They Used To Call Me "Chief"

Not being one to waste anything, I decided not to dispose of the five or so twelve-foot lengths of rebar . Nor could I part with several assorted pieces of lumber, also left in place after construction was completed on our new house. The wood scraps served me well and became instrumental in building a kayak rack , a sitting bench, a garage table, workbench and some decorative shelving. The upright drying rack for beach towels, made from a 4x4 , well, we all have our folly or two. And the leftover metal slats from the porch railings , albeit great additions to the drying rack, made the term “unsightly” an understatement. The day finally arrived to put the rebar to use. Several badly rotted-out sections of landscaping timber on the thirty-plus years old retaining wall , needed support, and lots of it. Hey, what a great use for the rebar! However, I needed to cut them into four and five foot lengths and drive them into the ground, thus holding back the impending collapse of the wall. I...

I was mostly with the 3AD Rear/DISCOM during the war. I was very mobile and active as a tactical comms Warrant for the Division. We were part of  V Corps , but deployed under VII Corps in the desert. We quickly became a step child of VII Corps. It was fukking miserable, especially in the giant warehouses at the port. What a disorganized mess! I was a newly-promoted CW2 right before ODS . Our air assets were out of Maurice Rose AAF in Frankfurt . My peacetime duty station was on Drake Kaserne , with the 143d Sig Bn, headquartered across the street on Edwards Kaserne . The aviators referred to us as “walking Warrants.” I attended WOCS from Apr 1988 until completion, in Red Flight, class 88-12. I got my dot in Nov 1988, after an additional 26 weeks of a very tough tech course in Ft Gordon, Ga. I had flown on many a UH-60 during the ODS conflict to troubleshoot tactical comms within 3d Armored Division as well as many logistical missions. When the pilot(s) would see my rank whi...

  Mom, of Dutch origin, came to visit us in Germany in ‘82, or so. We took her to the old country to take in the culture. She grew up speaking (whatever bastardized version of) Dutch her mom and aunts taught her. So, in her mind, she was a true Hollander. You see, if you forget the actual Dutch word, just say it in English, but with a Dutch accent. It's not rocket science. So, that version of the language became her vernacular. So, we’re in a nice park in Zaanse Schans, viewing the windmills, when she spots a Hollander about her age sitting by himself on a bench. She decides to go converse with the ol’ boy in her best Dutch. I warned her several times, “Mom, these people are serious Hollanders and they speak fluently. You may wish to reconsider.” “Ach, ver sonder” (or thereabouts) was her reply. “Fine, I warned you,” says I. She sits by him and starts rattling off her absolute best Dutch ever. After the best 3- minute dissertation of her life, he says to her in somewhat broken ...

  As an 11B, we'd been hit with CS so many times, many of us became used to it and learned how to breathe properly and not give in to panic. So fast forward to my Signal Warrant days. In Korea, 1995, I'm a senior CW2, and the Bn (304th Sig) had 2 days of NBC training culminating in the gas chamber with that pansy-ass "banana oil" crap. They bring the officers in the gas chamber first in MOPP-4, and harass us (in fun) with jumping jacks, squat thrusts, etc., just to get us breathing irregularly. The younger officers were nervous as hell. I was laughing at them to myself. The NBC Sgts would stand in front of us and have one officer at a time unmask while the rest of us were running in place. The NCOs would ask a series of questions, until the unmasked officer succumbed to the fumes. Then they'd take off running out of the chamber and puke. They didn't know my background. So, when it was my turn, I remembered my breathing techniques, unmasked, and smiled at...

My first tour of duty in Korea was in 1979. We did our training in the mountains that dwarf Tongduchŏn ( TDC , to those in the know), in preparation for our 30-day rotations in the DMZ . My weapon (not by choice) was the M-60 , a most devastating weapon with awesome firepower. Our rucksacks were packed for the usual 5-7 day trek up to the ridge line, to various overwatch positions. The name of the mountain range escapes me, but what we named it will never make it past the filtering mechanism here.   A mama-san or 3 would normally accompany our patrols, carrying large quantities of orangee soda bottles, wrapped in a tarp on their head. Their backpacks consisted of metal cooking bowls, chopsticks, etc, and… Ramen ! Mama-sans’ ages? Probably in the 60s or 70s. It's hard to tell, as they were of farming origin, mostly from rice paddies and lots of vegetable farms. They were of very rugged countenance, to say the least. As steep as those mountains are, and as tired and sore we were, ...