My rainy flat tire story took place in Dallas. I was a platoon sergeant in a truck company stationed in California. We were on one of the screwiest convoy missions I have ever been involved with. Our company, the 301st Trans if it matters to you, had changed from deuce-and-a-half trucks to M915 tractor-trailers a year or so previous to my arrival there. Most Army truck companies that are designed for "general support" come equipped with two trailers per tractor. The 301st had been issued one trailer per, and had been begging for the second trailers ever since. When they finally got the word that the additional trailers were ready for issue and awaiting transport...from Texarkana Army Depot...our commander decided that we could go get them ourselves. He bid with our supply folks at Fort Ord for the mission (he bid against civilian brokers and independant truckers...a no-no by DOD rules) and convinced the powers-that-be that we could make the trip cheaper than the civilians could. He made up a number out of thin air and won the bid. Then he had to spend days trying to figure out how we could possibly make that round trip with the money he had bid. The big cost was fuel, of course. Then we were supposed to receive travel money whenever we went out on one of these missions...but by arranging to stay at military posts along the way we saved the hotel cost and shaving the fuel cost by cutting down to thirty instead of sixty trucks (we would stack the trailers) allowed us to eat on the trip. Taking half the trucks also saved on the personnel cost. So on one foggy, Monterey Bay morning we set out with 30 trucks, about 40 soldiers, and one determined commander. Departure was about the only thing that went right. We left with no trailers (bob-tailing, in trucker parlance) and if you aren't aware of the repercussions of that, let me explain. A tractor (not the kind grandpa used to pull his plow...a truck with a fifth wheel) is designed to have a trailer hooked up to its fifth wheel. It carries about half the weight of the trailer and its cargo on that fifth wheel. When there is no weight on the fifth wheel, the back axles of the tractor are very bouncy, VERY bouncy. It also affects the way the brakes work, designed to stop with a whole lot of weight on them, the back axles have a tendency to bounce and lock up and slide one way or another if you touch the brake pedal too hard.

So from the start of the trip, on the soggy Central California roads, inexperienced soldier-drivers were having traction and braking problems and causing a lot of concern among the convoy leaders...not to mention the California motorists. It seemed that every town along the way was a new opportunity for inattentive teenage Army drivers to miss a turn or an exit or just generally get lost. I was spending most of my time rounding up stragglers.

First night in Riverside, at an Air Force base where we slept in a gym locker room. Second night in Fort Huachuca in Southern Arizona sleeping in decrepit WWII barracks. (We had gone right through Phoenix during rush hour that day where no less than ten of our young drivers couldn't follow the Black Canyon Freeway from one end of town to the other and more than twenty miles of the Black Canyon was torn up to re-pave and down to one lane each way). Then the third day to Fort Bliss in El Paso, and another night in WWII barracks. Next, the killer day, all the way across Texas to Dyess AFB where the Air Force put us up in some really nice transit barracks but restricted us to quarters because Dyess is a secret place. Just a note for Mason and any other OTRs who are scoffing at the lack of production: A lone trucker could cover a heck of a lot more than these distances in a day. And on a normal mission, we could, too. But we had to find military bases to stay at...ones that would allow thirty trucks to plug up their bases...and we had speed limit restrictions and distance limits established by Army policy. We also spent a lot of time rounding up lost dogies.

I told you all that so I could tell you this. We came into the Dallas/Fort Worth area late in the day, right as the rush hour was getting fired up. I was soooo tired of chasing idiots who couldn't read a road sign and just generally worn out. The skies opened and poured a drenching rain on us. One of the trucks in front of me barely missed smacking into a van that almost passed its exit and decided to try it anyway. Because of the lack of a trailer, as explained above, the soldier stabbed his brakes and missed the van, but spun around in a complete 360 and then another 180 for good measure, in the process. So in the middle of the freeway, he was stopped dead facing the wrong way with hundreds of unforgiving or uninterested Texans cruising by blowing horns and waving fingers. We got him pointed in the right direction with the help of Texas Public Safety officers and got back underway. I was soaking wet, tired, angry, and not good company. The young soldier that was riding with me recognized that it was not a good time to be conversational. Not a mile past the scene of the spin-out, we came upon a man with a flat tire. He had his trunk open and was dragging out the spare tire and jack. It was a spot with a narrow shoulder, not a very comfortable place to change a tire. I was about to drive on by when the man turned a little sideways and I could see that the right sleeve of his shirt was pinned up...there wasn't any arm in there.

I whipped in behind the car rather quickly, to a chorus of Texas horns and a young soldier's screams. The soldier sized up the situation and counseled me that sometimes the handicapped don't like you to help them, they see it as you pitying them or looking down on them. Since he had sat in the truck out of the rain the whole time we were directing traffic and struggling to get the wrong-way tractor turned around, he was pretty dry. I interpreted his counsel as a lame attempt to remain dry. Didn't work. It turned out the gentleman was glad to have an assist, but stressed that he was more than capable of doing it himself. Almost without realizing what I was saying, I told him that I had been raised by an old Navy Chief and that if he ever got wind that I passed by a one-armed man changing a flat tire in a rain storm without even offering to help...well...there'd be bloodshed, wailing, moaning, and gnashing of teeth...those left in my mouth. We got the deed done, refused the offered twenty dollar bill (I had to take it away from my young soldier and give it back), and got everything put away and buttoned up. The man stopped me as I was getting back into the truck and said, "He must be a pretty special Dad; tell him I said thanks".

This happened in 1984. My Dad died in 1997. Hard to believe it has been twelve years. I still hear his voice in my empty head on occasion, reminding me who I am, what I stand for, when I need to rethink or apologize, and sometimes just a sigh and a question, "What were you thinking?" But I can hear an occasional grunt of approval, too. He was a pretty special Dad.