MCB came from Denver. He was older than most enlistees...even older than most of the draftees. In the middle sixties, the draft age average was about 21 and six months. Used to be if you were married you could get deferred...but if you got a divorce before age 32, you went back into the hopper and could get drafted. So the two oldest draftees in the platoon were Mac, divorced at age 30, and Tatum, divorced at age 27. The rest of the draftees were in their early twenties and the enlistees...

Watching a commercial on TV about a new imaging process that shows a full size, 3-D image of an embryo in the womb, I heard the announcer say that now you can see the family resemblances in a week or two. And you can know for sure that it is a human life. I know what they were intending...the argument that it ain't people until whenever your favorite formula kicks in. But the way they stated it put the silliness of the whole argument on display. Of course it is a human. Giraffes don't co...

The annual PT test had to be modified because we didn't have all the facilities at Daley Barracks that you needed to do it right. So we did the 40 yard low crawl, didn't have the pit for Run, Dodge, and Jump so we did the inverted crawl instead. We did have a Horizontal Ladder, did that...don't recall what we did for the forth event...but one lap and a little change around the parade field was almost a mile and the Colonel called that good. I was 18. Should have been in the prime of my l...

Hope the new year brings you all you need and then some. Just keep pressing toward the mark for the prize...

Lt Marcus came into the POL office after lunch looking like he'd been visiting with the Commander again. He was muttering under his breath and looking down and went straight into his desk and plopped down without a single punch line. Strong signs of having received counsel from on high. Against my better judgement, I asked what was wrong. Turns out the Commander's wife had to be in Kaiserslautern for a big deal luncheon that day and the Commander had put their car in the shop for an oil...

Merry Christmas, Joe...or Happy Holidays or whatever floats your boat. If you are an athiest, at least thank Jesus for the day off !!

In almost every Army unit, vehicles are required to have a guy in the right seat to be the "TC". Truck Commander? Tank Commander? Not Vehicle Commander because that particular achronym was already taken in Asia. In any case...the duty of the TC is to be in charge, keep the driver awake, help spot landmarks and road signs, perhaps navigate, and make sure the vehicle doesn't get used for anything it isn't supposed to be used for. Some units take the TC job more seriously than others, but...

During my second break in service we lived in Phoenix. For a while I was an instructor at the Arizona School of Driving...in fact I was the instructor Trainer there for a while. People come to professional drivers instructors for a variety of reasons, but they all boil down to one thing...it ain't as easy as it looks. Dad brings little Suzy into the office, he wants her to have the best training available, it's a rough world out there...the streets and traffic in this town are getting wors...

The Group Leader thought it was a good match. The hour's worth of repetitive techniques and structured training was through and it was time for the favorite part of the session...free-style sparring. The Philipino was a little shorter and about 20 pounds lighter, but he was quick and experienced. The white kid was a bit of a novice, but a quick learner and very aggressive. Larry, the Group Leader, was sure the Philipino would take the match, but he was anxious to see how the white kid re...

The Swirling Epicenter is unusually aswirl this last week. The shooting at Pastor Ted's Church has gotten international coverage, the local talk radio is aflame with rhetoric about gun control and gun proliferation and who should shoot, who shouldn't shoot, who can carry and who can't carry. The ususal teams line up on opposite sides of the ball and the game is on. The problem is that I agree with both sides to an extent, but disagree as well. There has been a lot of discussion, even here...

Tis the season...so I think I will share a tradition or two with you that are among my favorites. This one is not from my family, but when the fella told me about it I immedialtely wished it was. This is how it went: When he was a kid, everyone went to Grandma and Grandpa's farm for Christmas. It was a large family, with dozens of grandchildren. The rule was to keep the childrens' presents hidden in the barns and other out-buildings until the kids were asleep on Christmas Eve. Then the...

I had to get out the old M-14 and start cleaning it today. I made the mistake of listening to too much news on TV this morning. The cleaning is a calming process and helps with perspective. Pry open the trigger guard and lift the trigger mechanism out of the stock. This makes it possible to separate the receiver from the top of the stock. A fella named Soto was asked if he wasn't endangering the public with his flight from the police, driving the wrong way through traffic and sideswi...

A small word of warning. I don't do blue...but this one may not be for everyone...contains scatological humor. In order to ramp up for any major exercise, little three day exercises are planned to fine tune some aspects of field operations. I have been against three day field stints for a long time. The problem is that a GI can endure anything (almost) for three days. They can avoid hygiene, live in the same clothes, and hold their potty needs. In order to learn to live in the field, ...

We were pulled out of Log Base Nellingen and regrouped in Echo. We only had one vehicle loss, a 5000 gallon JP-8 tanker that was still burning two weeks after we dropped it in flames. We accounted for all of our equipment and did a couple dozen shake down inspections to make sure no one was trying to bring an AK-47 back to Germany. There was a mad rush to get us down to the Desert Inn, a holding camp set up with tents, pizza hut, ice cream shop and other comforts so we could move our vehic...

I went to Twentynine Palms in the summer of 1977 with the 7th Infantry Division. We were part of a huge exercise that was supposed to teach us a lot about living and fighting in the desert. The Marines were our aggressors (that means that they were our simulated enemy). The Marine/Navy aviation were bad guys, Air Force was on our side. There wound up being more than 25000 troops involved in this little desert war. Before I tell you how the Colorado National Guard played a huge role in ke...