Rich was a Vietnam vet, a senior NCO, a native Missourian, and a friend of mine. He lived on the family farm commuting distance from Fort Leonard Wood, he was a hunter and fisherman, soldier, and farmer. Tracker makes boats, really nice aluminum bass boats that were the Cadillac of fishing boats. They were made just down the road from Fort Leonard Wood (a great place for huntin' and fishin') and every fishin' soldier at "Lost in the Woods" wanted one. At the time, mid eighties, a nice Bass T...
I heard something on the Fox morning news show that made my eyebrows pass my hairline (thank you, HBW, for that visual). One of the genius experts on the economy was talking about the success of certain proposals in the field of energy costs. He said that we could conceivably see gasoline prices at $3.50 per gallon by the end of summer and that that would be a great victory for the American consumers. Far past the capacity for surprise in this area, I mean we are spending more than $4.00 per ga...
I came to the 515th in the summer of 1989. I was so very pleased to have been promoted and to finally achieved a career-long goal...I was the First Sergeant of a working truck company in Germany, a place where Army trucking is a real mission, real world, full time operational job. I couldn't wait to get into it. There was the added benefit that the company had a terrible reputation for lack of discipline, mission failures, and generally a mis-managed mess. The previous 1SG had been a buddy o...
On a sunny afternoon at the community park in Baumholder housing area, a lady came by with a little toy Yorkshire Terrier on a leash. The dog was spotlessly clean and brushed and with her long "feathers" as long as her legs, she looked like a hovercraft cruising by. MamieLady was about 12 years old at the time. She saw that Yorkie and her heart was nailed. Nothing was ever going to be right in the universe until she had one of her own. Fast forward a couple of years; we have moved to L...
Just a quick disclaimer, folks. Despite the similarity in handles, I am not in any way related or connected or in agreement with the perpetrator of the current flood on JU. When I first saw the name the other day I thought it may be confusing but managable, but when I went in to check the recent posts this evening I thought I had gotten her site by mistake. Whew! Anyway, she ain't mine and we ain't in the same corner.
There have been a few times in my life when things just sort of came together and it became clear what I should do. One of those times was in a pancake house on El Cajon Boulevard near the San Diego State Campus. I treated myself to an early lunch, late breakfast...brunch, I guess. Sirloin and eggs. It was pretty tasty as pancake house breakfasts go. I had left work early, feigning illness. I had driven around a little, settled on a surface street return to El Cajon as opposed to the freeway, j...
It is the 14th of July. It is the day in 1789 that the French Revolutionaries stormed the prison and let the prisoners out...they call it Bastille Day. Typical of the French, there were only seven prisoners in the prison at the time, but the event served to spur the revolution and is looked upon as a great step in creating modern France. So Happy Bastille Day. I always remember the date because it was on Bastille Day, 1967, when I got out of the Army the first time. I was at Fort H...
Three of us were loading at the small maintenance Kaserne behind the main barracks in Bamberg. Bamberg was a town with a tough reputation among the GIs. It had a large Kaserne with two different kinds of units,I think it was Artillery and Armor. And when they weren't practicing to go to war with the Russians, they were really going to war with each other...in the bars of Bamberg. The local labor force guys were loading three one-axle, pintle-towed, cargo trailers on each of our flatbed...
The number two son was at the age when he wanted a drivers license. We were in Ludwigsburg, he was working for the PX gas station in Stuttgart. He had a social life, and he felt that not having a car and a license was a serious crimp in his style. We went through a lot of hoops but finally the fates were kind and his dream car fell into his lap. A multi-colored 1977 TransAm (predominately faded black and rust, with some various shades of primer), a project car of one of my mechanics. The projec...
Let's get straight right off the bat, I have no knowledge of this incident beyond what has been reported on the news the last couple of days. I wasn't privy to the grand jury transcripts, I haven't heard any testimony. I did hear the edited 911 tape that has been making the rounds but there is not enough there to make any kind of determination. If I heard the reporter correctly, there was a police officer who witnessed the incident and apparently supported the shooter's version of events. Havin...
It is an old time-honored tradition that Army units field sports teams and compete. Each season produces its own following. Boxing, softball, basketball, flag football, volleyball and some others...racket sports are more individual but there are numerous tournaments for folks who prefer those kinds of activities. The tradition includes that the teams are mainly composed of enlisted and managed by NCOs...although lieutenants are often included and the odd commander or two will play in some sp...
I know this is hard to believe for those of you not old enough to remember a world before mail order restrictions clamped down. The Clamp Down started around the time it was discovered that Oswald had bought his guns mail order. Prior to that there was a booming (I crack myself up heeheeheeee) business in mail order guns. All kinds of guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, replicas, phonies, you name it, you could buy it and have it shipped right to your door. There was a booming black market in ...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA !!! And all who in it are. You know how I feel about it, I hope you all feel the same way. I REFUSE to apologize to the world or anyone it for saying that this is the greatest nation on the Earth...because I am a speaker of truths.
On the road, in the hooch, in the bush, or in a comfy hotel or "Q" room, sleep was a shaky commodity in Vietnam. The expression "sleeping with one eye open..." is really not sleeping at all. No one can sleep with one eye open (except my little sister, who can sleep with BOTH eyes wide open...ugh...it's creepy). So, since the night belonged to "Charles", we all slept...both eyes shut...but very close to the surface. The least little noise would pop both eyes wide open. A crack of a dry br...
In the middle 60's, in order to disguise a reduction in forces supporting NATO, the Department of Defense came up with a scam and sold it to its European counterparts. The plan was to remove several thousand troops from Germany in whole-unit chunks, but to leave their equipment "pre-postitioned" in storage sites all over Germany. The idea was that the troops that belonged to the equipment could be returned to Germany in huge airlifts and they would be ready to get into any fray the other side w...