The Jeep: an iconic hero for Veterans Day

When America entered WWII much of her arsenal was outdated and outmoded. Advancements were needed: better ships, better tanks, better planes. But one stalwart stood ready from the start: the Jeep. As today is Veterans Day, the 101^st Celebration of the end of WWI, it’s appropriate to pause for a moment to consider the contribution of the Jeep to America’s fight to defend liberty.

The Jeep was a simple, squat four-wheel vehicle that served as the standard transportation for officers, scouts, soldiers and sailors during the war. Introduced in 1940, Willys Overland and Ford Motor Company built 640,000 Jeeps during WWII.

Jeeps were rugged critters. They were built for brutal offroad driving – built to go where the infantry needed her to go. Her low profile allowed her to avoid detection behind walls, berms and hedges. She was light enough that several men could pick her up, with some exertion, and move her and carry her out of mud when stuck.

Nearly as important was that the Jeep was easy to work on, particularly for American GIs, sailors and Marines. Growing up in the hardscrabble days of The Depression, these industrious young men were familiar with working on their own cars and farm equipment. They knew how to get a vehicle running again when necessity demanded.

Some Jeeps even had weapons installed, such as 50- and 30-caliber machine guns or, in some cases, anti-tank guns or were used to pull artillery pieces. The versatility of the vehicle was unsurpassed.

With everything the Jeep had going for it, it’s not surprising that she fought in every theater of the war:

The Europe Theater
The Pacific Theater
North Africa
Southeast Asia
CBI – China, Burma and India Theater
The Home Front

With Lend Lease, a program designed by the Roosevelt Administration to provide weapons for America’s Allies, the Jeep was also used by the British, Russians, Chinese, Burmese, Free French and more. Jeep also served with the U.S. military in the Korean War and Vietnam.

While the Jeep is worthy of praise on this Veterans Day, the vehicle is also honored by current models of Jeeps that follow a lineage back to the original Willys Jeep of WWII.

The U.S. military retired their Jeeps in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The aging workhorse was replaced by the HUMVEE (actually spelled HMMWV - High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) which is facing possible replacement in the coming years herself.

Some have suggested that the Jeep may make a comeback in the U.S. military. They could always use a simple, lightweight vehicle that is durable and built to go almost anywhere.

When it comes to the Jeep, of course, the real heroes are those who drove the workhorse into battle, as well as those who built all those Jeeps on the Home Front. And yet, the Jeep is an icon symbol of America’s determination to pay the price of liberty again and again.

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