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...
I was musing over things that were common experiences for GIs in the sixties. Life was a lot different then, obviously, but there are a few oldies but goodies out there so I decided to play the old, "Do you remember..." game tonight. Wherever you go in the Army, you hear the troops talking about the places they've been and the things they had to do. It serves as a kind of bonding to have common experiences...it also provides your creds...you have been there and done that...you are one of u...
I had my first sit down with the two most important men in my platoon as soon as I could. I knew Pwoody from an earlier turn at Fort Ord; he had been a hell-raising drunken corporal at the time. When we locked eyes I saw that he recognized me. We had not been friends. Ricky was a small Philipino who looked as straight as they come. These were my squad leaders, the intermediate leaders who would be the supervisers in my platoon. In a nutshell, they could make or break me. They both had...
Over the years I have met all kinds of people in the Army...I mean people from all over the world. Sometimes the people you meet that are from other countries don't speak English all that well. It can lead to some funny situations. I have already mentioned my first First Sergeant whose accent was so thick that when he got mad and started chewing everyone looked at each other and shrugged, no one knew what it was about. I was in a unit once when the operations sergeant was Philippino and ...
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...
As a coming-home-in-one-piece present to myself, I bought a 1965 GTO when I got back from Vietnam. How I started off shopping for a '66 Chevelle and wound up with a '65 Goat is another story I have already told (http://bigfatdaddy.joeuser.com/article/153991/Little_GTO ) and ( htp://bigfatdaddy.joeuser.com/article/153517/A_Gift_To_MeFrom_Me). But the actual purchase of the Goat is a story that spotlights a few things about The Chief that were amusing to me. After the test drive and the negot...
I used to drink a lot. Sometimes I would drink until I puked. Sometimes I drank so much that I would wake up sometime, somewhere, with no memory of how I got there or what had happened the night before. I wasn't alone in this. In my platoon at Bad Kissingen, almost everyone in the platoon drank to excess and lots of them were like me, puking, lost, underaged, irresponsible drunks. The sergeants I worked for were responsible, functioning, mature drunks who got a kick out of the antics of the no...
With a nod to Ok for jogging the memory. He posted a re-write of an article he had posted on another site awhile back. When I read it the first time it reminded me of an incident from my own travels that I had intended to write about then promptly allowed to slip into the black hole between my ears. Similar is some ways, but different. 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 mi...
Today marks the 19th anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany, which marked the end of the partition that was established by the Big Three near the end of World War II. I was in Stuttgart the night the Wall came down in Berlin. I was still there when the Germans voted to become one nation again. It was awe-inspiring to witness such historical goings-on. I am happy for them, wish them well. I have a huge soft spot in my heart for Germany and i...
It was a fall day in Heidelberg. Trees were turning, air was misty, streets were a little dampish; the kind of day MamaCharlie and I have referred to as a "Heidelberg Day" for many years now. In the same building where Patton died, my son was born. My first son. I remember the first time I saw him, an orangy-peachy color with lots of dark hair. The first time I held him I thought to myself, "This changes everything." And it did. I moved up the evolutionary ladder from resonably responsible you...
On the 17th of February, 2007, I posted an article about my dad, the Chief. It was a story called, "It Rained Beans". One of the comments was from Dynamaso asking if I knew where the Chief had been in Antarctica. I couldn't find the citation for his "Wintering Over" medal so I never answered. Well...this last week we have been going through some old boxes and I found a few photos that included a group shot of the whole detachment as they prepared to go to Antarctica. The photo was labeled "Tas...
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi has requested that the Scottish courts drop the appeal of his conviction in order to clear the way for a potential release from prison in order for him to return to Libya to die. He has prostate cancer and it has spread and he hasn't long to live. The Libyan government and his wife and several others have requested his release, based on compassionate reasons. Name not familiar to you? Megrahi was a former Libyan intelligence operative who was serving as the hea...
In an effort to make some sense out of the bottom half of our house, we have been going through some old boxes and other items. One of the boxes that has been neglected for several years, twelve, in fact, was a box of mementos from my dad, the Chief. When the box came to me a few weeks after the Chief died, I wasn't ready to deal with it so I stuck it in a corner and left it be. Yesterday I thought I was ready. Wrong. One of the items I pulled out of the box was an old beat-up Cribbage board. ...