Officer Candidate School (OCS) at the Indiana Military Academy (IMA)

My inspiration to write often has to do with a triggered memory, so if these posts are confusing because they are not in chronological order I apologize in advance.

I have detailed how I came to be a member of the Indiana Army National Guard (ARNG) and now it is time to document how I went from a Private First Class to a Second Lieutenant in the same unit. My career in the guard had been relatively successful as an enlisted soldier. I really had no plans to become an officer but life hands you some interesting little twists and this was one of them. When I joined the 128th General Supply Company, my father had been the First Sergeant. After about 18 months, he moved on to another position and so I was working more as a mechanic now and I wasn’t on Kitchen Police (KP) every other drill. Mostly I was doing what most new mechanics do, I was learning from the senior mechanics. One day in the spring of 1979, while checking the mail at home I received a postcard from the Military Department of Indiana (MDI), Indiana’s version of the Department of Defense. It simple read that they had reviewed my records and wanted to know if I was interested in attending Officer Candidate School (OCS). I had the option of going to OCS at Fort Benning Georgia for the 16-week resident course at an administrative pay grade of E-5 or I could go to the Indiana Military Academy reserve course at Camp Atterbury over the course of a year (two, 15-day annual training exercises and 12 weekend drills) at an administrative pay grade of E-6. Not wanting to be away from my bride, I elected the latter.

I was soon given an appointment for and OCS evaluation board at Stout Field, Indianapolis, Indiana, where I was evaluated by three field grade officers (A Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and a Major) whom I’d never met and they interviewed me to evaluate me for candidacy for OCS. There were three of us there from my unit (I was the junior; the others were a Specialist and a Sergeant) and I was absolutely sure I had not impressed the board. (My high school GPA was 2.65) and the only mildly impressive documentation they had was my Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test score which was well above average. After the board, I had given it little further thought as I was busy getting married and working, just getting along with life. To my surprise, I received a set of orders assigning me to the Indiana Military Academy (IMA) as an Officer Candidate. Surprise! This lasted for about three weeks, then fate decided to pay me a visit. I can clearly remember lying in bed and just as I awoke, lying flat on my back, I coughed. And with that, I now had an inguinal abdominal hernia. The hernia itself wasn’t a big deal, I’d had one as a child. But it required surgery and recovery and this was two weeks before I reported to OCS. OCS is not a place you can recover from surgery and they can’t wait for you either. With this development, I contacted MDI and resigned from OCS without ever attending. (Sigh)

This turned out to be providence as about a month after my surgery, my new wife and I lost our baby girl at birth. The summer and fall of 1979 were tough times as I’d been off work for 6-weeks recovering from the surgery, the disability insurance that was supposed to help us eat while I couldn’t work didn’t get me a draft until two days before I returned to work and then took an additional ten days to clear. Life was pretty well kicking us in the butt. We had no rent money, we had no money at all really and social services was even kicking us when we were down. We qualified for food stamp assistance ($2.00 the first month) and after three months we managed a bit of rent assistance to help out our landlord who was being really nice to us as he could have booted us for non-payment. Finally, by November or so, things were looking a bit better and while I was at one of my weekend drills at Camp Atterbury, I was told to go report to the post commander, Colonel Clifford Brown. I’d had no warning and I had absolutely no idea why I was reporting to the commander but I showed at the appointed time, knocked then entered the office and reported as directed. Colonel Brown asked me to take a seat and then explained that he wanted to know if I was still interested in IMA? I was puzzled, but I told him that I was still interested. He then told me that he was the chairman of my selection board, and based on the previous board recommendation he was again recommending me for OCS and that the other members of the board would concur (It was just me and the Colonel in the office). We talked for a few minutes and I was dismissed. I’d gotten a second change and I hadn’t even asked for it.

With my new orders, the process had changed a bit. I was attached to IMA-OCS at Camp Atterbury for the next year. Twelve weekend drills and four weeks the following summer. I’ll be the first person to admit, I had no clue what I’d gotten myself into by applying for OCS. I knew nothing about being an officer or a leader but I figured it couldn’t be too hard (Wrong) and I knew that if I applied myself I could get through any military school (Correct) so I tried my best to get my shit together before I reported to IMA in June of 1980. My work kept me in decent shape and I worked out a little more than usual. Most of my preparation was my uniforms and boots. I had received some instructions on what I was required to have and had checked off all the items. I’d gotten some new uniforms, embroidered nametags and new jump boots. I tried to get everything up to standard before I reported to OCS.

The first weekend at IMA was an education. There were 60 candidates divided into two platoons. I was assigned to first platoon and my Training and Counseling (TAC) Officer was First Lieutenant Randy Handy. Second Platoon was assigned to Second Lieutenant Martin. TAC Officers are the drill sergeants of OCS. They wear a Smokey the Bear hat, are dressed immaculately, and are generally hard asses. All non-classroom instruction was done by the TAC officers. LT Handy was like his name, unique. He could be very personable one minute, then pull a Sybil (Display a split personality. If you have never seen the 1976 movie Sybil, look it up) and turn in to a raging maniac. You never really knew what to expect from him, which was exactly what he intended. LT Martin was just a prick. LT Marten did mean things just because he was in a position of authority and likely tried to repeat some of the abuse he received in his OCS training. Unlike LT Handy, LT Martin often made mistakes and generally was not respected or well liked.

If you have been to basic training in the military, any branch, then you know the physical part of OCS. You make a mistake; you are doing pushups. You are under 24-hour supervision, everything is inspected and you get to do things you would not normally do anywhere but in training. Our uniform was the standard 1970’s era olive drab (OD) green fatigue jacket and pants, a web utility belt with canteen, combat boots and a helmet liner. I’ll explain a helmet liner as most people likely are familiar with the term. Before the Kevlar helmet, combat helmets were a two-piece device. A steel outer shell and a fiberglass helmet liner. The helmet liner had the web mesh that your sweatband was attached to and weighed about 12 ounces. Like everything else in the Army, it was OD Green. The first weekend at OCS we wore these green helmet liners as our headgear and we were also charged with a mission before the next drill to modify them for OCS. We were issued IMA decals that were to me applied to each side, just above your ears. Before you applied the decals though, you had to paint the liner. The color? John Deere Yellow. The liner had to be sanded smooth (It had a rough texture due to the fiberglass material) then spray painted, then wet sanded and clear coated. Then you applied your decals. The yellow indicated we were Junior Officer Candidates and when we became senior candidates, we would repaint the helmets Infantry Blue (light Blue).

Once of the joys of OCS was drill and ceremony (D & C). Field Manual 22-5 was your bible for D&C and you got to know it and the other manuals in the 50 or so manuals we were issued that first weekend. FM 22-5 was the most used and we got plenty of practice marching to and from classes, meals etc., just like in basic training. But things were always more amplified and you didn’t just have to march, you had to be able to march the unit. The platoon leader and squad leader positions were subject to change at the whim of the TAC officer (Usually after the one before you was relieved). You could be in the ranks one minute and the next you could be in charge of a squad or the entire platoon. These changes can fairly often and if you were the target of the TAC officer for some drill and ceremony error, you were fairly certain to end up in the Duck Squad. The Duck squad was where you went when you fucked up. It was to humiliate you and to encourage you not to repeat the error of your ways. If you were the first person assigned to the Duck Squad, you also go to carry a white plastic goose under your left arm (Officer Candidate Duck). It was called the Duck Squad because you marched single file behind the platoon and you quacked every time your left foot touched the ground. Everyone, eventually, ended up in the Duck Squad. At one point on a particularly bad day, we ended up with more people in the Duck Squad than the platoon we were following.
I mentioned the Duck Squad because at the end of the first drill, LT Handy put me in charge of Officer Candidate Duck. My mission, aside from bring the duck to the next drill, was to make a uniform for OC Duck. I was so overjoyed with this challenge and let me tell you, your wife will spare no expense in adding humiliation to you about being in the Duck Squad especially when you ask he assistance in creating an army uniform for a Duck. Lucky for me, after she had a great laugh at my expense, may lovely wife took to the task and she modified a baby tee shirt and sewed an army fatigue jacket, complete with name tags for OC Duck. U. S. Army over the right front pocket, DUCK over the left. LT Handy was duly impressed with her handiwork and I’d managed a passable job painting my helmet liner. I even got out of the Duck Squad for most of that weekend.

Meeting the standard is the goal in OCS, whatever it is. Just answering a TAC officer requires a specific format, as the first word and the last word in any reply to a TAC must begin and end with “SIR”. To answer a question in the affirmative: “Sir, Candidate Kempf, Yes Sir!” is the correct response. If you were asked something about how to do a drill movement, you might reply: “Sir, Candidate Kempf, In accordance with TM 9-2320-218-10, the preventative maintenance checks and services can be found in chapter three, table 3-1, Sir”. The TAC’s also made a game out of seeing if you would make a decision and stay with it. Once day, while the nominal platoon leader, I was in charge of getting the platoon to the dining facility (Mess hall) and getting them in to eat. I had sent the platoon sergeant in to see if they were ready to feed yet and we’d been told to wait ten minutes or so while they got ready to serve. Having time to kill, I put the platoon at “Stand at Ease” and gave them authorization to smoke if they wanted to do so. LT Handy abruptly came up from the back of the formation and I called “Attention” and then LT Handy began to chew me out for some alleged infraction. After he extolled for several minutes about how unsatisfactory my decision-making process had been, he asked me why I made this obviously flawed decision. I replied “Sir, Candidate Kempf, with the information I had at the time, I made the decision I thought was right, Sir!”. He smiled and replied “Carry On” and walked away. I’d not made any mistake, he just wanted to see if I’d back down. TACs could be assholes.

One last memorable item was during Physical Training (PT). A duty roster (DA Form 6) was maintained to track who would give physical training instruction each morning. Like every other aspect of OCS life this was subject to the supervision of our TACs. Generally, LT Handy wasn’t a morning guy and since they had two TAC to watch us morning and evening, LT Martin being the junior TAC, he got the early morning shift. LT Martin wasn’t a morning kind of guy. The day before I was supposed to lead PT instruction, LT Martin was in a bad mood and took get joy in giving the day’s instructor hell over his instruction of the exercise, the Bend and Reach. I took interest in this because LT Martin was wrong, the candidate had been correct, but lacking confidence, the candidate had given in and instructed the exercise as LT Martin had directed. I made a mental note of this as I had a bad feeling about the next day. Before lights out, I opened up my trusty FM 21-20 (Physical Training) and reviewed the 3 sets of conditioning drills. I took a 3 x 5 card, and I made notes on all 18 exercises, the starting position, the cadence and any details I thought I might need. The next morning, I started through the exercises starting with the “High Jumper” Exercise number one of conditioning drill one. I demonstrated the exercise, then led the candidates in 12 repetitions of the exercise. Then I began to instruct, exercise two of conditioning drill one, the “Bend and Reach”. I followed the book and gave the exact same demonstration of the exercise that the candidate had done the day before. Then I called the group to attention and gave the command “Starting Position, Move”. As I had expected, LT Martin (speaking from my left rear) called out to me: “Candidate Kempf, are you sure you are doing that exercise right?” I replied in true candidate fashion: “Sir, Candidate Kempf, in accordance with FM 21-20, page 37, paragraph 97, subparagraph C, Yes Sir!” LT Martin, somewhat surprised just said “Carry on”. We completed the exercise correctly, then as I told them to shake it out, LT Martin said: “Do the pushups”. I then put the candidates as parade rest and told them: “The next exercise is exercise number four of conditioning drill one, the push up. …” and we completed the push ups. LT Martin was still trying to trip me up so again as I gave the command “Stand at Ease” he said: “Do the Body Twist” and I replied: “Sir Candidate Kempf, Yes Sir!”  and we did exercise number six of conditioning drill two the “Body Twist”. At this point, other candidates had demonstrated the exercise but when it had come to leading it to the platoon they’d just called cadence from attention because it required you to get on your back and that made leading the exercise with a group difficult. I was very good at this particular exercise, so I not only called it while doing the exercise, but I put the candidates through a good painful workout with it. Again, at “Stand at Ease” LT Martin chimed in with: Do Leg Circulars”. Again, and I replied: “Sir Candidate Kempf, Yes Sir!”  and we did exercise number six of conditioning drill three the “Leg Circulars”. It is a similar exercise to the body twist and I went through the same motions. After the exercise, LT Martin apparently gave up messing with me as it was unproductive, but I didn’t give up on him. I knew he couldn’t run with any endurance and he didn’t know I could call running cadence. I took them for a 4-mile run and I made sure the pace was fast forcing LT Martin to really struggle to keep up. At the end of the run, after I dismissed the formation and LT Martin walked away with his pride well dented, the Candidates carried me in to the barracks on their shoulders as I’d made him look bad and he’d had not way to get even. That was a good day.

The Yukon Territory and beyond

Leaving British Columbia was quite a milestone of the trip. If you are not familiar with Canadian geography British Columbia is similar in shape to California and twice the size. Our journey through the province had covered over 1,200 miles and the better part of three days travel and now we’re entering the Yukon Territory. The further north you go, the more rustic things become and isolation increases. We are seeing more wildlife of all sorts and sizes. Beavers, Eagles, Moose and we watched a herd of Caribou cross the highway just to name a few we’d seen recently. The magnificence of the country and the beauty are a sight to behold and the day is nearly 24 hours long as we are now approaching the Arctic Circle. All day and almost no night takes some adaptation. Good sleep had become problematic as we are accustomed to adjusting our sleep cycle with the sun rise and sunset. Here the sun was setting around 2 AM and rising around 4:30 AM. One thing we noted in our overnight stay in Whitehorse, YT, was BLACKOUT SHADES. Pull down the window shades, instant night. We added blackout shades to our shopping list of items to buy when we moved in to Post Quarters in Alaska.

One thing we found in Whitehorse that we did not expect was a Dairy Queen. You were never exactly sure what you would find as you entered any town in the northern regions as things can be very eclectic in more remote areas. It had never occurred to me that people in the north might be interested in ice cream but as it turns out that is a misnomer. Alaska for example has often been quoted as the state where the most ice cream per capita is consumed, so I guess a Dairy Queen in the Yukon should have been a big surprise. We stayed in the Gold Nugget Inn than night and how could we deny our kids dinner at Dairy Queen? Well, that would just have been cruel. The next morning was the start of a momentous day, this was the day we would finally arrive in Alaska.

The drive from Whitehorse, YT to Anchorage, AK is 700 miles and there are some quirks about this part of the trip, like so many others we encountered that I had not anticipated and we encountered the next one around noon when we approached the Yukon – Alaska border. The Canadian Customs checkpoint is in Beaver Creek, YT is twenty miles from the Alaska border and at least at that time (it may be different now) there wasn’t a lot of incentive for the Canadians to do a lot of road maintenance on that last twenty miles. I can honestly say that was the worst stretch of road we encountered the entire trip and portions more resembled a moonscape than a road. Here I am in a Ford F-150 Supercab and I am navigating around potholes larger than the truck. Again, I really couldn’t blame the Canadians for not doing a lot on that road but really? It took over forty minutes to drive that twenty miles. In most of the Yukon, if you were doing less than ninety on a rural road, you were impeding traffic, what little there was. With a mild celebration and urgent need for plumbing we finally arrived at the US Customs checkpoint and our first encounter with Alaska.

Having refreshed ourselves at the checkpoint, we continued our final approach to Anchorage. The first town of any size we encountered was Tok. Tok at that time had a population of less than 500 people making it a fair size Alaskan town. It is at the intersection of Highway 2 and Highway 1 of the Alaskan highway system. In most places, a highway in Alaska is like a county road in the lower 48 states. A two-lane asphalt highway. Alaska, is the only US State that does not have an Interstate Highway (Yes, Hawaii has Interstates). Here we turned south (After 2,500 of driving generally north this was a change) on to Highway 1 and we headed to Glennallen. We had dinner in Glennallen and we got our first look at the Trans-Alaska pipeline as we crossed it on our journey to Anchorage. This is also the portion of Highway 1 known as the Glenn Highway that passes through the Matanuska valley, the fertile crescent of Alaska. One of the more interesting items we observed during our drive down through the valley was about a mile stretch of the road that was uncharacteristically straight. In the curve at each end of the straight you would see some traffic cones off to the side of the road, which I found a tad unusual. I was puzzled by their presence until I noted some rather odd looking garages and very wide gravel driveways on several of the houses along the road. It wasn’t until I spied one of these garages with the door open that it all came together. These garages were hangars and the road was the runway. You guessed it, when they needed to take off or land, someone goes out and blocks the road and they use the highway as the runway.

As we emerged from the valley into the Matanuska River basin we started to enter the more suburban areas of Alaska, such as Palmer and Wasilla. I had to adjust to driving in traffic for a few minutes, but that was oddly reassuring that we were emerging form the wilderness. We passed through one last town (Eagle River) before we arrived at our destination; Anchorage, AK. Our lodging for the next couple of weeks was the Mush Inn. At the time it was the first fairly large motel as you arrived into Anchorage and it had the added benefit of being one of the closest ones to Fort Richardson, where I had to in process before I was sent to my ultimate assignment in Fairbank at Fort Wainwright. My sons were excited about the Mush Inn because it sets across the highway from Merrell Field, where 400+ bush planes are based in Anchorage. Like me my sons can watch planes takeoff and land all day long. They readily approved of our lodging without even seeing the inside of the room.

I expected to be in Anchorage just a couple days and then spend another day long drive back north to Fairbanks, but I encountered change 1 the first day of in processing when I discovered I was being diverted to Fort Richardson as a permanent assignment. (Change 1 is a reference to the Army Manual update process, where they would publish incremental change documents to update errata in manuals, and these would be annotated Change 1, Change 2 etc.) so I was given amended orders changing my assignment to from some Infantry unit in Fairbanks to an Artillery unit in Anchorage. There were some other odd things about in processing into the 172nd Light Infantry Brigade (Arctic), like being asked if I played an instrument and if I’d like to try out for the band. Official Army Bands are a Table of Organization and Equipment (TO & E) organization at Division level and above in the Army. But the Brigade Commander had decided they needed a band so they assembled one using On the Job Training (OJT) and getting the 20 or so personnel needed from the Brigade authorized strength. (Within limits, a General can customize his organization as he desires, this one wanted a band. I said what the heck, I played drums in high school, I’ll try out. This got me shuffled off to a very bored Specialist 4 drummer who quickly decided my meager talents as a concert drummer were not needed and I went back to being processed as a mechanic.

This last-minute reassignment to Fort Richardson was nice because we were near the largest city in Alaska, but troubling because I knew that all our furniture was shipped to Fort Wainwright and our original housing assignment was on-base housing at Wainwright too. At a minimum, this meant delays in getting our furniture and I was unsure if they had any quarters available at Richardson. The Transportation division assured me that this happened a lot and they were used to dealing with the changes and the Housing office also assured me that they had a place for us to live. To understand my concern, a three-bedroom apartment off post started at about $1,500 a month in 1985. My housing allowance was $350. The Army has cost of living allowances (COLA) for high cost areas but they historically limited off post authorizations to Sergeants and above and I was an E-4 Specialist. The first quarters we were taken to turned out to be occupied and I was concerned that these people might not have their act together, but the second set of quarters was empty and quite acceptable. It was part of an eight-unit town house on Beluga Avenue. We arraigned for temporary furniture and moved out of the Mush Inn and into our Alaskan home, trip completed.

Up, to Alaska, The Adventure Begins

All around the post you could find bumper stickers that read “Happiness is Fort Hood TX in your rear-view mirror” and that is the way that we felt. My assignment there had been a fairly successful one and we looked forward to a change of scenery and climate. This was a very exciting but also a very daunting journey. I’d certainly never attempted any kind of move of this magnitude and had never traveled anywhere in the northwest United States or Canada. But first, a quick detour home to the Louisville, KY area were our families live and where we were leaving Anna’s Mustang. One of our many discussions over the previous months was about one vehicle or two for the move and we both agreed that the Mustang would not be a practical vehicle in Alaska so it stayed in storage back home.

After visiting everyone and a lot of tears because we were going to ALASKA of all places, we loaded up the truck and headed west. My wife’s sister Mary and brother-in-law Bill lived in Leavenworth, Kansas and since it was on the way, we of course stopped in to visit. It was a good visit and the only time I ever got to meet Bill as he died the following year from cancer. We spent the night there in their pop-up camper trailer which was interesting and enough for me to determine that I would never buy one myself. Then the next morning we were off to Denver. We’d taken time to plan out route to Alaska to maximize visiting with family and friends and to see parts of the country we wanted to visit that were along the way. Roughly, the route Leaving Fort Hood, TX consisted of overnight stays during June 1985, in the following locations:

• Louisville, KY.
• Leavenworth, KS
• Denver, CO
• Ogden, UT
• Twin Falls, ID
• Mountain Home AFB, ID
• Yakima, WA
• Merritt, BC, Canada
• Summit Lake, BC, Canada
• Fort Nelson, BC, Canada
• Whitehorse, YT, Canada
• Anchorage, AK

We also planned the trip for economy as we were in much better financial shape than when we moved to Fort Hood, saving as much as we could on this trip was a factor. We stayed with family in Louisville and Leavenworth, camped in the truck in Ogden, Yakima, Merritt, Summit Lake and Fort Nelson, Visitor’s Quarters in Mountain Home and only three motels in Denver, Twin Falls, and Whitehorse.

One thing about this ambitious plan I want to bring up here is that we undertook this travel escapade with a three-year old and a four-year old in tow. A month of travel with two boys under the age of five and better that half of the journey it was just the four of us all together in the cab of a 1977 Ford F-150 Supercab pickup truck. I attribute the success of this journey to my spouse and partner who always seems to have the capacity to make the best of any situation. I admit, she did most of the parenting as I was either working, away for National Guard, away in the Army or just away trying to earn enough money we didn’t starve. Early in our marriage we’d decided that one parent would stay home and raise the kids and the other would work and I ended up the breadwinner. In all honesty, I can’t imagine it working out differently as she made some spectacular achievements with our children. Small events sometimes are the most defining of what we have achieved.

One example of this was an incident in a truck stop café somewhere in Kansas on the leg between Leavenworth and Denver. We had stopped for lunch and it was a pretty busy restaurant. During the meal, my oldest son spilt his glass of milk and was quite upset about the mess he’d made. He was mostly upset because he’d wasted his mike being careless but he also wanted to clean the mess. He “helped” mom and the waitress clean the mess and was happy to learn that she was bringing him another glass at no charge. All of this was done with a minimum of drama and if you weren’t at the table you likely wouldn’t have noticed as our children knew to behave in public. This was validated later when we got up to leave and an elderly couple sitting nearby marveled to us about how well-behaved these two boys were during the meal. Often, unsolicited praise for small things can be a most poignant moment. It made an impression on me for sure.

My wife Anna, was keeping the boys entertained while I was driver/navigator. She would make a great boy scout as she is always prepared. During the trip, she had activities for the boys and never failed to make something an educational opportunity for our young charges. She in charge of the “in Trip” activities and I was the guy in charge of plans and logistics. Since this was before the age of the Internet, one of the tools I’d used was my AAA trip planning services (Yeah, 5000-mile adventure and no GPS for backup.) AAA was the best source for maps and they also had a service making route plans called a “Trip-Ticket”. The trip ticket was a custom, hand held bound map set that contained the entire planned route with both detail maps and key details like known road construction, detours and the like. I’d purchased AAA for the roadside assistance package and found the route planning was a fortuitous side benefit.

Our journey between Denver and Ogden, UT was punctuated by wilderness beauty. The rolling grasslands of the high prairie in Wyoming and the majestic beauty of the mountain valleys as we entered the Rockies in Utah were things I’d never witnessed in person. My youngest son at the time, Kevin may have been introduced to his love of maps and geography during this trip. We all were fascinated with the natural beauty were encountered and there were new adventures for us around every turn. Ogden was the first time we stayed at a campground and the one we found was one of the nicest that we saw on the trip. Camping was a big economic for us as we’d only planned motels for about one third of our stops to save money, and heck it was an adventure too. We stopped in Twin Fall, IS along the Snake River made famous by "Evel" Knievel. The valley carved by the river is beautiful and the falls that are the namesake of the town are also a beauty to behold.

Our stop in Twin Falls, ID was a prelude to a visit with a family friend in the Air Force. She was a Chaplain’s Assistant at Mountain Home AFB and she was also the person who helped us finance the truck. We would have been remiss not to stop and visit. The costs were low as we qualified for Visiting Enlisted Quarters (VEQ) where I rented a furnished house in the base for 5 days for about the price of the Motel room we’d stayed at in Twin Falls. It was educational to drive through the northwestern part of the country. I’d read about it in geography but I’d never really understood the concept of “High Desert” until driving through Idaho and the eastern portions of Washington and Oregon. But then again, this was my first experience with it so I was broadening my education at every turn. One of the highlights for me was seeing F-111 Aardvarks that were stationed there. The night takeoffs there were a fabulous sight.

Well rested from our stay in Mountain Home, we continued with our adventure as we trekked toward Yakima, WA and our next camping site. During the entire five thousand mile odyssey, I made one wrong turn and it was in Washington state. Apparently Washington keeps it’s taxes low by not investing in extraneous signage. To be truthful, we had encountered road construction for a 20 or 30 mile stretch and I will give them the benefit of the doubt about not having signs at the intersection where I’d made the wrong turn. It was a dark and overcast evening and I had to choose left or right. I chose wrong and it was another thirty miles down the road before my error became evident. But aside from 90 minutes lost, it wasn’t a big deal, we just had a later than planned leg of the trip and we rolled into the campground much closer to midnight than I had planned.

The next stop was Canada. I had never gone outside the United States and I’d never been west of Texas before beginning this trip so we were always entering new territory or doing something new as the adventure progressed. We’d crossed the continental divide the day prior and could actually see what it meant as far as the geography of the mountains and how the rivers all drain away from the divide east and west. Eastern Oregon’s desert was also one of the first times I’d encountered large scale farm irrigation and we all were wonderstruck with the technology and the circular layout of the irrigated fields. The border crossing into Canada was fast and uneventful. This had been one of my concerns as never having lived or traveled to the border, I was unsure exactly how things would transpire. But a quick check of my military ID and orders for travel and we were waived through. There were no grand differences having crossed the border but there were several nuances to adjust to we encountered. Metric conversion was evident with kilometers instead of miles and seeing the majority of things in both English and French was a bit different. One thing that was evident was the Canadian penchant for ending a phrase with “You know what I mean, eh?” I’d always thought that was just a Bob and Doug McKenzie joke from the SCTV skit “Great White North”, but there apparently was a lot of truth to that gag. Exchanging money was also a first for me, and the colorful Canadian currency almost seemed like play money. Especially the two and three dollar notes. We camped at a campground near Merritt, BC and the fact that we were going north was becoming evident as we needed more and more blankets to stay warm at night. One lesson we learned was that a foam mattress was a much better idea than the air mattress we used as the air mattress didn’t keep us warm. Live and learn.

Our second day in Canada marked our entrance to the ALCAN highway. We travelled up the highway from Merritt to Dawson Creek where the ALCAN originates. Historical note: The ALCAN was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1942 to provide land road access to Alaska during World War II. In 1985, all but about 150 miles of the ALCAN were paved. The 150 segments were gravel but just because they were “unpaved” didn’t mean that they were not well maintained. In many aspects, some of the gravel segments were nicer that the paved ones, and a lot smoother. As we travelled further and further north in British Columbia, we could tell that we were in the wilderness. The farthest stretch we traveled without seeing anything man made aside from the road was 70 miles and for a boy from the suburbs that was an eerie feeling. The one thing I can say for sure is that isolation is not for me. Travelling the length of the ALCAN (1700 miles in 1985) I tried to be prepared for anything. I had three spare tires on rims, fan belts, oil, antifreeze and three weeks of food and water for four. First aid kits, medicine, bandages and more. Still I was unsure and I felt a bit of relief each time we returned to a small patch of civilization. The further north you go, the friendlier people were, the more primitive things became and the menu options at restaurants were fewer. One place we stopped to get gas and have the truck checked out for an unusual noise advertised a bathroom with real plumbing. It was a heated outhouse with very leaky pipes and it just barely qualified, but that was rural Canada.

The first full day on the ALCAN seemed to go on forever and ever. The miles were passing by and we saw fewer and fewer vehicles and more wildlife. We were checking off an informal list of animals we sighted on the trip. Beavers, moose, black bears, deer, elk and Dall Sheep. Also known as “Tinhorn Sheep”, they are the northernmost of the sheep breeds. There was a large rock outcropping and we spotted 30 or more of these sheep at the base of the rocks 50 to 100 feet from the road. We stopped and Anna rolled down her window to take some photos as one Ram walked closer to the truck. They had no fear of humans and were curious about us. Anna was fast taking photos with a 110 camera when this Ram stuck his head into the cab and she about climbs on top of me to get away from him. I slowly let the truck roll forward and he backed out of the cab, and she quickly rolled the window back up. That Ram had the most intriguing eyes. So back on the road and further north and edging westward the day continued. Finally, feeling pretty weary, I asked if we could stop for the night, but Anna wanted to drive until sundown. I pointed out we were nearing the Arctic Circle and it was 2 AM and the sun hadn’t set yet when she said OK and we stopped at Fort Nelson, BC. The previous night we’d camped at Summit Lake, BC. We’d chosen that campground because it was full service and had showers. Like many things in Canada, we learned the hard way that even luxuries like showers were often less that optimal. These were coin operated and at least in the ladies’ room, the water heater was subpar. Fort Nelson we opted for a real room and real showers and gladly paid the room rent without a second thought. Armed with a warm shower and a full belly at the local restaurant, we left British Columbia the next day and headed into the Yukon Territory.

Life at Fort Hood in HHC, 163rd MI Continued....

One of the greatest things about the military community is how well they try to take care of their own. I joined the US Army out of economic necessity. When I enlisted, I was working a part time job at a Hardee’s and had just exhausted my unemployment benefits as I was “Underemployed”. One of my sons developed a strangulated hernia the year prior and we had accumulated over ten thousand dollars in medical bills even after the State of Indiana wrote off the hospital bill because we were indigent. We had been receiving food stamps but learned the hard way that when I left for Texas and I was unable to take my car with me that left my wife with “Excess Assets” and we lost the food subsidy. Even though the car couldn’t be sold for any appreciable value. To put it mildly, I joined the Army because we were between a rock and a hard place. As mentioned earlier, difficulty in getting my basic allowance for quarters (BAQ) paid had made a bad situation worse. The summer heat in central Texas that year caused us further financial stress because the daytime highs in August broke 100 degrees for 17 straight days and even keeping the air conditioning of the apartment at 85 degrees my electric bill was crippling. We spent many an evening as a family walking around the local mall, not buying anything, just because we could cool off. By the fall of 1984, things were finally starting to improve and the August heat wave had finally broken.

The promotion to PFC was the first SIGNIFICANT pay increase since I’d arrived, and that too had a negative side effect of reducing our food stamp aid which we soon lost altogether when I received the next promotion in December. Anna was managing our funds masterfully. We always had enough, not a lot left over, but the bills were paid, there was food on the table and somehow there was always enough to make a batch of cookies for church. The week before Thanksgiving We received a HUGE gift basket from the unit. and Christmas gifts from the unit. Every year, the families that needed the most and had the least were selected for food gift baskets for Thanksgiving. I was never privy to how this was actually decided I was just really surprised that we were selected as comparatively we felt we were doing pretty well after a previous year of near total unemployment. We didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and graciously accepted what was delivered to us by SGTs Jaramillo and Carmichael. The next month when Christmas rolled around, we were again the beneficiary of the Units benevolence. It was quite a feeling to experience, but I’m glad that we’ve been on the giving end ever since.

The December, for the most part was the end of our “Struggle” and 1985 began our period of prosperity. My promotion to SP4 was accompanied by another job change in the motor pool. The motor pool was divided into three mechanic shops: The generator shop (Military Intelligence units use a lot of radios in their mission and in the field, have large demands for power. The Battalion had over 100 generators) The Bottom Shop (At the base of a small hill) and the Top Shop (On top of the small hill). I was assigned to the TOP Shop which was run by Sergeant First Class (SFC) Hunter. My supervisor was SGT Moreau. This was my first time actually doing any significant work as a mechanic (a skill the army had initially trained me for nearly seven years earlier) and I was already learning I had a lot to learn. The Army was phasing out the Jeep and other small tactical vehicles but the Humvee was still in testing and development so the military decided that there had to be an interim vehicle until the Humvee was in production. The interim vehicle was the Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle (CUCV) which was Chevy Blazers and Silverado Pickups that were modified to government standards. Of course, the army had to make changes like a 24-volt electrical system and since they wanted to get away from gasoline and move to a single fuel across the military the opted for 6.2-liter Diesel engines. These engines, due to the rush in production proved to be problematic as they had a tendency to blow the rear main oil seal on the crankshaft. Since they were under warranty from General Motors, that meant they were sent to the local dealers for service until their service sections became so overloaded that GM contracted with the army Department of Industrial Operations (DIO) and paid the Army to fix them. This made me happy as the repairs were being completed faster with this latest change.

The Top Shop was an interesting and eye opening experience for me. SFC Hunter was a good supervisor and I learned a good deal about how to run a shop, but I also learned how wonderful and independent my wife was as a person. SFC Hunter’s wife called him 10, 15, 20 times a day. This is before cell phones; this was all a land line. 90% of the time, if the phone rang, she was on the other end of the line. So the majority of the time I was working for my squad leader SGT Moreau. Like so many people, SGT Moreau was a decent guy I suppose but he too had his problems. His main one was he was an alcoholic. This didn’t become evident until we had a battalion picnic and it became quickly evident that he’d had too much beer and became quite obnoxious to wives and families at the picnic, especially my wife. Apparently, he had been called by the leadership to account for his actions and was required to formally apologize to my wife in public. This made my work situation with him awkward at best, but he never seemed to hold a grudge against us for his troubles.

Both Top Shop and Bottom Shop were assigned M543A2 5 ton wreckers so that they could recover vehicles from the field when they broke down. Part of my list of jobs in the shop was assistant wrecker operator. One day, about noon, we got a call that one of the 2 ½ ton cargo trucks from Charlie Company had broken down at North Fort Hood and we had to go retrieve it. The primary operator SP4 Adams and I hopped in and he drove and I navigated. He was driving this Mack truck the full 62 MPH it would go because it was over a 40-minute drive just to get to the truck then we had to evaluate the situation and get it back, hopefully before dark. When we arrived, we were both relieved, (It was in a big empty parking lot) and concerned (It was pulling a generator trailer) about getting it back safely. The deuce was definitely going to be towed, as there were several quarts of oil underneath it where the rear main seal of the crankshaft had failed. There was also a lake sized puddle of water 20 or so feet across in front of the truck so Adams wanted to pull it forward to get it on dry ground where we could hook it up. This is where the problems started.

These wreakers had a front winch, rear winch and a crane boom. Adams said the rear winch was inoperative and he decided to winch the deuce forward with the boom. So here I am walking this block and tackle out from the book to the chains we had configured on the deuce and I’m almost connected when the cable comes loose from the drum on the crane. He’d been too far away and wasn’t watching that he’d gone below two wraps on the drum, the minimum to ensure that the cable doesn’t come loose. We spent the next 90 minutes rethreading the cable into the boom and getting it re-attached to the drum. Once completed, then we repositioned the truck closer and winched to deuce up to the wrecker and connected the tow bar. Now we are chasing daylight. The last thing we want is to be towing a truck, and a trailer 33 miles back to base in the dark. Once we have the rigging checked and pull it around the lot to confirm it is rigged ok, we headed south. The deuce had a shelter on the back and apparently, it was full, because the wrecker was sitting low on its springs supporting the front end of the deuce. The made for a rough ride and I was so happy when we finally arrived at the motor pool gate.

A few other items of interest occurred during my brief assignment at Fort Hood. I started college. My councilor at the education center had started me on my path to continue my education with the CLEP general exams. Now he was guiding me how to use those credits and credit for “Military Acquired Skills” to get a college degree. On post, Central Texas College (CTC) had an extension in the on base learning center and I found out that if I took two classes at the college, then I could matriculate my CLEP and military experience. With the help of some timely Christmas cash, I enrolled at the college for two night classes. US History after 1877 and State and Local government. I soon learned the joys of being a night student in the army was we had a field exercise in the middle of the semester. For two weeks, every Tuesday and Thursday, they drove me in from the field, (Generally pretty dirty and nasty) for my classes. I felt bad for my fellow students but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. The field problem ended and I managed to pass both classes with a B, so I was now an official college student. I was trying to make grandma proud too.

I mentioned earlier my levy notification for assignment to Alaska. This left us with a major problem; what do we do about our vehicles? Anna had (and still has) a 1968 Ford Mustang. We both agreed, that car did not need to go to Alaska so we made arrangements for it to be taken care of back at home. Our other vehicle was a 1978 Ford Fairmont. This car was a real piece of junk. A four door, four cylinder, 4-speed clunker that I struggled to keep running and that we were still making payment upon, we both agreed, this was not a vehicle to take to Alaska. We liked the idea of a super cab pickup and we were liking Fords so we looked mostly for F-series pickups. We learned that most trucks in out price range were trashed and less likely to make it to AK than the Fairmont. After several weeks searching we finally found the truck we wanted. F150 super cab, 351 Windsor engine, decent mileage and the body was in good shape. I went to the bank for a loan and got my hopes quickly crushed. In 1985, I couldn’t get a loan for a 1977 truck because it was a year too old. We really needed this truck and with banks again conspiring against us (We’d had issues in Indiana trying to get money to fix a car once) creative financing was the next option. A friend of my wife had joined the Air Force and sold her car, she had $1600 she could loan us. My mother and her second husband Al, loaned us the remaining $900. Armed with $2500 in case and trading the Fairmont for the payoff of the loan, we became owners of a Ford pickup. Once we had confirmation that we were going to make the trip to Alaska together, we made some upgrades to the truck. Four new tires and 3 spares, a platform in the bed to store items under and sleep on top and an aluminum topper covering the bed. Our income tax return paid for the tiers and the topper and the topper purchase was a tough decision. We had gone to Temple so we could get a good selection (Everything around the post was overpriced and we knew we could do better in Temple) and there we found a quandary. We had narrowed our choice down to one of two toppers. A new on that was pricey, or a scratch and dent one that had better features (Side windows that we could open for air) but had some dings and saved us some coins. We finally decided on the scratch and dent as the truck has some minor dings on it from the previous owner. We bought it and they mounted it for us and we drove it home. That night, we encountered our first Texas hail storm, the truck was undamaged, but our scratch and dent topper survived, but with a lot more dents in it. Prophetic, wasn’t it?

We were ready to leave 1210 Charisse Ave and Killeen TX. This place was what I’d call a C grade quadruplex apartment. Generally, the other tenants in our building were okay. Two were other soldiers and their families and the forth apartment for the most part was unoccupied during our stay. The unoccupied apartment had a pipe freeze during the winter and we had a hard time getting the management company to come out and fix it. We told them it was fine with us; they could let the place get ruined and they finally sent a plumber to investigate. Most of our problems there involved neighbors in other buildings. Like the one who lived down the street and drove home drunk and slammed into our downstairs neighbor’s car, then just drove down the street, leaking oil and fluids to their garage. Or the drug bust in the downstairs apartment of the building next door. We’d long suspected drug activity at that place and is was encouraging to see them in handcuffs leaving in a police car.

We spent our last night at Fort Hood sleeping in the camper of our truck (An of course had an unseasonable cold snap) Friday May 31, 1985. The next morning, I signed out on leave and we started our trek to Alaska with a slight deviation to home near Louisville, KY first to visit family and place the Mustang in Storage. The army had determined that my trip to Alaska was 4419 miles and they paid travel pay of thirty-five cents per mile ($1500+) and they allowed me a day of travel for every 350 miles traveled (13 days). With accrued leave, this gave us until June 6 to arrive at Fort Richardson, AK near Anchorage.

Life at Fort Hood in HHC 163rd MI Battalion

My integration into the active army wasn’t exactly smooth but it wasn’t a nightmare either, let’s just call it a road with a few potholes in it. To start with, due to the amount of prior service I’d accumulated in the National Guard, I should have entered active duty as a Private E-2 (PV2) instead of the Private E-1 (PV1) I was awarded upon enlistment. I quickly discerned that it was pointless to argue, since I was being credited with 6 years’ time in service for pay purposes I would be promoted automatically to PV2 as the time in grade with a waiver was 2 months. Sure enough, 11 June I was promoted to PV2. Two months later, I was promoted to Private First Class (PFC) as the time in grade requirements were the same.

So, I lost a little pay, that wasn’t a big consequence. Most things were working in my favor. During in-processing to the battalion, I was lucky enough to encounter a Department of the Army (DA) civilian working the Education Center. He took a lot of time getting to know me and going over my education so far in my short life. Under his counsel, I was soon signed up to take the five College Level Equivalent Program (CLEP) general exams over a two-week period during my lunch. Like most exams I took in the army, I had no preparation for the exams and only had my high school education eight years earlier as my baseline. Somehow, I managed to pass all five exams and I began my journey toward my college education.

While that was a positive note in my adapting to the army, I also managed to trip myself up, literally. I’d mentioned earlier that SFC Wood was a running fanatic and he held true to his word. In just a couple weeks, exposure to his Physical Training regimen had managed to get ole Donald in fairly decent shape. One thing I had noticed was that there were only two people in the unit (SGT Carmichael and SFC Wood) who would call cadence during the runs. I inquired it I could join the ranks of cadence callers and I was eagerly accepted. I joined the rotation calling cadence mostly for my own benefit as if I was calling cadence, I didn’t have to run in the ranks. This went well until roughly weeks later when I managed to step on a ragged pavement edge and severely sprained my left ankle. One moment I’m calling the cadence (One, Two, Three Foouuuurrrrrr as I fell) the next I’m on the ground in agony. I was quickly bundled into a jeep and taken to the dispensary who quickly drove me to the base hospital, for X-Rays and a short leg cast and crutches.

My injury was causing me all kinds of issues. First, I lived on the second floor of the barracks. Up and down stairs on crutches is hard to learn and a good deal of exercise. I was now getting my upper body in shape without even trying. I quickly learned that I could go down stairs in a couple large hops. Going up the stairs, that was still a challenge. My second problem was work. I was assigned to the generator shop in the battalion motor pool and I couldn’t actually work on anything because the toes of my injured left foot were exposed. I spent a couple days in the generator shop office organizing the manuals and inserting pages from change updates in them. But pretty soon, I was just sitting there and SGT Jaramillo (the shop foreman) was looking for something for me to do. Providence was with me as there was a new maintenance management program being tested in the Battalion Motor Office (BMO) run by Sergeant Carmichael. I was asked if I wanted the job (It was June in TX and I was in a Quonset hut without air-conditioning) so of course I said yes to being a temporary clerk in an air-conditioned office.

Other down sides of this injury were weekend meals. During the week, meals were in the Battalion Dining Facility next to the barracks. Every other weekend though it was closed and the nearest dining facility was about a half mile away. I was usually hungry enough that Breakfast and Dinner were worth the effort. Unless I managed a ride (I didn’t have many friends with wheels who didn’t find other places to be a lunch time) I usually skipped lunch on the alternate weekends. After two weeks, the swelling had subsided enough that the cast had to be replaced which was a relief. The new cast was much more comfortable and that made life better in general. This was also good because I had inherited other problems.

When I first moved into the barracks, I was in a room at the end of the building and I had a pair of decent roommates. We pretty much left each other alone as they were Morse code intercept guys and I was a mechanic and we had little in common. Just before my injury, the 1st Sergeant decided that he wanted to move me to another room because he had some unsavory types and a new member of the unit in the same rooms and he felt I’d be a good influence on the new guy. I could have told him this was a lost cause as I’d already seen that this guy wasn’t a pillar of virtue and was likely a candidate for disciplinary action. It wasn’t but about a week after my injury that I returned to the room to find a cloud of pot smoke greet me as I was going to my locker for a pack of cigarettes for one of my buddies. We made a hasty exit and I informed the Company Commander who was in the day room downstairs playing pool what we had encountered.  This pretty much confirmed what the 1st Sergeant had been concerned about and put me between a rock and a hard place. As I was still rooming with these jerks while they were being chaptered out of the service, and the obviously had not love for me. Things remained tense for several weeks until I returned to Indiana on leave to move my family to Texas.

After three months on active duty I’d accrued a week of leave and enough money to rent an apartment in Killeen, TX. With the help of a buddy I was able to find and rent the apartment at 1210 D Charisse Street, and then take a bus to Indiana. I got the cast off my foot the day before I left and it was one of the greatest feelings ever. The trip back home was busy. My Grandmother had died and my niece had inherited the farm and there was family tension about the way things had been settled. My uncle was upset at my not returning for the funeral and my mother upset because I hadn’t inherited anything. My paternal Grandmother had funded our move with money she’d hoped I’d use for college one day. I di promise here that when I could, I would go to college. I’d rented a 14-foot U-Haul and a tow bar to pull my car while the wife drove hers. The truck was packed until it cubed out with no space remaining. Both cars were also full. I ran into a major stumbling block when I tried to connect the tow bar to the front bumper of my car. It seems that is wasn’t designed to be towed with a tow bar. I had to think fast as I had no real time in the schedule and I ended up removing the front bumper and cutting slots into the back edges top and bottom each side to accommodate the tow bar brackets. It took about four hours but it worked.

The drive to Texas was endless and with the late start we only just managed to make Sikeston Missouri before we had to stop. We got a decent start about 8AM the next morning and it still took us until 2 AM the next day to finally arrive in Killeen. We pretty much passed out on the floor of the apartment. Later that morning we got up, unloaded and returned the truck and by evening we had a general setup of the apartment. The only real problem was that my Ford Fairmont’s front tires didn’t fare well and needed to be replaced after a 900-mile tow. Nearly broke, we managed to find a used tire shop near the base and bought two replacement tires for $30.

The next problem was my housing allowance. I had been a geographic bachelor meaning that the army had acknowledged I had a family and was entitled to a housing allowance even though I was living in the barracks. I wasn’t receiving the allowance and I had twice submitted the required documentation to get it started, to no avail.  Shortly after my arrival, was the end of month payday and again. No housing allowance was paid. So now I was three months in arrears on the allowance and I had a rent payment due with no way to pay it. My sergeants (SGT Jaramillo and SGT Carmichael) took me to see the Battalion Sergeant Major (SGM) to see if he could get me some relief. Our Sergeant Major called the 102nd Finance Sergeant Major and they had a short discussion which ended with our SGM telling my sergeants to take me to finance to get paid. At first, the finance office didn’t want to accommodate me. I showed up and was told to fill out a pay inquiry (Same process as the last two times) and they would get it to me on my next paycheck. SGT Jaramillo took over and informed the clerk he needed to talk with his supervisor. A Staff Sergeant (SSG) had been watching us from his desk and soon came over to tell us the same thing. SGT Jaramillo asked the SSG if the NCO in the back office we could see was his SGM and the SSG replied it was. It was then suggested that the SSG go consult his SGM before he did something he was going to regret. The SSG wasn’t happy, but he noted SGT Jaramillo’s confident manner and decided to indulge us. His meeting with his SGM was short and it was done standing at Parade Rest while the SGM counseled him. A few minutes later he returned to the desk, and told me to go see the cashier. Five minutes later I walked out with over a thousand dollars and the SSG smiled, but it looked like it hurt him to smile. I rewarded my sergeants with a well-deserved steak lunch.

My rapid ascent in the enlisted ranks slowed after I made PFC only because there were limits to the number of Specialist – E4 (SP4) that could be promoted early in any unit. Only twenty percent of the SP4 positions in the until could be promoted with less than 24 months’ time in grade. This meant that among other things, I had to wait until someone who had been promoted early passed the period they’d skipped getting promoted early to free an allocation for early promotion. I was again fortunate that this only required me to wait two months for the allocation and a total of four months after my promotion to PFC. This meant that on December 11th I got an early army Christmas present and was promoted to SP4. In the eight months from April to December I’d managed to rise through the ranks that normally took two years. I was pretty pleased with that result. This was also the end of easy promotions as to be promoted to Sergeant I would have to face the dreaded promotion board and if I passed the board, then wait to see if I had the minimum promotion point accrued to allow promotion to SGT. But that wouldn’t happen during my tenure at Fort Hood.

I’d mentioned moving into the BMO and working for SGT Carmichael. I figure this requires some additional explanation. What was being tested was managing the vehicle maintenance operations in this battalion motor pool in the same manner as the next level of maintenance (3rd Shop) where we had to send vehicles that required repairs above our level. I was designated the Maintenance Control Clerk. When vehicles were submitted for repair they received a Technical Inspection (TI) from an inspection team and then the inspection report (DA Form 2407) was submitted to me the Maintenance Control Clerk (MCC). My job was to:

• Create a packet for the repair job for the vehicle
• Route the packet to the appropriate section (Shop, Parts, etc.)
• Keep a running log of the repair status (In Shop, awaiting parts, awaiting final inspection etc.)
• Close out the packet when repairs were complete.

I took to this job like a fish to water. SGT Carmichael had been doing this and his assigned job and he had been getting overwhelmed. He was glad to have some temporary assistance while my ankle healed and I couldn’t go back to the shops. I’d been doing this job for about a month when SFC Wood took me into a private office to talk with me. Every time I’d seen this before, it had usually ended with some sort of disciplinary action for the soldier he’d counseled so I was very concerned. My concern quickly turned to elation as all he wanted was to ask if I’d like to keep the job as a permanent assignment since I’d been doing it so well. Yay for me! I couldn’t say yes fast enough and this revelation made SCG Carmichael happy as well.

As my tenure continued in the BMO, I continued to be assigned more responsibilities. There was a daily deadline status board in the Battalion Motor Officer’s Office (1LT Comer) that covered the south wall. A Deadline vehicle was a vehicle that wasn’t mission ready. All deadline vehicles were given serious scrutiny and were part of a daily review at 3PM. After the review, the deadline status report was sent to the Battalion Commander. When I started as MCC, this was done by SGT Carmichael, but like many tasks, they were moved to me to allow the SGT time for other higher profile tasks. Updating the board wasn’t hard, but it did get me visibility to the Battalion Commander (Lieutenant Colonel) which was kinda nice. (I was a bit freaked out the 1st time he called me directly for a deadline status update of a critical vehicle.) Things were working so well, that I was given more work when the vehicle dispatcher was fired from his position for ineptitude.

Working as a dispatcher isn’t a hard job. You manage the log books for every vehicle and you would give a usage authorization to a driver to have the vehicle out of the motor pool (A Dispatch) for a designated period of time. This job meant ensuring that prior to receiving a dispatch, the user completed the required Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services (PMCS) per the vehicle manual before issuing the dispatch. You had to log when a vehicle was dispatched, to whom and for how long. If any vehicles didn’t return before the dispatch expired this also required action (Usually a quick phone call to extend the dispatch or remind someone to bring the vehicle back to the motor pool) and in almost all cases the vehicle was returned to the motor pool at the end of the day. I split this duty with PFC Mary Middleton who like me was a rising star in the BMO.

My favorite memory of working dispatcher was on one of the days when I’d opened the motor pool (Middleton and I alternated days opening the office at 6AM). A 2nd Lieutenant from Charlie Company had come to dispatch his Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle (CUCV) for the day (It was a Chevy Blazer) and he came and signed out the keys and log book. The process was simple, get the keys and log book, then complete the PMCS according to table 3-1 in the manual. If you find no faults, enter the date on the top line of the DA Form 2404 and then come back to get the dispatch authorization from me. This lieutenant was lazy and didn’t seem to be aware that I could or would watch him while he performed his PMCS.  All he did was unlock the vehicle, and walk around it once, he didn’t check anything per the manual. Part of my job was to ensure that these vehicles were being inspected correctly and I had the full backing of the Battalion Motor Officer (BMO) to enforce his policies. The lieutenant came back up to the window and handed me his 2404 and asked for his dispatch. I replied that I would be glad to as soon as he actually performed his PMCS inspection. He indignantly told me that he had done so and I replied to him with this question: “What is the 12th step in your Table 3-1 PMCS checks? (It was insert the key into the ignition) His reply was to give me a direct order to issue him a dispatch. Most PFC’s would have caved in to this demand, but I just smiled and replied to him that I was following orders from the BMO himself and if he didn’t like the way I was doing my job, LT Comer was in his office and he could speak to him about it. This infuriated him (part of my plan) and he went storming off around the building, entered (and slammed) the front door and went down the hall to LT Comer’s office. He got about three words out of his mouth before I heard LT Comer command: “Attention!” LT Comer was a 1LT (P) meaning he was already tagged for promotion and he outranked this 2LT platoon leader. He spent about five minutes explaining to this “butter bar” (Slang for a 2LT due to the gold bar insignia) exactly how the motor pool operated, then he told him to “Get out of my office!” A few moments later a much meeker 2LT asked for his 2404 back and completed his PMCS as he’d been asked to do by me earlier. Then I dispatched the vehicle with no further incident. Some days you enjoy Karma.

I met Chaplain (1LT) Roger Manley in the West Fort Hood Gym one Saturday in the spring of 1984. At first I didn’t know he was a chaplain and I was surprised to learn that he was one, as he looked like a professional body builder. We struck up a conversation and I learned that he competed on an amateur level and was in fact our Battalion Chaplain. We became friendly and I didn’t think a lot more about it until after my family arrived in July. My wife Anna wanted to attend church and I told her about Chaplain Manley. She was intrigued so we went to chapel at West Fort Hood. We quickly learned that we enjoyed activities at the chapel and we rarely missed a Sunday service. One thing that the chapel did every Sunday the service was have cookies and drinks on the lawn in the shade next to the chapel. My wife noted sadly that the cookies were all store bought and in her opinion (Correctly) that they were inferior to what she could make. The next Saturday afternoon, we baked a large batch of chocolate chip cookies and filled a large green plastic salad bowl that had a lid. The next morning, as we came up to the Chapel she set the bowl on the table outside that he Chaplain’s Assistant had already setup. After the service, there was much ado about the big bowl of cookies, but no one was admitting to bringing them (My wife Anna was being shy about it) We were generally the last to leave as we would often talk to Manley and others and it was pretty easy to sneak the empty bowl away when we left.

We continued this green bowl sleight of hand for several weeks and no one was the wiser. We’d made several different cookie recipes and they were all received well. But her chocolate chips were the best received. Then one Sunday Chaplain Manley gave a sermon and the topic was “The Green Bowl”. Anna nearly melted into the pew as she listened to this sermon about this mysterious bowl of homemade cookies and how they had affected not only him but the entire congregation. We had some single soldiers who started attending just because it was like getting cookies from home. After the sermon, and while we were enjoying our after church snacks Anna admitted she was the cookie elf. I think this moment sort of cemented the friendship with Chaplain Manley and my family. Soon, it wasn’t unusual for Chaplain Manley to stop by our apartment to see how the cookies were made and I was even invited over to his house. (It was generally unusual for officers and enlisted to meet socially but there was a lot of latitude when the officer was a chaplain. My first visit to the Manley’s was to check out his car. He’d mentioned that he’d had his car serviced and it now ran fine but really lacked any power. (It was a Ford Escort.) Since I was a mechanic, I offered to check it out and he invited the family over for lunch. The car was an interesting puzzle as he’d just had an oil change and a tune up. I began investigating and eventually I decided to see if all cylinders were firing. I removed the #2 spark plug wire and nothing changed. Then I removed #3 and the same result. I quickly asked if the spark plugs and or wired had been changed (The plugs had been) then I swapped the distributer connections for #2 and #3 and VIOLA! It was running on 4 cylinders now instead of two where they’d reversed the plug wires somehow.

One of the most interesting events in this in our relationship with the Manley’s was Chaplain Manley’s promotion party. This was a formal event (Class A Dress Uniform) and part of Army Officer culture. But there was nothing to prevent him from inviting anyone he chose to attend and Anna and I were invited. While it was unusual for a lower enlisted soldier (Below the rank of sergeant) to attend such an event and I was the only enlisted soldier there, no one seemed to notice. For the first time in my career I was socializing with Officers and it went over very well. Anna was equally well received and it was a very enjoyable evening.

We left Fort Hood in May of 1985 when I was transferred to Fort Richardson, Alaska. I had received my levy notice (notice of overseas assignment) on Valentine’s Day. Since we’d barely lived at in Killeen for nine months and I was going to drag Anna to the frozen frontier, I figured I’d better buy her some gifts to soften the blow, and heck, it was Valentine’s Day. So with five gifts in hand, I headed home and gave her the news. Like myself, she was excited and terrified. We did what research we could on my new duty station. I got a welcome packet that had some information but in 1985 there was no Internet and long distance communication was still mostly for the well to do, so we were in an information vacuum. Adding to the tension was a lack of dependent travel orders. There was a requirement for junior enlisted personnel (I was now a SP4) to have on-base housing available before concurrent dependent travel (My family moving with me) could be approved. Finally, on the May 15th I again stopped by the dependent travel section where I’d been coming at least once a week to check up on the dependent travel. I got lucky and since they’d gotten no reply from Fort Richardson and it was Noon, she called Fort Richardson housing on a WATS line. Shortly thereafter I had in my hands a highly irregular set of dependent travel orders based on a telephonic phone log and I headed to transportation to get my household goods picked up. Normally, this is a two to three-week process, and I managed to get arrangement setup for Friday the 24th. Two miracles in a row. During this same period at one of our last Sundays at the West Fort Hood Chapel, Chaplain Manley gave Anna a “Soldier of God” Citation for her work with the chapel family and the home backed cookies that they would soon miss.

My Entry into Army Active Duty

I’ve noted a lot of stuff that had occurred during my time on active duty in the Army and today I noted that I hadn’t really documented how I ended up in the U. S. Army. I’ll start with some back story so this will make some sense then I’ll get to the title topic a bit later.

My military service started when I was 19 and I joined the Indiana Army National Guard (INARNG). I’d talked about joining the army with my father who was a Master Sergeant in the INARNG and his suggestion was that I might want to join the guard and see if I likely the army part time before I made it a full-time career. I thought that this was a sensible approach and so he took me with him to his next drill at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. Camp Atterbury (Atterbury Reserve Forces Training Area or ARFTA), in 1978, was the home to several guard units:

• 128th General Supply Company
• 1413th Engineer Company
• 1313th Engineer Company
• Atterbury Training Site (ATS)
• A Medic Unit
• The Indiana Military Academy (IMA)

At the time, my father was the 1st Sergeant of the 128th General Supply Company (GS) and he gave me a tour of the base and all the tenant units. In March of 1978 I enlisted in the INARNG and joined the 128th General Supply Company. My father, incredulous as to why I joined his unit noted that I’m have to be; “twice as good as everyone else just to be even.” To which I replied “What is your point?”

I spent six years in the guard during which I got married, had three children, went to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and became an officer. All too often I ended up unemployed in civilian life. The late 70’s and early 80’s was not a great time to be a lower middle class blue-collar worker. I could testify to that by the difficulty I had in finding any kind of decent employment. As a last resort, I went to the Army recruiter in Clarksville, IN to see if I could get an active duty position as a Second Lieutenant. They were excited to have a branch qualified Quartermaster Lieutenant wanting to go active, and that lasted up to the point they asked where I’d graduated from college. It seemed that active duty required a college degree. With my back against the wall economically, I regrouped and replied; “How would you like a really well trained private?” This was working out better as I tested well enough I could have my choice of Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and I was looking at becoming an X-Ray Technician. That looked like something I could get a civilian job in after my enlistment. That bubble lasted up until the question: “Do you have a previous MOS?” I replied “63 Bravo” and he replied “Congratulations you are now a Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic!”

Excited that I was able to enlist and deflated that I couldn’t be an active duty officer, I went home to tell the wife I’d been accepted for active duty. Signing the contract was one thing but going through the Military Enlistment Processing Center (MEPS) is another thing altogether. The good ole, poked and prodded tested for this and that and all kinds of fun stuff you don’t want to remember. The recruiter had put me up in the Louisville Inn in downtown Louisville so I could be at MEPS at 6 AM April 11th, 1984. I also used the Sauna to sweat off a few pounds as I was all too close to my maximum weight and if I weighed too much, I would be rejected. Being a fat boy was the fastest way to get out of the army at that point due to the all-volunteer force and other force reduction mandates due to the economy. Low and behold I weighed 211 and I was told I was over the limit. Then I noticed I’d been measured as 74 inches and asked them to measure me again and I remeasured 75 inches and that allowed me to weigh 217 pounds, so I was good to go. With the weight issue behind me, I only had one additional hurdle to pass. I had to report to my duty station before midnight.

The reporting before midnight was a stipulation caused by my unique pedigree in the military. When leaving the National Guard for active duty as an enlisted soldier, I had tendered a “Conditional Resignation.” This allowed me to serve on active duty as an enlisted soldier and have my National Guard commission transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) control group in St. Louis MO. I was going to be “Dual Component” active enlisted and reserve officer. The only catch was that I had to enlist and report for duty the same day. I was being assigned to the replacement detachment at Fort Hood TX, so that didn’t seem like a big issue. Until I got my travel voucher. I was dropped off at Standiford Field in Louisville, KY at about 3 PM with a voucher that got me tickets to Atlanta – Dallas/Fort Worth/Killen TX. The first two flights were Delta and the third was a regional TX airline called RIO Airways. My flight left Louisville at about 4 PM and I arrived in Atlanta before 6PM. My flight to Dallas left he gate about 45 minutes later, then promptly sat on the tarmac for an hour due to takeoff delays. This made my timing for my Dallas connection close even though the pilots did their best to make up time to DFW by never baking off the thrust the entire flight. The flight crew did everything they could for passengers with connecting flights. They asked who was going where and gave us our gate information and asked for all passengers not making a connection to sit while we heading out for our flights. I disembarked at Gate 10 and I had to meet my flight at gate 1, so I figured that would work out well, until I got between gate 8 and 9 and there was a final boarding call for my flight. In the 1970’s there as a TV commercial that had O. J. Simpson running through an airport hurdling seats to make a flight, I did my best to emulate him at that moment. I arrived at the ticket counter breathless and I was asked if I was “Insert a Name here” I said NO, but here is my boarding pass. They pointed to a door and I ran down a staircase and across the tarmac where they reopened the door of an idling aircraft and let me collapse in the rear seat.

At the time, Rio Airways flew 4-engine de Havilland Canada Dash 7 aircraft. These 50 seat commuter aircraft were the mainstay of their fleet. The plane landed in Killeen, TX at 11 PM and I was picked up by the staff of the reception station by 11:30 arriving at the post and signing in at about 11:45 PM. It was close, but I had completed the first requirement and had reported at Fort Hood before midnight. One of the first things I learned is that Fort Hood never refers to itself as Fort Hood. It is III Corps (Three Corps) and Fort Hood, as they never want anyone to forget that it is the only installation that has TWO army divisions as tenants of the installation. My arrival was pretty unceremonious, they signed me in, gave my sheets and a blanket and took me to the transient barracks. The staff duty runner did point out where the dining facility (Mess Hall) was located and that it opened at 6 AM and that I needed to report for in processing at 8 AM.

The first day of in processing was as uneventful as my day at MEPS the day earlier. The standard hurry up and wait army philosophy. I was halfway through my second day of in processing and explaining my dual component status for at least the third time when I was given a note to call the Red Cross. As a soldier, getting a message from the Red Cross is ALWAYS BAD NEWS. The Red Cross is the de facto civilian verification agency for family emergencies in the army. The message was to call my father. This left we with a quandary as I had no phone access and this was before long distance calling was cheap and simple. Fortunately, the sergeant working with me was on the ball and handing me a phone and told me it was a Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS) line and to call home. I called my father and learned that my Grandmother Ida, had died. Ida had been my landlord for the past three years and she’d begged me not to go to the army the day before I left. My father asked if I wanted to come home and I said no, as it would have required taking advance pay and advance emergency leave, neither I wasn’t to deal with and besides, she had already passed and I wanted to remember her alive.

The next day I was carted off in a passenger van to West Fort Hood. I had been assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) 163rd Military Intelligence Battalion at West Fort Hood. I was kinda dumbfounded as I never dealt with the MI and my only knowledge of the MI was that Military Intelligence was a contradiction in terms. The HHC commander was Captain Felix Aponte. I met him briefly during the in briefing to the unit from the 1st Sergeant and then I was taken outside to afternoon formation to meet my platoon sergeant. It was quite a surprise as the platoon sergeant was Sergeant First Class (SFC) Clarence Wood. Six years earlier, Sergeant (SGT) Clarence Wood had been one of my drill instructor in Bravo Company, 5th Battalion, 4th Advanced Individual Training (AIT) Brigade at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. To my utmost surprise, SFC Wood recognized and remembered me.

I had fond memories of SGT Wood when I was at the Wheeled Vehicle Mechanics Course (WVMC) there at Fort “Lost in the Woods” our affectionate name of that training base. SGT Wood ran B-5-4 into the ground. “Bravo Five Four, We Set the Standard!” was the company motto and he helped re-enforce that motto. SGT Wood at that time was likely in his mid-twenties and he smoked two packs of Kool cigarettes a day. You would think he couldn’t run and that assumption was a big mistake as I had soon learned. B-5-4 ran and ran and ran. During my tenure at B-5-4 there was an army promotion for good health called “Run for Your Life”. You could log 3 miles a day running to track what you were doing for yourself. My first two weeks in B-5-4 we accumulated enough total miles run that I could log 3 miles a day the entire six weeks I was there. Not only could SGT Wood run, he could also call cadence while we ran. The next morning, I learned that SFC Wood, could still run and still call cadence like he had six years earlier. I’d never been much of a runner and I’d always had challenges maintaining my weight, except for the times I was subject to Sergeant Wood and his love for running. That was how my entry on to active duty began.

After the war was over, Desert Storm recovery

How do you feel when you got the message that the war was over? We felt CONFUSED. It was March 1991; I was sitting in the middle of nowhere in central Iraq and we got the message that the war was over. Why stop now? I can tell you that the mood was: "Let’s get this job done! Let’s finish it now! Finish it now so it doesn’t have to be done later!" That was the general consensus. But, we didn’t make the policy decisions, we just carried them out. The question now was;” The war was over, now what do we do?”

At first we did some missions bringing supplies further north along the Euphrates river. For the first time, we’d landed someplace where Iraqi civilians approached us. They were very happy to see us too. I don’t know if they were looking for food (That was the main cargo we flew after the war) or they were just glad that is wasn’t the other side (From what we could understand, Saddam’s forces were not nice to the locals.) Communication was all gestures and mime as they spoke no English and we no Arabic. We gave away a couple MREs anyway and some other random food (Ramen, etc) and the locals trotted off happily.

I think the main thing I did for the first week or so after hostilities ceased was write letters to family. I was letting them know that I’d been pretty lucky. The 101st for once, had been in a war and had not sustained major casualties. (More people were lost during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in accidents than anything else. Sixteen deaths in combat operations, and more than thirty died in accidents before the war started.) We were very lucky in where we were used in the battle plan. There was a precipitous lack of enemy engagement for the majority of the 101st Airborne was due to our rapid mobility had been used to move past the Iraqi western flank. Our anticipated enemy engagement was south of Baghdad and combat operations ceased before the Division had moved far enough north to make enemy contact. (Yay!)

Sometime in mid-March we started to recover back toward our forward operating base in Saudi Arabia. Around April Fool's Day, we moved further back to King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) in preparation for our return to the United States. (We were seriously concerned that the order to move to KFIA was in fact a prank.) Getting out of Saudi was a lot harder than getting in as we had to abide a lot of regulations leaving Saudi that we didn’t have to worry about during the rush to arrive. The Saudis had not worried that we’d bring some native US pestilence with us when we came to stop the Iraqis, but getting our equipment cleared to come back to the USA required that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) needed to deem our equipment was free of anything that might be detrimental to US Agriculture.

For trucks and helicopters, this meant hour upon hours on the wash racks. Mainly because I had little to do and partly because I helped get all that sand and dirt in the aircraft. I spent a lot of time with hoses and screwdrivers and scrub brushes helping clean the aircraft, the tents, the cots and anything else we had that we could clean. It was a group effort to get things clean so the inspectors would let us ship stuff home. There was a lot of self-interest in this effort as we couldn't leave until everything was clean. This meant that for once, I wasn't the only line pilot out on the flight line helping the enlisted crew do "crew duties".

When we recovered back to KFIA our mail caught up with us, especially package mail. Once we’d moved forward, everything but letters was held in storage until the dust had settled from the war. This meant that we started getting some items that had been on hold for weeks, some maybe a month. I can only recall getting letters and a couple of small packages after we left KFIA so now they were catching up to us where we were deployed up north. Mail call was always an exciting time.

On the second of April, I can remember getting a most amusing package. It was a Christmas package sent to me by my Step-Mother and Step-Sisters. my assignment before arriving at Fort Campbell in June of 1990, had been Korea. My mailing address there had been an Army Post Office (APO) San Francisco mailing address.

My Name
SSAN
B-2-501 AVN
APO SF 96271

During the Gulf War, the 101st had an APO New York Mailing address

My Name
SSAN
A-7-101 AVN
APO NY 09309

and when my step-sister addressed the box she’d gotten my old APO SF address from my Step-Mother’s address book. This caused my package to be routed “The long way.”

The box was shipped from Louisville, KY to San Francisco, CA in November of 1990, where it was transferred to the Army Post Office (APO). The army then routed it to Korea and to my old unit at camp Humphreys. The Post Locator (They track down soldiers, usually due to recent reassignment) at Humphreys, determined that I had been re-assigned to Fort Campbell, KY, so the package was forwarded to the 101st Airborne Division Post Locator sometime in December 1990. Once the box arrived at Fort Campbell, it was forwarded to the rear detachment 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation mailroom in January 1991. The mailroom determined that I was deployed to APO NY 09309, and again the package was forwarded (This was roughly mid-February by now as best I could make out on the postmarks.). I received the package on April 2, 1991. It had been in transit nearly six months.

The most amazing thing was that the package had arrived at all. I knew from letter mail that a package had been sent but never received, and we just figured it was in a pile somewhere and it would never arrive. I was sitting on my cot reading a book when the battalion mail clerk came down our row dropping of packages. Since I wasn’t expecting anything (I’d already sent word to STOP sending anything but letters because we knew we were coming home, we just didn’t know when. The condition of the package was why I’m even bothering to mention it.

The package was wrapped with several feet of plastic wrap. It was like a mummy, bandaged completely in plastic. It was oval and really had no corners remaining and was leaving a trail of crumbs every time it was moved. We were all laughing as it looked like something from a comedy sketch. I then started the unwrapping of the “box” like a forensic examiner in the TV show CSI. I peeled back layer upon layer of plastic, separating the labels so I could figure out what happened. When I finally got to the customs label is when I discerned it was the missing Christmas package I’d long gave up upon receiving.

Now to see what was inside. The crumbs were the remains of three cans of Pringles. By themselves, they might have weathered the postal system fairly intact. I’d put reading material on my list of things I wanted. There were a dozen or so paperback books and they had pretty much ensured that anything fragile was toast before I got the package. The Pringles went straight into the garbage.

I also found a 6-inch-tall plastic Christmas tree with red, white and blue ribbons for decorations. I still have that tree, sans the ribbons, and it is part of our annual Christmas décor to this very day. There were the paperback books, all of which are still in my library (Books go in, they never leave my library.) Beef jerky was edible and quickly consumed. I believe there were also several packages of assorted cookies and crackers, a few fared well, but alas most were in similar condition as the Pringles and again into the trash they went.

I’m pretty sure that was the last mail I received in Saudi as we departed on April 6th, 1991 and I was back home at Fort Campbell about 18 hours later. I was surprised that I wasn’t met when the plane arrived (I’d been able to call my wife during a stop at Kennedy International in NY.) and gave a general head’s up on our estimated arrival) when our flight of units from the 101st would return. (Usually one 747 full daily) Our unit was herded into the 8-101 AVN hangar near Campbell Army Airfield Operations where we were welcomed by the Command and their families. My family was conspicuously absent. It wasn’t until about an hour after we landed that I met up with the entire family.

.A 16-passenger van arrived with the wife and kids, my father and step-mother, grandmother (92, so this was a big deal), aunt, brother and sister-in-law and nieces. They had been delayed because my father had managed to book a hotel over an hour away in Dickson, TN. (I never knew why it was so far out). That delay kept them meeting me at the flight line on time as he was the one with the rented van.This was especially disconcerting because all the unit and their families had left and I was left standing in an empty parking lot outside the locked hanger wondering where everyone was at. Regardless of the delay and the confusion (not to mention jet lag), it was nice to me home again.

I was greeted with another surprise when we managed to get the entire family back to my quarters. We had Christmas in April. My wife and family had put all the Christmas decorations up again and all my presents were under the tree waiting for me. It was a great way to return from a war. I was home and surrounded by my family.

My last Desert Storm wartime mission

On or about February 27, 1991, I flew my last mission during the 100 hours of Desert Storm. This mission was an insertion of two M119A1 towed 105 millimeter howitzers, their M998 Humvee prime movers, ammo and gun crews. This mission was flown with CPT Cantey/CW2 Anderson in aircraft 24162, CW3 Hutchings, CW2 Kempf (Me) and our crew on 23780. The mission departed Forward Operating Base Cobra (FOB Cobra) as a flight of two.

Each helicopter was loaded with the cannon entering into the aircraft first gun tube forward. The cannon was loaded so far forward in the aircraft that the end of the gun tube was in the cockpit between the pilots. Then the Humvee was backed into the cargo bay. A Humvee had about two inches clearance all the way around the vehicle. Since you couldn't open the doors there was no easy way for the driver to exit the vehicle. The Humvee was positioned so that in the event of an emergency, the driver could climb out his window and then out the side window of the aircraft.

The rest of the gun crew loaded from the front cabin door into the helicopter and we 72 rounds of 105-millimeter ammunition was stacked on the ramp. In route to the pickup zone (PZ), we came up along a flight of five Blackhawks (String of catfish) loaded with Infantry going the same direction. They were flying about 130/140 knots and we slowly flew past them keeping them on our right side. I remember being abreast the lead aircraft, looking over at the pilot of the lead Blackhawk, I smiled and waved, then nosed the aircraft over and accelerated to about 155 knots and left them behind as we flew to our PZ. We never missed an opportunity to show a Blackhawk we were faster and more powerful.

CPT Cantey/CW2 Anderson (162) were lead and CW3 Hutchins/CW2 Kempf (780) were chalk 2. The mission was to place these two guns at a grid northwest of of Kuwait along the Iraqi border roughly 30 Miles northwest of Kuwait City in support of XVIII Airborne Corps operations in the area. Mark (Hutchins) was flying 780, I think CW2 Anderson was flying 162 and CPT Cantey navigating, I was navigating using the GPS since it was mounted on my side of the console.

Like all our desert mission navigation, even with the new Global Position Systems (GPS), navigation was difficult. In this case, we were targeting nothing more than a spot in the sand. The while I was navigating, monitoring the GPS system and our Omega backup, I noticed that lead had both overflown the target grid coordinates and had now had turned left toward the northeast. Mark and I were discussing the situation and whether our navigation was accurate when I spotted the bombed out hardened hangars of the Al-Basra Airfield. Al-Basra is located along the Euphrates River and was several miles north of our intended destination, in enemy held territory.

I radioed to the lead aircraft and the discussion went something like this:

780: “Lead this is Chalk 2. Do you see those hangars at 2 o’clock?”

162: “Roger, I see them.”

780: “Would you mind if we turned around? We don’t own that real estate yet.”

The discussion became a bit more urgent moments later when our anti-aircraft radar detectors started lighting up. We turned around and discussed the situation. Since I had a better idea where we were at on the map I guided us back to the landing zone (LZ) Grid where we landed.

Unloading the Humvee’s turned out to be a problem. The LZ was sand for a change and we’d sunk in it about 9 inches so that the cargo ramp not drop low enough to allow the Humvee to be unloaded. To deal with this we “Knelt” the forward part of the aircraft lifting the rear of the aircraft a bit with the rotor system to give needed clearance. The gun was then unloaded in short order by the gun crew and they moved off a couple hundred feet to give us room to takeoff.

As soon as we were unloaded, I took the controls and we stayed the lead aircraft as Mark told me to hightail it back to FOB Cobra. I did exactly that as I sped accelerated to 170 knots for the 1st time ever while piloting a CH-47. (It was the max airspeed for a D-Model Chinook). Getting painted by air defense radar (ADR) had us rattled as the Iraqis had radar guided anti-aircraft missiles. Since we were paranoid of some unwanted (Missile) attention I flew the next 20 or so miles sands about 10 feet off the flat desert sands.

We were so low and so fast that we created a rooster tail of dust behind us over 100 feet tall. I didn't care if anyone saw the rising column of dust as our concern was missiles. Radar guided missiles could be avoided if you were close enough to terrain to mask your presence. Since there were no hills or valleys to be found, low and fast (I chose really really low) was the next best thing. We really wanted to get away from that radar! Once clear of the area, we climbed back to normal cruising altitude and headed to refuel at FOB Cobra.

Shortly after our return to FOB Cobra the end of hostilities was announced. The war was over and I was sitting in the desert in Iraq.