Ft. Hood

 


































FT.Hood

In peace time ,it is more difficult to make rank, I went from private to Sergeant in 16 months . I went to the non commissioned officers academy and qualified with a m1911a1 forty-five caliber pistol . They taught as the leader your personal side arm was all that was needed and if the time come I needed a rifle there would surely be plenty laying about.

 My platoon sergeant Billy Woods was from Mississippi, he was 2 tour nam and only 25, jaded sure, professional solider unquestionably. When I got to the motor pool 4 of 7 jeeps where not running. The first day I had two going and one of them was mine. Those jeeps look cool with the 7.62 m-60 machine guns mounted between the driver and the t c., just like the rat patrol, damn, I was in heaven.

 Didn't get to keep my jeep long. Sergeant woods liked my radio chatter that I learned from him. We used a military/truck driver/police vernacular. 10-8, 10-10 tango papa and tango papa might mean toilet paper or tanquery and pop. So the sarg made me his driver being I could fix all the shit and not just the jeeps but tracks too. Equipment problems everywhere. My don't know nothing about no tracks ended. I was told I had volunteered to go to track and wheel maintenance school for 16 weeks. Track and wheel triage, another hat.

 Being the 8 track savvy man of the times, I knew about speakers, c-b radios and how to couple co-ax cables. I got my communication hat when lieutenant Hill volunteered me to be his driver being I could organize his 6 radios piled around the backseat of his jeep. Today he would just have a cell phone.

 I liked driving for Lt. Hill. I got to carry my 45, as his body guard. Because of the gun laying around theory, L T didn't have a m-16 assigned so he made me check my 16 out for him to carry, sounds paranoid to me. I have never understood officers, never wanted to be one, Captain Anderson my CO and LT called me into his office shortly after had received orders for Korea and ask me point blank did I want to go to officers candidate school. They wanted me to come back to the cavalry as an officer.( to me, that was like a peace-time battlefield commission)I did not want a classroom, I was following my bliss. When I got my hard stripe, men where going to look to you. I didn't want to worry about all that shit sergeant woods and lt hill worried about, private Ryan's clap, the colonels carbuncles. I would never make it to the battle. Its lunacy, Hellers catch-22, he was right.

 Serving with sarge and the lt. was an honor. Billy taught me how to drive a 4x4 jeep aggressively. How to read an army map and call air, artillery, indirect mortar fire missions. He wouldn't let me drive he made me do his job, the bastard, exactly how to be a scout, a forward observer. How to shoot that machine gun up there, how to change the barrel expeditiously. The collective knowledge of what worked in nam and what didn't and why. Bill would say now tell me where to go, no-lights pitch black in dense brush , up and down hills, across creeks, some times I was absolutely terrified he would run us off a cliff. Once I disembarked my vehicle as a tire teetered unsupported, I was more pissed of loosing my pimped out ride.

Our job was to draw enemy fire and expose enemy positions blow the hell out of them and sweep. We intentionally draw enemy into firefights, as the point men. I thought my job was also to expose black Sabbath to them. Sergeant York used a turkey call, I used Black Sabbath. A giant game of gopher. Pop up, pop them in the head. I was too young to really know the danger and the army exploits this knowledge, in that a 60 year senator stays home and sends impoverished eighteen year olds to fight his wars.
…………………………Kosmicdebris