I don't remember the name of the exercise, they all run together after a while. But it was the summer of 1977 and it took place in the Mojave Desert. I told you about the Colorado National Guard's Bikini Water Point, this is the same exercise as that.

It was Navy and Marines against Army and Air Force. We were out there in the middle of nowhere on the 29 Palms Marine base, thirty miles in any direction to the nearest road. We had studied for weeks to memorize the Navy planes and the Marine vehicles we might encounter during the "war" phase of the exercise. Being the support troops; we provide fuel, bullets, food and water to the rest of the Army, we were there more than a week before the rest of the division showed up. The infantry guys would roll in and dismount the air conditioned buses a day before the war started, and load back on the buses and drive away the day after the war was over. Leaving us to clean up and put everything away. So a two week war translates into a 4-5 week exercise...for the support wienies.

Periodically while we were in the "set up" phase, "enemy" aircraft would buzz us and I played the "can you identify that one?" game with my squad. We got used to seeing them. We saw all kinds of neat maneuvers from aircraft. My favorite was getting food dropped on us out of C-130s, a four engine turbo-prop that is the backbone of the military airlift operations. There was an impromptu air strip about a mile from us where the C-130s would come in on approach, level off about thirty feet or so off the deck, then pop out pallet after pallet of supplies. It is called LAPES (Low Altitude Parachute Extraction). The planes didn't land, they didn't even slow down. A parachute would pop open out of the back of the plane and it would drag the pallets out. The parachutes didn't do much to break the fall and the trucks that picked up the pallets got lots of extra rations because sometimes the pallets didn't land flat and they would bust open and spread C-rations all over the desert.

But I digress. This isn't about extra Cs or LAPES. It is about a group of Naval Aviators who need their butts whipped. Air Force guys call themselves "pilots". We call the fast mover drivers "Zoomies". But the Navy is a stuck up bunch of prima donnas and insist on being called "Naval Aviators". Don't get me wrong. There have been times when I was VERY happy to see "Naval Aviators" doing what they love to do. But not on the day in 1977 when the war started.

I was on my way to the mess tent for breakfast. Most of my squad was with me, we were not marching, just ambling along. I heard fast movers coming over, not as low as they had been, but lower than we usually see them in the real world. So I started the conversation with my troopies about what kind of planes they were, were they friend or foe, what capabilities they had...all that stuff. The guys correctly identified them as A-4 Skyhawks. "Naval Aviators" who flew them are a proud bunch...they even have an association of former Skyhawk flyers...even though it certainly wasn't one of the real glamour planes. As we watched them fly over, swing out over the airstrip and go back west again, they turned around and started another pass at us. Lower this time. Faster, too. And I noticed that there was something that looked liquidy coming out from behind the wings. My first thought was that it had a fuel leak...then I saw the other planes were dropping it, too. I puzzled over this, wondering what the heck it was about when one of my guys pointed to the mess tent about 100 yards west of us. Dozens of soldiers were yelling and running around and some of them were putting on their gas masks. Well, DUH. First day of the war...enemy aircraft...liquid from the sky...those bastards were gassing us at breakfast. Just before the first fumes of the CS gas reached me, I looked longingly back at our tent. The Eagles had just released a new album and we named our tent in honor of it...we called it the "Hotel California". It wasn't much, a GP medium. Supposed to sleep about 16 people. We only had twenty in the whole platoon at the time so we crammed all of them into one tent. It was our home away from home, where our bunks and our trunks and our personal items were kept...and it was where my gas mask was hanging on a tent pole...not more than 50 yards away. There was no getting around it. The air outside was quickly becoming unbreathable, I could cover the distance in about 6 seconds at a sprint...but not while holding my breath. I know...I tried. Oh the lessons we learn in our youth.

 The Hotel California

View out the front door of the Hotel California...trucks lined up at the air strip waiting for a LAPES drop.