It was late summer of 1977. We had just spent four long, dusty, hot, windy, and mostly unproductive weeks in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It had been a "war" between the Army and the Marines. We had been manuevering all over the Marine base at Twentynine Palms. As in a real war, my part of it had more to do with supplying bullets, beans, and black oil to the shooters than actually shooting. My guys had done a good job, though. Now we were on our way back to Fort Ord. We were organized into two huge convoys seperated into three "serials" each. The drive from Twentynine Palms to Monterey Bay can be done comfortably in one day. But a two hundred plus vehicle Army convoy had to do it in two days, requiring an overnight stop somewhere. The somewhere they chose was Bakersfield...in the parking lot of the park by the river.
The parking lot was supposed to be cleared out and closed to civilian cars before we arrived. It was, for the most part, with a few stragglers getting run out while we were trying to get all the Army trucks into it and parked. About smack dab in the middle of the lot was a VW bug. The driver couldn't be located so we just parked all around it and settled in for the night. We had a dinner catered by McDonalds, a real treat since we had been eating mostly C-rations for the whole time...with a few hot meals thrown in now and then. After dinner we sat around "smokin' and jokin'". It was a purely "admin" environment, meaning no tactical stuff. The parking lot looked alot like a hobo camp, if hobos had Army trucks. Card games sprang up, small campfires appeared, a guitar or two surfaced, and the atmosphere became very casual and relaxed...tomorrow we would be HOME.
I did mention it was late summer, right? Stayed light out pretty late. Just before it started getting dark, a young couple appeared walking across the lot, looking very confused and more than a bit scared. He in his Speedo and her in a very small bikini. Did I mention we had been in the desert for a month? As they walked on, a sort of quiet spread across the area, a small but growing group began following them. The guy was getting more and more self-conscious and the young lady, who at first was very concerned-looking, warmed to the role of "center of the universe" and began to get a little showy. She stood straighter, shoulders back, hips began to increase their pendulum motion. And that only made things worse for her guy. When they arrived at the VW bug that was locked tight in the middle of a sea of soldiers and trucks and trailers and such, the look of dismay on the young guys face was that of a doomed man. But being who GIs are, they immediately began to shuffle things around, no simple task, and eventually managed to get the VW on its way. To the cheers of hundreds of grateful GIs who were standing on trucks and trailers and forming an honor guard for the departing couple...the GIs way of thanking the couple for reminding everyone what we were fighting for.