I mentioned recently that I had to attend a funeral for an old friend. He was a retired Sergeant Major, an organized and responsible man, who knew he had just a few days left. He called in his kids and gave them instructions on how to take care of their mother after he was gone. He had arranged things to a "T" and gave them all the information they needed to take care of his affairs. He told his wife the night he died that she would not have to worry about anything, the house and the car...

Happy Thanksgiving, Joe...hope you have a lot to be thankful for.

Litke came back from Germany with a Super Beetle, a 1600cc with loud pipes and oversized tires. We were on the same team of instructors at the Fort Ord Drivers School. Our office was connected to one of the big classrooms in a drafty old pre-WWII shop building...the last in a row across the street from the monster motor pool where our trucks were parked. Just across the apron on the north side of our shop was the post incenerator where the local police and sheriffs offices burned up all t...

This is a short one but has always been one of my favorites because Willie is involved and his quick wit was always a joy to me. I am not sure how it will come across in print, well, you be the judge. When we were doing student convoys in the back country of Fort Ord, we were fed lunch by the cook school's field mess operation (where their students learned to use their field equipment). There was limited parking at the field mess so we parked the convoys at a nearby break area and loaded...

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 Im...

We stood at attention as the rifle salute was fired. Another old soldier lowered into the ground. this one an old and dear friend, a long time retired but not long enough on earth. A big man in body and spirit, a sergeant major of the old school and deserving of the honors given him today. Watching the burial detail go through their moves, I was silently going through the commands and the timing of the shots. It took me back to Fort Ord in the middle seventies when I was the NCOIC of the...

Sorry JU readers. As many times as I have warned others about believing what you find on the internet, I fell victim by not listening to my own advice. There is now an updated article from the source I used for a previous article about a Florida School honoring COs on Veterans Day...and apparently the school had a good old fashioned Vets Day celebration without any mention of COs. At least that is what the principal says. I guess the correct thing to do would be to pull down my original a...

My normal wake-up at 0400; down the concrete stairs in the dark to the cold shower. Half-way through the ritual I hear a roar. I dash upstairs and find that Pvt K has awakened to discover that someone has urinated into the top of his footlocker, which he has left open overnight. He accuses me of being the culprit since I was the first one up...we "discuss" this for a few minutes and after many assurances that I know where the PP goes, he grumbles his way into the clean-up. We don't ...

I think it was the summer of 1968, we were living in a little apartment over a shoe repair shop in Lampertheim, Germany. We used to listen to an English radio station (Radio Luxemburg) in the evenings because AFN just played an hour of popular music and the brits played it all night long. It was cool to listen to, it sort of faded out and then it would come back in sometimes but it was music young 'uns like us liked. The British news reader (that was what they called him...no putting on...

Several times during my stay at the 301st we were tasked to do what we called, "drive-aways". We would be whisked off in a bus to someplace and pick up some one else's equipment and drive it to some place else. I am cryptic on purpose...these were usually classified and I don't know how long it is supposed to stay that way. Sometimes we had to train on special equipment before we could move it. It was a lot of fun. On this particular drive-away, we picked up the vehicles and stuff at ...

One of the missions of the 301st Trans (Fort Ord CA) was a general support of the depot activities in the western USA. One of the depots we saw a lot of was just outside Stockton, CA, in Lathrop. They transferred material and equipment from one depot to another, or to ports, or to end users. It usually meant a mission for about 15 tractor trailers lasting a week or more. It was TDY for the drivers (that meant extra money...), so these runs were pretty popular. The other mission of the ...

LH challenged me on my article about the guys in the barracks at Ft Huachuca. I claimed that the Article 15 I got because Cicely attacked the company clerk wasn't my fault. She said, "That's what they all say." She wants to hear the whole story. So here it is, you judge: It was very early in the morning and we were all about our normal get up activities. I was making my bunk and the clerk, one bunk over behind my wall locker, was starting his daily rant about what a crappy soldier Ci...

It was one of those deals, Colonel so-and-so is having a birthday...let's all go sing to him...and have a bite of his cake. I knew him well enough; we didn't go bowling together on Thursday nights, but we were on speaking terms. He was an old guy about ready to retire...and there was cake. We all gathered in the office and sang the song and that's when I saw the cake for the first time. I was a little surprised to see Snoopy sitting on his dog house on a grown-up's cake. The lettering s...

I went to Transportation Corps Senior NCO Course (ANOC) at Fort Eustis Virginia in the fall of 1981. I had been in Germany for more than four years and fully intended to plunge into all the neat stuff you can't get in Germany. The night I arrived I made the mistake of turning on the TV in my BOQ room and discovered cable. In Germany there was one channel (US). When I had left the States, there were three channels and no cable...on this system there were at least 60 channels. I stood t...

In all the old war movies the make up of the platoons was always the same. Big City Italian, smallish Jew, a big ole farm boy, a Pole with an unpronouncable name, Hispanic, Amerind, after WWII there would be a black or two, skinny kid with thick glasses, muscly dumb guy, and of course, the tough sarge with scars and memories. Give or take a few types, there was always this mix. And the crazy thing is, I found the Army to be just like that outside of Hollywood, too. I used to love the old...