one day a couple of weeks ago at work and he was talking about his time in Vietnam and the time he was chasing a tank down the beach and then all of sudden he gets the word that tank was destroyed by a US Navy ship.
That tank had been stolen by a North Vietnam army team. They were dressed in South Vietnam army uniforms and had spoken perfect english. The Tank was a M-60 American tank that was fully loaded out.
They get the call at about 21:30 (9:30 pm) and they were on the road by about 22:30 (10:30 pm). Chasing that tank was 3 sheridan’s, 1 105 mm recoilless rifle, two jeep with 50 cal. machine guns on them, a tank Hauler and three armored personnel carrier’s with troops on them.
They wanted that tank so bad that they were going down the beach at full speed with their white lights on.
Then at about 24:00 (12 Midnight) they got the message to slow down turn off the lights and to return to their compound. THANKS to GMGSA Robert J. Summerhill and the rest of the Best gun crew around on board the USS Joseph Hewes.
Oh, by the way. At that time the Commanding officer of the Charles unit was the person that led the forces win the first Gulf War. Collin Powell