Military Memories II

The second round of Military Memories. For the first round, please see Military Memories.

I Help Train Some Infantrymen

This was back in 1977 or so when I was an E-3 in our company's weapons platoon at Ft. Lewis, WA, 9th Infantry Division. It was during the summer, and our infantry company was holding a night training exercise out in the bushes of Ft. Lewis. This only involved the line platoons, and my platoon (the weapons platoon) was not involved, but for some reason the First Sergeant tapped my platoon sergeant to help keep him from getting lonely at the company Tactical Operations Center (TOC). And because I was the platoon leader's driver, my platoon sergeant tapped me to drive him out there. Great. Just what I wanted to do. And just to keep it real, he made me sign out my weapon with blank-firing attachment (BFA) and a magazine of blanks. So I would have to clean the darned thing when I got back, regardless of whether I fired it. I wasn't supposed to be involved in the exercise, and I have no idea why he couldn't have driven the jeep himself.

There was a radio to monitor the platoons, but the Old Man's radio-telephone operator (RTO) manned that, so once the TOC tent was set up, my job was to sit there and be bored. We had gotten there towards evening while it was still light, with the night attacks to kick off around 2 am or so. The three line platoons were set up in a triangle, about 1 km from each other. 1st platoon was to attack 2nd platoon, 2nd platoon was to attack 3rd platoon, and 3rd platoon was to attack 1st platoon. Two squads from each platoon would attack and one squad of each was to defend. The point of the exercise was to practice night attack techniques. It was overcast, so no moonlight. Pitch dark. And this was in a deeply forested part of Fort Lewis.

So the First Sergeant and my platoon sergeant just sat there in the light of the Coleman lamp and shot the breeze. For hours. I was rather ticked off about the injustice of it all, but then it occurred to me that I could have a little fun. After announcing my intention to get some sleep, as 2 am approached, I headed off towards where I knew one of the platoons were sitting. As I approached a particular road junction a couple hundred meters from the TOC, I saw (or rather heard) that they were actually using the road as an assembly area. So I went down the road a little bit towards them, and still only hearing them, I let off a burst of blanks at full auto. Immediately I ran back towards the junction, which had a raised triangular patch of grass and brush about fifteen feet in diameter, and a couple of feet higher than the road, around which the road ran, and plonked myself in the middle of it.

Pandemonium ensued, and they apparently thought their attacking platoon had jumped the gun and attacked them early. And they scattered! It wasn't long before they sent a few guys down the road to see who had fired at them, but I just laid there and kept my peace. Eventually I fell asleep, awaking a couple of hours later (it was still dark). I walked back to the company TOC and got into my sleeping bag for real.

In the morning everyone went back to the cantonment area, the exercise having concluded. Later, I found out that I had totally blown that platoon's attempt to carry out their attack. Some of their guys had ran off into the bush (trying a counterattack?) and had gotten lost (noise and light discipline, you know), and they spent a couple of hours reassembling for their attack. I don't know if it ever came off. Nobody got hurt in this event, though some were embarrassed. I was rather pleased with myself.

Did they ever find out who was responsible for this mess? Nope. Nobody even so much as questioned me about it. I guess the platoon sergeant never thought I could have been involved, since I told him I was going to get some shuteye just as I wandered off. And I did get some shuteye. After a quick bit of messing around.

The Fastest Gama Goat in the Battalion

An M561 Gama Goat similar to the one I drove

This goes back to my days as the Gama Goat driver for the TOC of 2/39th INF in the 9th INF Div. 1978ish.

By this time I had risen to the exalted rank of Specialist 4, and I wanted to be the gunner of an 81mm mortar squad, but it was decided that instead I'd spend several months driving our battalion's Tactical Operations Center Gama Goat. This was supposed to be "soft" duty, but I joined the Army to shoot things and blow them up, not drive a 6-wheeled vehicle around and sit in front of the S-3's radios. And have to deal with officers and senior NCOs all day.

In the first place, I was first asked if I wanted the job. I said "No!" This was at my first "interview" with the Operations Sergeant, who would be my immediate superior. He passed me along to the S-3 himself, a Major, and head of Operations. I told him "No" as well. Finally they put me in front of the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Donald F. van Eynde. I repeated my preference to not join his august staff. I was happy to hear him say "Well, we'd rather not have anyone in headquarters who doesn't want to be here, so you can stay where you are." I thanked him, and went back to my platoon. About three weeks later the assistant operations sergeant, SSG Amos B. Parker, spoke to me while I was waiting in formation, saying "After this thing finishes up, report to the S-3 shop. You're to be the TOC driver, and no more argument." Well, there I was, voluntold. I never asked why, but later I speculated that they hadn't been able to find anyone else they liked.

I have to say, my Gama Goat wasn't too bad when it came to driving on the freeway. It was literally the fastest one in the battalion. I could peg its speedometer on the freeway, with all three cylinders burning like crazy.

Well, I could peg its speedometer if it was going downhill. But that's another story.

As fast as it was, however, it had a transfer case problem. The transfer case is what connected the transmission to the three axles (6-wheel drive, guys!). The case had its own dipstick, and had some kind of lube oil in it -- I think it was 90W.

Every time we went to the field we had to have our vehicles inspected by the Motor Pool guys. And every time they inspected my Goat, they would pull out the transfer case dipstick and discover that the lube was contaminated with water (instead of a nice dark color, it was brown and foaming). They would then "redline" the Goat because you can't have water in the transfer case! So, I would drain the transfer case, put new oil in it, and drive it over to the inspection station. Then it would pass. However, the next time we went to the field the exact same thing would happen, even in the driest weather.

I got frustrated and decided to figure out what the problem was. Once we got back from one field experience I checked my transfer case, and lo! and behold! it was water-contaminated. With no rain, no driving through puddles, creeks or rivers. I drained it, refilled it, and then drove around the motor pool for about five minutes. Checked the transfer case, and dammit! it was water-contaminated again! Later, on a Friday I drained the transfer case again, and filled it with solvent instead of oil. This was the same solvent we used to clean oily, gunky parts with. After filling it with solvent, I fired up the engine and drove the Goat back and forth about five or ten feet in order to mix up any oily water that might remain. Then I drained the solvent. I left the transfer case filler cap off, and the left the drain plug off as well, so that any residue that was still there might evaporate or drain off.

On Monday morning I went back to the motor pool, put the drain plug back on, filled the transfer case with 90W, installed the filler cap, and drove the Goat around the motor pool. Upon checking the transfer case lube IT WAS WATER-CONTAMINATED AGAIN!!! I think I may have screamed and hollered for awhile. Where was the water coming from? The water in the engine coolant wasn't going down, nor was there any oil contamination of the coolant. The transmission was likewise uncontaminated. There was no way water could get into the transfer case, but it was nevertheless doing it somehow.

I did take the problem to the motor pool personnel, and they looked but couldn't find the source of the problem. And they just told me to "suck it up." Short of sending the Goat to depot maintenance, I don't know what else we could have done. And that was out of question, as it was still usable as it was.

So what did I do? I gave up. Every time it came time to go to the field, I'd get the Goat ready, take it to inspection, and when they would inevitably down-check the Goat for water in the transfer case, I'd just refill the transfer case and then (as long as I didn't drive it very far) it would pass.

I guess the transfer case was haunted, or else was in some kind of unholy communication with some body of water in another dimension.

Sorry there's no big exciting ending to the story. I didn't hate that Gama Goat, but it was a big pain. I was happy to go back to shooting mortars, when they finally let me, but it took getting promoted to sergeant before they let loose of me.

Guarding the Artillery Ammunition

Some time after I had been transferred to the 9th Infantry Division Artillery (Divarty), I was commanding a guard post over a field ammo depository out in the middle of Nowheresville, Fort Lewis. This was back around 1979. I had about ten guys in my detachment.

It was sometime in late morning. We had been out there all day and all night, and were supposed to have been relieved six hours before, but the relieving unit had completely lost the plot. Our field phone was nonfunctional, and I'd sent out a runner to try to get ahold of somebody, when suddenly the full-bird colonel division artillery commander shows up in his jeep to check us out. Oh, yes, we were all alert, as it was daytime, but I had relaxed discipline and allowed anyone not actually standing sentry to just chill. We looked like a ragbag after the all-nighter. I saluted the bird in what was at the time rather informal attire -- yes, I had relaxed, too -- and he swings out and has a skeptical look at us, while the Divarty command sergeant major addresses me:

"SGT Clark, what the hell is going on here?"

"Well, Sergeant Major, we're six hours past our relief and they seem to have forgotten we're out here!"

Anyway, the ball had been dropped by more than just the relieving battery. The folks at the other end of the field phone should have checked out why they hadn't heard a communication check from us for several hours, and my battery headquarters should have been wondering where we were, but apparently they were too busy studying field manuals. I understand that after Divarty got word back to the battalion headquarters, "A" Battery cobbled together a relief detachment as quickly as they could. By the time we were relieved and had gotten back, my battery commander, CPT Gary Hall, was partly amused, partly dismayed. He greeted me thusly:

"SGT Clark! Why do I feel my career passing before my eyes?"

I couldn't figure out why he was worried. The only ball I had dropped was to look a little sloppy in front of the big bird. The ammo was safe, after all, and it was some other idiot who was actually in trouble. Battery A's commander or First Sergeant, probably, as they were the ones who were supposed to have relieved us. Later it occurred to me that my own battery headquarters had gotten in trouble, too, since they had apparently forgotten that we were still out there.

Meeting SFC Reid After Many Years

While I was acting as our platoon leader's jeep driver, our old platoon sergeant left and a new one came on board. His name was Ralph Reid, and was an actual Sergeant First Class (E-7). He was quite competent but rather acerbic; he actually reminded me of a drill sergeant. At the time I thought he didn't like me, from the way he acted, and I didn't know why. Not that he went out of his way to be extra disagreeable.

Like I said, I was Lieutenant Morgan's driver and RTO at the time, and one time when we were at the range, firing our mortars in the rain, I was supposed to stay with the jeep's radio monitoring the range control frequency -- my thought was "Why get wet if I don't have to?" so I sat under the canvas roof watching the goings on. Possibly because he didn't like me "getting over" by staying dry while everyone else was getting rained on, or at least drizzled on (it was Ft. Lewis, the drizzle capital of the US Army), he made me stand outside my jeep's canvas roof so I would get wet, too (he didn't make the fire control computers do it, though). Another time, my mortar section was practicing for the mortar qualification (the bar that goes underneath the weapon qualification badge), and he threatened that he was going to make me be a gunner instead of a driver. So he "made" me do part of the practice test. What he didn't understand, I think, is that I didn't want to be the driver, I wanted to shoot at things and blow them up! But the platoon leader had made me his driver, so that's what I did. By this point I was a SP4 and was hoping for a gunner position to open up.

What I began to recognize, finally, was that SFC Reid did not dislike me. He was simply an acerbic personality, and to a large extent his grumpiness was his way of having fun. He was never vindictive, and he bestowed his favors upon everyone. I rather liked him from the beginning, despite feeling he didn't like me, but I really began to appreciate him. He knew what he was doing, and knew how to run a platoon. After several months we went our separate ways, first by him being assigned as the company's acting first sergeant because our first sergeant was transferred, and I got assigned as the driver for the battalion Tactical Operations Center -- despite my objection, I should point out. I never did get to be a gunner, by the way, but did end up as a squad leader, eventually.

Years later, after I was again a PFC ("proud freaking civilian"), I was visiting the Capital Mall in Olympia, Washington, standing outside the Orange Julius contemplating what to get, when this older guy in a custodian uniform, with a goatee beard, comes up to me and starts haranguing me, like what I am doing here, don't you remember me, etc., and I stand there dumbfounded wondering who this is, and what the hell is wrong with him? Finally, he seemed to recognize my lack of recognition, and puts his hand over his goatee, asking if I finally know who it is? I still laugh at this, to this day. BING! It's Sergeant First Class Ralph Reid! In civies with a goatee!

"Ralph!" I cry gleefully. He says "Finally!" and we shake hands and have a nice catching up. Funny thing is, I had never called him by his first name, and it even surprised me that that was the first thing out of my mouth. I ran into him a couple other times after that, as he worked at the Mall, but the last time he seemed a bit down and talked like he was going to be finding a new job somewhere else. Never saw him again, but if you are still out there, Ralph, I hope things are going well for you.