Fort Ord was one of the most beautiful places I was ever stationed. Right on the northern lip of Monterrey Bay, it has sand dunes, sea scapes, coastal hills and behind them there is a series of valleys and ridges that are literally breathtaking. I was stationed there four times (basic training counting as one).
I attended the truck driver school there in 1964 and returned as an instructor in 1975. There were 5 Driver Training Ranges the school used; DTR 1 was in the sand dunes along Imjin Road, and DTRs 2 and 3 were in the East Garrison and Sandstone Ridge areas. DTRs 4 and 5 were essentially the same routes except that 5 had some extensions added. There were 6 teams of instructors. A new class of driver students was assigned to a team and they would stay with the same group of instructors until they graduated, 5 weeks later. That team would usually have a "zero week" to prepare for the next go round, then pick up a new class and start it all over again.
The thinkers in the course headquarters laid out the convoy routes and times like a railroad. With 5 teams of instructors running convoys of up to 30 trucks, the post could get pretty jammed up without careful planning. And they actually worked out more than about 60% of the time, a good score if you are familiar with the success rate of military planning.
The senior instructors set the pace, led, and followed the convoys leaving the job of "spotting" the convoys to the junior instructors. This was the part I loved. It was the same as I had done at Ft Huachuca years before. We got off the route in M151 jeeps and raced off road from choke point to choke point, "spotting" the convoy for stalls, confusion, lost souls, and occasionally the fearful sort who balks at a steep hill or some such. And they PAID me to do it. !!
DTR 5 was the longest route, it traveled through East Garrison, downgrade past Sandstone Ridge, it cut across westward to North South Road then just before the South Gate, it turned east and followed the perimeter of the post next to Laguna Seca Park and Race track through some pretty tall and steep rolling hills, with farms and CA 67 on the right and these big hills on the left, it made a pretty neat sight. The route wound up and down through the hills until it came back around to East Garrison. It was especially important to have an advance man on 5 during certain times of the year because the post hired local shepherds to run their flocks on those steep rolling hills to keep the grass down (you may have heard that fires are a big thing in California) and coming upon a few hundred sheep could destroy the delicate timing built into these operations.
So there I was...running advance on this leg as the road wound around and through the hills... we came across a huge flock of sheep meandering on the road. It was not a good place for meandering, we were on the side of a pretty steep hill, about a fifteen foot bank on the right and a pretty good drop off on the left. We honked and waved and most of the sheep took off down the hill. One little lambie, so cute and cuddly, took off up the hill, separating itself from family and friends. I was worried about how this lone lamb would react to the thundering herd of deuce-and-a-halfs that were about to come around the bend. So I got out to try my hand at lamb-rustling. I tried to get uphill on it and drive it toward the others but every move I made was a loser, it kept running away in the wrong direction. After several minutes of this I finally got a good uphill position and made a lot of noise and waved my arms and chased at full speed. It worked. Little lambichopkins tore off down the hill with me in hot pursuit. Ever hear of "Target Fixation" ? That's when a pilot is so intent on the dogfight that he loses all track of his surroundings, sometimes to the extent of following his prey right into the ground. I had target fixation. And when that little lamb did the most graceful leap off the top of that fifteen foot bank, I realized that 1) I couldn't stop, 2) I couldn't leap like a lamb, 3) this was gonna hurt. It did. The road was gravel, thankfully, but try as I might to slow down, slide, or any thing I could think of, I went over the top of the bank almost at a head first attitude. All martial arts training went out the window. I stuck my hands out in front; I guess I thought I could "catch" the road. The palms of both hands were the first points of contact. I was right on all three counts.
I spent the next half hour watching the convoy go by and trying to pluck the cinders out of my hands. The guy who was driving that day, was called Rookie (for obvious reasons). He was no help at all...he just kept cracking up everytime I would wipe the blood away and try to pick out another little pebble. Finally , I gave up and told him to head for the Emergency Room before I bled to death at my own hands (heheehee). And that was the problem. On the job injuries in the military are followed by an accident/incident report describing what happened. And in the archives somewhere, I am sure highlighted by some smart ass medic, is my accident report describing how I was injured while chasing a sheep over the hills of Fort Ord...purpose undetermined.""