Friday night I went online and googled my old Army artillery unit. To my surprise I came up with a whole page devoted to the unit from the last year I was assigned, 1968. There was a page of photos of members of the battery, and even though they were small pictures I used a magnifying glass and realized I didn't recognize anyone except for one sergeant. The year was printed on the page of photos, 1968. So what gives?
I left the unit on November 10, 1968, so probably sometime after that they took the photos for some sort of yearbook page. At the time I left there was a wave of us, drafted in late '66, who were being discharged. In the months before I left new members of the unit were showing up practically every week, and I didn't get to know them.
We were a 155mm self-propelled howitzer battery, stationed in Nürnberg, Germany. We had six big tank-like vehicles with cannons sticking out of them. When I first got to the unit in May, 1967, the first job they gave me was in the ammo section, which meant that I was expected to lift 98-pound artillery shells. My first day on that job gave me back problems I think I still carry with me today. After a few weeks I was still part of the ammo section, but only worked with them part-time because one of the battery clerks was going home on leave and I volunteered to take his place. I was then, as I am now, a very fast typist.
I stopped typing for an hour a day. We had what was called motor stables. After lunch, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. I went with the ammo section guys to the motor pool. We had a checklist, and we were supposed to go through our 10-ton 1952 Studebaker-built trucks, opening the hoods, checking oil, coolant, etc., then getting under the vehicle, checking for leaks, checking air pressure in the tires. You know the drill. Since he was up most nights drinking, our sergeant used to like to get under one of the trucks and sleep during that hour. The rest of us stood around, bullshitting, or like me, reading the Stars and Stripes newspaper. One day we looked up to see our battalion commander, Lt. Colonel Hale, and his aide walking into the motor pool. We woke our sarge up in enough time for him to get out from under the truck and compose himself.
"Well, Sergeant," said the colonel. "I see you and your men are performing motor stables." He asked for the sergeant's checklist. "Hmmm," said Colonel Hale, "I can't tell which you have already done. Can you show me on the list?" The sergeant, trying to act cool, pointed to a number down the list, which was to check the brakes. "All right," said the colonel. "If you're there, then you've already checked this." Colonel Hale pulled the oil dipstick, which had some black gunk on the very end. We were short a few quarts. Our sergeant wasn't short a few quarts of shit, because he was pooping down both legs.
"Maybe next time you'll be a little more careful about the order in which you do your checklist," said Colonel Hale drily as he handed the list back to Sarge.
It taught me a valuable lesson, always have a contingency plan for such an occasion, like make sure you've got the checklist completed and everything is fine, then you can screw off. We were young and lessons are learned, and that was a good one.
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