http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghXatUGIi9g

This morning I came across one of those movies that I cannot resist watching whenever I stumble across it.  "Mr. Majestyk" was released in 1974, starred Charles Bronson, was filmed in Colorado (in areas I am familiar with), and was full of 70's TV people.  The plot was unremarkable:  reluctant love interest, bigger-than-life bad guys, beautiful moll, simple farmer just trying to get along gets crosswise with local bad guy, shoot-outs, car chases, and some tough-guy talk from the hero (a Vietnam war hero...not the deranged kind who became a staple source for Hollyweird villains).  The acting was 74-ish, the clothes were laughable (did we really dress like that?) and the dialogue edgy (for 74).  Pretty much a format action movie for its day.  But there was one difference that always hooks me.

The first time I saw the movie I was an instructor at the Army's truck driving school at Fort Ord, California.  Part of the school's course was teaching young trainees to drive various vehicles through rough terrain and off-road environments.  Yes.  And they paid me for it!  Even when the students were driving around the backside of Fort Ord on dirt and hardball roads, the instructors had to race around off-road to get from choke-point to choke- point, to places where students had problems or to viewpoints where we could see long stretches of the route and watch for those things. 

The M-151A1, 1/4 ton Utility Vehicle (Jeep, to you) is a remarkable little vehicle.  It had a Ford four-cylinder engine (the same one they put in the Pinto), a four-speed transmission, four-wheel drive, and was so light that four good-sized Privates could pick it up and turn it around (true story...been there, done that).  The most endearing of its qualities was the fact that, in the right hands, that little sucker would go almost anywhere.  I loved my job.  And I was danged good at it.  There were some places out on those routes where you could easily fly your jeep forty or fifty feet, some places where you had to crawl over big rocks or logs, some long stretches of bumpy dirt tracks that you could traverse at forty-five mph, floating over the low parts, bouncing across the high parts.  It was amazing fun and it was not optional, you had to do it!

So, back to the movie.  The real star of the movie, in my humble opinion, was a beat-up-looking Ford pick-up that Mr.  Majestyk and his girlfriend drove on- and off-road, across ravines, over ditches, through cross-ditches and every other imaginable off-road situation.  The video of that chase is at the link;  it is a little long for a film clip, but if you are a fan of four-wheeling, it is a gas.  The truck was not a four-wheel drive, in fact, it was not modified at all.  Ford used scenes from the movie to advertise their trucks for a couple of years after the movie came out.  They touted the fact that it was a stock F-150 (or 100...I ain't sure);  the same truck was used in all the scenes.

Of course, all the instructors on my team were ga-ga over the movie and spent the next year or so duplicating some of the stunts.  We were a pretty accomplished lot, but one or two of the team blanched at the idea of some of the flying or cross-ditch stunts.  Our boss wasn't too fond of our attempts but tolerated them as long as the students still got looked after.  Your tax dollars at work...in 1975.

One of the things about a military career is that you move around and don't have to do the exact same job for years and years.  Sometimes the jobs suck and you endure it because you know it isn't forever.  Some jobs are jewels and they sort of make up for the suckee ones.  Every now and then you are lucky enough to have a job that surpasses "jewel" status and for me, that was the driving school at Fort Ord.  I did the same job at Fort Huachuca in 1967 and at Fort Leonard Wood in 1985...and they were great.  But the time at Fort Ord in the 70's was the best.