Just this side of the border, a fleet of military vehicles parked on lawns around this small border town makes it clear which side of the border you’re on.
“The Canadians give us some looks,” said Danny Campanian, owner of the Glocca Morra Inn and this curious collection of vehicles.
Campanian often sees cars, particularly from our neighbors to the North, with people gawking at the collection.
“Most people don’t see so many in one pile anywhere else,” he said. “Some people in town think it’s a big pile of junk, and the old ladies frown on it, but most people are pretty good about it. They’re patriotic vehicles. They went with our guys to war.”
The vehicles are generally in decent condition. He drives them around the countryside.
Campanian started his collection of military vehicles as a 14-year-old boy, when he bought an old Army truck with a car body on it from a farmer.
He still has it since “nobody wanted it,” he said.
But really the collection goes back further, to the stories told by his brother who served in World War II, and the toys Campanian played with as a boy.
“I had toy Army jeeps and trucks and then got a real one,” he said. “Whoever has the most toys…”
Now he figures he has about 35 six-by-six trucks (six wheels), as well as Jeeps, humvees and other vehicles.
“I’m sure there’s 50 or 60 kicking around,” he said. “I have some out of town, too.”
The most surprising part of the collection is probably the US Army Gama Goat, a six-wheel-drive semi-amphibious vehicle developed for use in the Vietnam War.
“It’s really weird looking,” he said. “We put it in parades.”
The Gama Goat came from California, in pieces, and Campanian put it together with help from some spares for parts.
“These are amphibious, but it has to be very calm water or they sink,” he said. “Slow-moving rivers. Lakes.”
Just as well there’s no ocean for 500 miles.
“There’s so much maintenance afterward that I’ve never taken them into the water,” he said.[…]
Looking at the collection longterm, Campanian expects it will go in a retirement auction.
“I do buy and sell,” he said. “I’ve sold lots of Army trucks to ranchers, a few into Canada and to collectors. There’s a lot of people who collect military vehicles.”
He also rented some to the production crew of the 1990 movie “The Fourth War,” which filmed winter scenes in Canada. It starred Roy Scheider, Jurgen Prochnow, Tim Reid, Lara Harris and Harry Dean Stanton.