What a Long, Strange Trip It Was

Regular readers know that Jonn tolerates an occasional off-topic “walkabout” from me at TAH.  Yeah, you’re right; what follows below is another such ramble.

Consider yourself forewarned.  (smile)

. . .

Many people absolutely hate military life.  I can understand that, at least intellectually.  Military life definitely isn’t for everyone.  Some people are simply not suited for the military – physically, psychologically, or both.

Hell, I can even understand why some draftees had a “FTA” attitude – and I’m not talking “Fun, Travel, Adventure”.  If you don’t want to be there in the first place, the military can be a hard place to stomach.

Looking back, I honestly can’t say it was always fun.  But I still can’t help but feel that I was one incredibly lucky soul.

Why? Well . . . you tell me.  What other career gives you the chance to

• Jump from “perfectly good aircraft” (yeah, right – see below) close to 20 times, and walk away every time – though admittedly with a pronounced limp on two occasions. And get paid extra to do it!  Unless you’ve done that at least once, you simply cannot fully appreciate the beauty of the underside of a parachute.

• Shoot various types of small-arms – some automatic – without having to buy them or pay for the ammo. (And some bigger weapons, too.)

• Use some other stuff that makes a really big “bang”.  Without getting arrested.

• Come within maybe 60 seconds of being shot up by friendly forces with automatic weapons due to a combination of fatigue, language difficulties, and human error. And not in the Middle East or Central Asia, either.

• Learn firsthand that the term “sunny Sicily” is pretty much bullsh!t – at least in April.

• Get an amendment to orders requiring you to check with the local housing office and get a statement of non-availability before moving off-base – while deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, during a shooting war. (Yes, this bit of admin foolishness actually happened. )

• Make a brief call to the US from overseas at the invitation of White House Communications Agency personnel, using a bit of spare satellite time at the end of a communications test. Then find out later that you’d absolutely scared the living bejezus out of some relatives. (The call happened during a rather tense time, internationally, and had been manually placed by White House Switchboard operators. The call was not expected by the recipients, and it started with the operator asking, “This is the White House Switchboard; have we reached . . . . ?”)

• Fly nap of the earth, in gear, on loaded helicopters over dense woodlands – and at medium altitudes as well – and at both low and medium altitudes over desert.

• Be on a rotary-wing aircraft when its .30 cal (technically, 7.62mm) and .50 cal gunners opened fire.  As well as when one “popped flares” during a night landing approach.

• Physically travel north of the 38th Parallel on the Korean Peninsula.  (Parts of what is today South Korea are actually north of that infamous line on the map; at one time the US used some training ranges north of the 38th.)

• Land hard as hell in a C-141. And find out afterwards from some other troops on-board that a 30-killowatt generator on board as cargo . . . bounced enough that they saw light under its wheels during that landing.  (The bird didn’t go any where for a few days afterwards.)

• Realize shortly afterwards that you’re likely only still alive because the tie-down chains holding said generator to said C-141’s cargo deck – and their attachment points – held.

• Hear the nightly Communist propaganda courtesy of North Korean loudspeakers at “Propaganda Village” just north of Panmunjom.

• Spend Thanksgiving Day on a completely different remote mountaintop site in Korea.

• See personally one of the Korean DMZ infiltration tunnels.

• Be in Korea during a DMZ shooting incident involving US forces.

• Send soldiers on the road in deadly dangerous conditions to make critical repairs, staying tense as hell until they report safe arrival, mission completion, and safe return.

• See the Hindu Kush in the distance – as well as the Euphrates, the Persian Gulf, and the mountains of North Korea.

• See the Tigris, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Alps, Korea, Sicily, southern Alaska, parts of Kabul, the Bagram-Kabul highway, several US/Allied installations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Route Irish, the IZ (AKA “the Green Zone”), a big chunk of CONUS, part of Germany (including former East Germany), and some of the Arabian Peninsula up close and personal.

• Hear the prayer call of the muezzin at daybreak and sunset. In at least three different countries.

• Feel your duty location – and your quarters – shake when MEDEVAC birds pass low overhead, taking off from or landing at the helipad less than 150 meters away.

• Overhear conversations in German, Italian, Hangul, Arabic, Dari, and Pashto – plus a number of other unrecognized languages.

• Be welcomed by incoming IDF landing on your camp at about 0700 – on your first morning in-country.

• Hear the low, zooming whoosh of a katyusha rocket passing overhead. Once heard, that sound is absolutely unmistakable – and unforgettable.

• Find out that all of your soldiers are unharmed after a multiple-round rocket attack.

• Stand in formation during a formal XVIII Airborne Corps IG Inspection.

• See 120+ F in the shade, dust so thick you can’t see more than about 25 meters, and winter weather so cold you have to start your vehicles every 3 or 4 hours just to ensure they will start if and when needed.

• Fly from Baghdad to Qatar – by way of Mosul. On a fully-loaded cargo plane with two environmental control settings for the cargo bay: 100F and 40F. With temperatures alternating every 10 minutes or so, of course.

• Get a call from the local medical clinic advising that one of your subordinates is a patient due to hostile action.

• Find a visitor from headquarters literally hiding under a desk in your area after a rocket attack.

• Visit multiple US camps north of the Imjin River (when the US still had forces along the Korean DMZ), crossing Freedom Bridge in the process.

• See at least one cowardly (but ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to try to avoid combat-zone duty via “gaming” the military medical system.

• Have the honor to be north of the Imjin River, providing support for the visit, while President Reagan visited the Korean DMZ.

• Hit the dirt multiple times as the incoming warning klaxon blares, only to find out it was a false alarm.

• Take cover behind a 3ft high “Jersey” barrier as the incoming warning klaxon blares, and have an incoming round land way too close between 1 and 2 seconds later.

• Sit in a concrete bunker for an hour or so, twiddling your thumbs, waiting for the “all clear”. And find out later it was because someone tried unsuccessfully to smuggle a bomb through one of the installation’s gates.

• Take a tumble on an obstacle course during training, finding out the hard way that it really is possible for body parts to be injured to the point that they are never the same again.

• See a strong man tremble from what appears to be a combination of fear and relief after surviving an IED attack without serious injury.

• Sleep on an office floor – on the night shooting starts halfway around the world.

• Experience firsthand the smells of turbine/jet exhaust, small-arms fire, and exploding incoming indirect fire.

• See REMFs (there are multiple translations; a polite one is “Really Excellent Males and Females”) serving at HQ in Kuwait receive combat decorations for meritorious service under what were effectively nothing but peacetime remote-tout conditions. Then also see a number of soldiers subordinate to that same HQ who served in Iraq receive equivalent peacetime awards.

• Leave active duty and transition to the Reserve component, serving for years in a reserve status – and then receive orders to return to extended Active Duty. Four different times.

• As a military reservist, serve more time on active duty than not between September 11, 2001, and retirement.

• Be a passenger on an Air National Guard C-130. An “A” model.

• Ask (jokingly) the crew chief of that same C-130A if a wing was about to fall off as he peers out the window in-flight scowling.  (His answer was, “No, but we may be about to lose an engine.”)   Then shortly afterwards, feel the aircraft shudder hard – and see said crew chief look out the window again, curse, then immediately go to the cockpit at a fast walk to advise the pilot that the bird had just lost an engine.

• Then have the flight immediately divert to an alternate, nearby destination pronto.

• End up stuck on the “sidelines” in CONUS during a shooting war because you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, assigned to the wrong organization. Twice.

• Spend literally years looking for an assignment allowing deployment to serve in theater, and after multiple tries finally succeed.

• Then have to give one’s spouse that particular bit of “good news”.

• Then realize, “Holy sh!t – you’re about to go to war. And you were actually stupid enough to ask to go.  Aren’t you really too old for this sh!t?”  And then . . . smile.

• Deploy to a combat zone for the first time – roughly seven weeks after the birth of your first grandchild.

• See firsthand that some deployed wartime headquarters really do engage in ridiculous, petty, ego-driven, counterproductive, bullsh!t office politics.

• Visit Munich and Garmish on R&R from deployment.

• After absolutely freezing your butt off during a couple of nights in a too-well-air-conditioned tent in Kuwait while awaiting transportation.

• See firsthand the incredible good cheer and camaraderie of US soldiers returning from R&R while awaiting transportation from Kuwait to Baghdad to rejoin their units.

• Find a chunk of shrapnel outside the wall next to your place of duty after a rocket attack. And a few days later, find a spent 7.62mm bullet near a stairway at the other end of the building.

• Stand beside Disney Avenue on Bagram Air Base, at attention and saluting, as flag-draped coffins pass by en route to the flight line for their final trip home. Entirely too damn many times.

• Watch a group of visiting NFL cheerleaders stand, quietly and respectfully, hands over hearts, along that same road as five such coffins pass by on their final trip home.

• Experience the camaraderie of a cohesive military unit. As well as the abject inanity of a dysfunctional one.

• Take your last (and final) PT test a week before starting pre-retirement terminal leave. Seriously.

And, finally:

• Learn from personal experience how incredibly, unmistakably alive you feel when you realize that there literally might be no tomorrow. Then – paradoxically – experience the identical feeling after a close call on realizing that you will indeed have a chance to see another sunrise.

. . .

War. It’s the reason soldiers exist. And war is indeed horrible, wasteful, ugly, and awful.  The training for war is harsh and dangerous.  Both take one away from hearth, home, and family for huge chunks of time.

But my God:  war is also simultaneously so damned incredibly seductive and attractive – unbelievably so.  Ditto much of the harsh and dangerous training for same.

Robert E. Lee indeed expressed it best. “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”

Was it “all good”? Oh hell no. I’d have willingly passed on some of what I’ve seen and done. Stupidity is still stupidity, whether it’s due to human error, incompetence, bad judgement, mandatory policy, or some GO’s or civilian executive’s whim.

But damn – I still miss it anyway, warts and all. Even today.

For 30 years, I had the pleasure of working with and for – and at times, having work for me – some of the finest individuals on the face of God’s earth. Yes, I served with a few fools and tools along the way, and I have been on occasion backstabbed by superiors and professional peers, or let down by subordinates – thankfully, only rarely. But by and large, it was my great good fortune to serve with a truly exceptional group of men and women while in uniform.

I was privileged to have the chance to see and do a few memorable things along the way. And I was also fortunate enough to have lived to remember them.

All in all, it really was one helluva great, wild ride. And yeah – it was worth it.

I’d guess many if not most of you reading this feel much the same.

. . .

To any who are still reading: thanks for listening. I hope this brought back a few good memories from your own service vice bad ones, and that you enjoyed the ramble.

I’ll be heading back to the “res” now . . . .

Category: Pointless blather, Who knows