Operation and Preventive Maintenance
DA FORM 750-30
In 1969 the Department of the U.S. Army collaborated with cartoonist and graphic artist Will Eisner to produce this 5″x7″comic booklet for training purposes.
At some point, shortly after arriving in Vietnam in 1971, I was given the following booklet about the M-16 rifle. I don’t remember for sure but I think it was handed out to us newbies during some sort of orientation training at Cam Ranh Bay.
Having just completed advanced infantry training a few weeks prior to arriving in country, I must have felt that I didn’t have a need to read the book because I never even opened it.
50+ years later, I found it stashed away in one of my file cabinet drawers. The original booklet is still sealed in its original plastic wrapper. Presented below is a copy of all 30 pages of the booklet. There is an amazing amount of information squeezed into this small book, so as a result, due to the small print, you may have to zoom in to read a lot of the pages. (Probably better viewed on a computer screen rather than a phone.)
RUCKSACK GRUNT - A Vietnam Veteran's Memoir 