A Tough Education, Part 2

As AOT continued, we finally went to the field for exercises. This was in preparation for the battalion to be part of the Return of Forces to Germany (REFORGER) which was a big exercise every year in the federal Republic of Germany. The purpose of the REFORGER event was to flow troops from the States back over to Germany to oppose an attack by the Warsaw Pact. Those were the good old days when you knew who the bad guys were and where they could be found on any given day.

We were equipped with M113 armored personnel carriers which are usually referred to as “tracks” or APC’s for future reference. The ones we had were still “gassers” and used gasoline instead of diesel fuel which was an indication of their age. They were not in good mechanical condition for the most part. As an example, my track did not have a functioning intercom system and there were no safety pins to hold the hatches securely, so they were tied open with cargo straps. In the event of enemy artillery fire, it was not possible to quickly “button up” because you had to untie the strap first. It really didn’t matter because you were as safe outside as inside the track from artillery fire and most automatic weapons. The M113 had “aluminized armor” to keep its weight down so the rather wimpy gasoline engine could make it move across rough terrain. I learned one night in the first Gulf War that AK-47 fire from close range would go right through that aluminized armor. In fact, it could penetrate the front slope which was the thick part. Still, the M113 is one of my favorite combat vehicles because properly driven, it can get you almost anywhere where other tracked and wheeled vehicles cannot. More on that anon, as they say. (That means later.)

So, I couldn’t talk to my driver with no intercom. I had to take a long whip antenna from a PRC 77 radio and use it to “communicate” with the driver by taps on his combat vehicle crewman’s helmet (CVC helmet). A tap on the right meant turn right. A tap on the left, turn left. A couple of quick taps on the top, speed up. A couple of slow taps on the top, slow down and big hard tap on the top meant STOP! So whip in one hand and the other hand went on the .50 caliber M2 machine gun, so no hands to really hang on with as I was standing in the track commander hatch as we were lurching on very bad trails and across country. Ernie Thompson, my 1LT sponsor had warned me about “kissing the 50” and knocking your front teeth out. I sure wished I had two hands hanging on the gun instead of only one. Ironically, at the first halt, I went forward to Ernie’s platoon to ask him a question. He answered me but had a hand over his mouth. I asked him why he had his hand like that and he removed his hand. He had “kissed his 50” and knocked both his front teeth out one of which was his prized gold tooth. He had recovered both teeth which were actually implants. He had lost his front teeth playing football as a kid. He showed them to me and then put them in his breast pocket rather sheepishly. But his smile was something to behold! And he was still smiling. I never heard if Ernie had made it through Vietnam or not. I sure hope that he did. He was a good man.

Earlier, we had lined up at the back gate to the motor pool for our road march out to the field. Typical of my weather luck, a violent rain storm struck as we were lining our tracks up. All of us were wearing wet weather gear so were moderately prepared. I heard a shout from the back of the track and looked into the cargo hatch. There was a soldier named Smitty although his last name was not Smith, shouting at me, “El Tee! I have to take a feces!” (Yes, that’s how we talked in the infantry back in the day. No profanity at all.) Smitty was pointing to a porta potty which was sitting next to the back gate of the motor pool for the use of the guards who patrolled the motor pool perimeter each night. They patrolled not to discourage enemy soldiers of which there were none in Kansas that we knew of; but to keep other units from entering our motor pool at night to steal parts off your vehicles. Smitty was very insistent that he go to that porta potty and kept saying he had to feces really, really bad! I had no idea when we would start to roll but told Smitty to run like hell and to come back the minute we called for him. He dashed off into the rain.

About five minutes later we got the word to roll. Everybody hollered for Smitty and he came promptly out of the porta potty pulling his wet weather gear back on and running for the track which was slowly moving forward. The track in front of us picked up speed and my driver did the same being unaware since we had no intercom that Smitty was even outside of the vehicle. Smitty ran harder, the boys in the back shouted louder and more emphatic encouragement (without any profanity of course), and with a last few sprinting steps lunged close enough to the back hatch for the boys to drag him inside.

Once Smitty was safely on board we picked up our speed along the muddy track leading out to the field training area. The guys in the back hollered up at me and I turned to see what they wanted. They pointedly pointed up to the pouring rain and then to the cargo hatch that covered the back half of the track where they were riding. Then they slowly closed the hatch door after a few goodbye waves to me. I could hear them laughing in the back of the track. Their message was that they would sit warm, dry and snug inside while I stood in the commander’s hatch getting progressively wetter. And getting progressively muddier as the M113 in front was throwing up huge clods of mud our way. We were required to keep the column closed-up so there was no way to avoid the mud.

A few words to describe Smitty would be appropriate here. First of all, his last name wasn’t Smith but nobody could tell me why he was called Smitty. In typical soldier logic it made sense to them. Smitty was a big goofy kid who was always smiling and the butt of all jokes in the platoon. He was almost like a mascot except he was all heart. He would charge through a brick wall if you told him to. And he would smile while he did it. He was a bit slow on the uptake at times when he was being teased, having a very trusting nature. Once he finally realized he was being teased, he would have a good laugh at himself. Everybody loved Smitty. That is until now.

I heard a commotion in the back of the track and the cargo hatch slammed open behind me. I looked back and saw all the troops in the back, about six of them, hanging over the edge of the hatch gagging. I yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you guys?” while still trying to watch the road ahead and simultaneously control the driver with my whip antenna and hold on to the 50. Cal machine gun. I finally heard one of them shout, “Sir, Smitty feced himself! We gotta stop!” I heard Smitty, who was also gagging, yell, “I did not feces myself! One of you guys is farting and it’s disgusting!” I told them all to shut the hell up and we were not stopping. Since I had no map and had zero idea where we were headed for our training area, I damn sure couldn’t stop and lose contact with the march column. A minute or two went by with no more yelling.

I heard a commotion in the back after that silence and looked back just in time to see the other guys getting ready to toss Smitty bodily out of the track. Smitty was squealing that he had not feced himself and the others broke with infantry tradition and became quite profane as they struggled to get a good enough grip on Smitty to toss him out of the moving track. I became quite profane as I told them to put Smitty back down, right damn now! They reluctantly obeyed and sullenly stayed up in the cargo hatch getting as wet and muddy as I by the time we got to our training area.

Once we went into position with our tracks, we dropped our back ramps and my passengers ran out the back and immediately began verbally accosting Smitty for “shitting” himself. (There it was, the dreaded S word out in the open. So much for tradition.) Smitty kept insisting that he had not shit himself but then one of the guys pointed to one of Smitty’s boots and asked, “Then what the hell is that brown stuff on your boot? Looks like shit to me, Smitty!” Smitty looked down and was dumbfounded. He touched the brown stuff with a finger gingerly, raised it to his nose and sniffed. “It is shit!” he exclaimed. “One of you guys did this to me and it ain’t funny! It just ain’t funny, dernit! Dernit all to heck!” By this time my acting platoon sergeant, Sergeant James (not his real name which I unfortunately cannot remember), came over to see what all the ruckus was about.

Sergeant James calmly told Smitty to take his wet weather gear off. Smitty sullenly began removing his gear. The wet weather gear we were issued back then was a rain parka jacket and a rubberized pair of bib coveralls that came up to your neck, front and back. When Smitty removed his coveralls, there was the evidence of his crime for all to see. Or what was left of it. A glance inside the track showed that some of the “evidence” was on the floorboards in the back. Sergeant James and I both deduced what had occurred. When Smitty went into the porta potty, in his haste because he had to “feces really, really bad”, he had not pulled his coveralls far enough down to clear the hole where his deposit was supposed to go. In consequence, he had actually unloaded into the back of his coveralls and then made it worse when he slammed his coveralls back on to get to the M113. The troops trying to toss him out of the track had not helped contain the “evidence” and in fact spread it around the floorboards while wrestling with Smitty.

Sergeant James directed Smitty to gather his gear up and go to the stream at the bottom of the hill we were on to clean up. He directed the others to get the bucket in the track and to sluice out the floorboards. They grumbled but they did it. Some swore they would never ride in my track again and my response was it was a long damn walk back to the barracks. Once Smitty came back and the floorboards were clean, everybody couldn’t stop laughing. Smitty asked if they really were going to toss him out of the moving track and was assured they most definitely were. Which made Smitty laugh even harder. Soldiers can be strange at times which is why you have to love them. Somebody famous once said, “Where do we find such men?” It’s a fair question and we are fortunate as a nation that we always manage to in time of crisis and war.

I was summoned over to the company commander’s track and we were told to camouflage our vehicles. The commander had no further orders from battalion on what was next. His only orders were to camouflage the tracks. I went back to the platoon and told Sergeant James to have the men camouflage the tracks. It had stopped raining finally and was actually getting hot again. The troops scattered rapidly to gather camouflage. Their alacrity in doing so caused me to be suspicious. They were normally not so enthusiastic when given something to do. I watched as they descended into the draws and ravines that scored the training area and proceeded to cut down branches for camouflage. As they came closer I noticed the branches they had cut were very thin and the leaves on them were also very thin. They would not doo much to hide an M113 armored personnel carrier.

My driver came back clutching a large bundle of these scraggly plants. He proceeded to lay them out on the top of the track with no effort to use them to hide the sides of the track, not that they could hide much. I asked him why he had cut such wimpy camouflage when there were nearby trees in full leaf that would better accomplish the task. With surprise on his face, he said, “El Tee, this is marijuana. I’m laying it on top so it will dry quicker.” Now it was time for surprise on my face. I had never seen marijuana before but took him at his word. Apparently marijuana grew wild on the Fort Riley military reservation back then and was a good ten feet high. I said, “You’re shitting me!” He assured me he was not but did offer to share when the leaves were sufficiently dried. I declined.

I called Sergeant James over and informed him the troops were using marijuana to camouflage the tracks. I was clearly appalled. Sergeant James was equally appalled at me being appalled. He said, “Yes, El Tee, they are. We always do when we come to the field. Most of these guys wouldn’t come out here except to get more pot. Remember what I told you about jungle rot?” I nodded. He continued, “They could have done the jungle rot trick, so this is their payback for going to the field.” I pondered on that for a moment then told Sergeant James to get rid of the pot and get real camouflage from the trees. He looked at me hard for a moment, then nodded. He proceeded to tell the troops to do as I said. When any of them wanted to remonstrate, Sergeant James would tell them to shup the hell up and do the hell what they were told to do. I’m sure some of those leaves made their way into butt packs and ammo pouches but I did not press the issue.

I had been tested by the troops to see if I was “cool” or not. I was not cool but I did notice a bit more respect from the troops in my further dealings with them. Doing what’s right as a leader is not negotiable. Particularly in the military. If I had been “cool”, I would no longer be in charge. I was blessed with a good non-commissioned officer in Sergeant James who willingly supported me in enforcing the standards. He did so without question.

The rest of the field exercise was a series of driving from one location to another and camouflaging the vehicles as best we could. Camouflage nets in those days were pretty well non-existent other than in the artillery. We never executed a deliberate defense or an attack or any other tactical maneuvers. We just drove around. I assumed, wrongly, as I determined through later experience in Germany, that REGFORGER must be the same. Just driving around.

The culmination of the field training was an exercise to swim all of the M113 armored personnel carriers in Milford Reservoir. This was in preparation for potential river crossing operations in Germany during REFORGER. The entire battalion assembled at the reservoir and prepared for swimming operations.

The M113 must have five things in order to swim successfully. First of all, the engine must work. It would propel the tracks in the water and power the bilge pump which also must work. The M113 had to have a functioning trim vane mounted on the front of the track. Its purpose was to prevent any waves from flooding the engine compartment and killing the engine while afloat. The M113 needed, but could still function without, rubber track shrouds which attached to the hull and covered the tracks and road wheels to a depth of about two feet. Their purpose was to channel the water from the motion of the tracks to provide forward propulsion through the water. An M113 could still swim without shrouds but would be extremely slow. If there was any current at all in the water, swimming without shrouds was not allowed. The M113 would go wherever the current went with minimal forward propulsion. The fifth and final requirement and probably the most important was the M113 had to have functioning drain plugs installed. These were normally not installed during normal operations so that any water taken in from crossing minor water obstacles could drain back out. When swimming, their purpose was to make the hull water tight.

Each M113 was required to carry four men in the cargo compartment and have a driver and track commander to be certified in swim operations. The hatches for all three stations: driver, track commander and cargo compartment, had to be functional and could close securely before entering the water. Very often when first entering the water, the water displaced by the M113, particularly if it was going too fast, would slosh over the top of the M113. Any open hatch could lead to flooding beyond the capacity of the bilge pump to pump out. The M113 was a good “swimmer” but all the equipment as noted above had to be right and the driving done right.

I swam my M113 with no problems as did the rest of the company. We were the first to go so could be part of the onlookers lining the banks watching the other M113’s swim. All the rest of the battalion successfully swam their vehicles. The last two vehicles to swim were those of the battalion S3 and finally the battalion commander. I didn’t notice it at the time, but the crowd of onlookers had gotten larger. The S3 successfully swam his M113 and only one M113 was left to go; that of the battalion commander. I decided we would probably leave immediately once the battalion commander was done so went back to my platoon area to get the guys ready to go. There was nobody there which was odd. I walked back to the reservoir and saw the battalion commander trying to order nearby soldiers to get in the back of his M113 in order to have the required four passengers. All of them would turn their backs and melt away into the crowd. No one would get in the track with the battalion commander.

As the battalion commander was yelling at troops to get into his track, I noticed the battalion commander’s track driver talking to a soldier standing on the ground next to the M113. I didn’t think anything of it until I saw the soldier slip underneath the front of the M113. I thought he was checking the drain plugs. He was gone for a minute of two, then emerged near me at the back of the M113 carrying the four drain plugs for the track in his right hand. He signaled the driver with a thumbs up and got one in response. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so I could not see a name tag and I had no idea who he was, but I damn sure knew what he had done. I yelled at him to stop and he bolted into the crowd which closed ranks after his passage. I turned around and ran back to the battalion commander’s track.

The battalion commander decided he would go without passengers and was in the process of telling the driver to enter the water. I yelled at him loud enough for him to hear me through his CVC helmet and he turned towards me. I was frantically telling him he didn’t have any drain plugs. He did not pull his CVC helmet away from his head to hear me clearly over the roar of the engine but did tell me to “get the fuck away from me cadet!” I watched helplessly as his M113 headed for the reservoir. I ran back and told the battalion executive officer (XO) at the control point which was only a few yards away from where I was standing when I yelled my warning, that the colonel didn’t have drain plugs. He stared at me in a complete state of shock and asked how I knew that. I told him, and he instinctively asked which soldier had removed them. I could only describe him as a skinny white kid which matched about half of the battalion. All this took but a few seconds, but it was already too late.

The battalion commander’s M113 slowly entered the water and we saw him order the driver to close his hatch and then he closed his own hatch. As we watched the driver started to lower his hatch but then threw it open and went over the side into the water. He hit the accelerator on the way out and the M113 ploughed ahead and promptly filled with water through the drain vents and the open driver’s hatch. It took only about ten seconds before the M113 disappeared into the reservoir, nose down. The soldiers lining the bank, which was pretty much the whole battalion, cheered and cat called once the M113 went down. The rescue boat out on the reservoir didn’t start moving towards the sunken M113 until the XO yelled at them to pull their heads out and get over there! The driver swam ashore and was jubilantly hailed by the other soldiers. He pretended like he didn’t know why they were cheering him and made a pretext of anxiously looking to where the track had gone down.

As the soldiers eagerly watched the last few bubbles rise from the M113 to the surface, they abruptly stopped making any noise when it was apparent there were no more bubbles. About half a minute or more went by. Then the battalion commander burst to the surface in his life jacket and was feebly trying to swim ashore. The entire battalion booed at his appearance on the surface and yelled at the rescue boat to leave him, or run him over, and so on. The booing got louder as the rescue boat pulled the battalion commander to safety. The XO went to meet the boat and told me to stay close, he may need to talk to me more.

They brought the battalion commander ashore and a medic checked him out and it seemed to me, reluctantly pronounced him okay. The troops continued in their sporadic booing and made comments that it was too bad he hadn’t drowned and so forth. All from a distance so nobody could see who was saying those things. The XO angrily told the soldiers to get back to their units and get prepared to move.

The XO got a blanket to wrap the battalion commander in and motioned for me to come forward. I was behind the battalion commander and he did not know I was there. The XO had motioned for me to go to that spot. The XO told the battalion commander that his drain plugs had been removed and he suspected his M113 driver was in on it. The battalion commander shook his head; he didn’t believe his driver would do such a thing. He asked very bitterly why nobody had told him before he went into the reservoir. The XO then said that Cadet Chamberlain had tried to warn him that the drain plugs were gone. This brought a very visible reaction from the battalion commander. He said it wasn’t true and if Cadet Chamberlain had known he must have been part of it! The battalion XO had heard my shouted warning although it hadn’t registered initially, and he had heard the commander tell me to get the fuck away from him. He responded evenly, “Sir, he tried to tell you. I heard him.” And left it at that. I was preparing to defend myself against the allegation that I was a party to the lost drain plugs, but the XO motioned for me to go away which I was more than happy to do.

As I walked back to the platoon area, Sergeant James approached me. He said without preamble, “It’s too bad that man didn’t die. I was so hoping he would die and maybe we could get somebody who gives a shit about us and not just himself.” I said that if the battalion commander had died, it would have been murder and the driver and his buddy would be court martialed. Sergeant James looked me in the eye and shrugged his shoulders. He said, “El Tee, it don’t fuckin’ mean nuthin’. What would they do to those two guys? Bend their dog tags and send them back to the fuckin’ ‘Nam? Our battalion commander in the ‘Nam made us feel like we mattered, and we fought our asses off for him. This guy only cares about himself and his career. So, no, sir, it don’t mean fuckin’ nuthin’.” He turned around and walked away. I had no response. I had just seen the depth of hatred a bad leader could engender in good men. I was too shocked for words but immediately understood the lesson imparted. Another education in how not to be.

We returned from the field and I prepared to depart in a few days to go back to the academy. It had not been a particularly good five weeks. I did not receive a farewell audience with the battalion commander which we had been told to ask for before we departed. He declined to see me. The battalion XO saw me instead and was very kind in his remarks. He obviously wrote the OER I subsequently received. The battalion commander who refused to see me before I departed clearly had not written that document which was very complimentary.

Although I felt the Army was in disarray based upon my time with the Army that summer, I decided to continue on at the academy. I still wanted to be part of that Army. Mainly because the Ernie Thompson’s and the Sergeant James’s were still part of it. They were worth staying on for; to serve with men like them. “Where do we find such men?” I didn’t know the answer, but I still wanted to be one of those “men”.