War Stories

[Rich King]

One year there was a massive TOT. Every Arty Unit in V corps Germany was there. One gun had a charging problem, or something to that effect. Any way, I had a spare 24V 3Kw Gen. Mounted the thing on top of the Battery Box & with a slave cable hooked in, they finished the mission. Mission was Always First.

[Rich King]

One Graff there was a problem with Black out lights. The Ammo Trailers never did work right. I was given the mission to make sure the BC was happy and seen all the black out lights working in our battery. This was the last big training convoy at night. We were road marching back to the rear. We were just to he North of Hofeno (sp) church. It was about 3 minutes before the convoy departed, when I was under the last trailer hooked to a M548. The crew didn't see me under that trailer, but I managed to get the last light on before thy backed the trailer over me. I thru a pair of TL's and hit someone in the head. He yelled and they stopped. Close call. No one was hurt too bad, just pride and I got my TL's back. As it goes, one gun went down and I waited till a recovery vehicle came. As I looked down the tank trail, I seen the Commander and the BC shaking hands. All our black out lights were on and he was very happy. That was probably the last time too. I used over 3 dozen bulbs, and a hell of a lot of commo wire. On that night a little later, we got attacked by Hog's. When the M578 came it scared them and they took off. Another late night at Graff.

[machinehead]

Heh,
I remember (barely) one time when it was our turn to pull Alert duty and I got wasted.
Luck was in my favor that night and we did not get the siren.
However, the next morning was the end of our watch and it was time to put the trucks away.
Well, I was still pretty high and drove my Gamma Goat straight into the motorpool fence. I broke one of the concrete fenceposts and the Gamma Goat stalled.
Right then, a platoon of guys came running around the perimiter and saw me sitting there. I fired up the Goat and took off as fast as it would go.
I parked it as far away as possible and ran back to the barracks.
Amazingly, nobody called me on this and the Gamma Goat only had a small dent in the front bumper.
Man, those Goats were tough!
War is Hell is it not?
Dave

[joemorgan]

Hey I got one for you maybe two:
Back in 1980 we was in graf and are new BC was reading the map not sure how but he had us off graf and in some farmers fields and the woods behind it .
Man we tore up that poor farmers land and they had us go in the woods and set up pointing out the end of it facing the field we ended up making a bath in those woods knocking trees over you name it.
Got set-up a little while later we was ordered to pack up and leave we was off graf and who knows whos farm land we just tore up because I know what a plowed field looked like and my guess it was spring and the farmer just not but a few days before planted his field .
You know he had to be very pissed off but as far as fire wood we knocked over a lot of small trees so there was his fire wood if he needed it for next winter LOL.
We never was told much about how much hot water the BC got in but it was funny and shows when reading a maps make sure you are reading it right lol.

[joemorgan]

I also remember we was getting ready for an AGI with Vcorp and we had a couple barrels of antifreeze extra not sure how that happened so instead of the LT having them find a place to hide the barrels the idoit had the motor pool machanics pour them into the sewer .
The next winter we was short antifreeze and that LT was not wanting to talk about well maybe we should have hid the barrels instead of pouring the antifreeze in the sewer .
Shows just how silly people can be and it was suggested to just hide the barrels till the AGI was over and he wouldnt hear anyting of it what a fool but I say he learned from that mistake or I hope he did.