anybody interested in hearing a story?

Robert said:
No problem.
I like a good story and you, sir, seem to have a knack for telling a good story. :thumbs up:
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and thank you... the picture lets you know i made it at least to khafji... im not lying about any of this... nonsense needs to stop... we seem to like to hurt each other... too much
 
so the van ride was a nightmare... i was given a "driver" from a local reserve unit motor pool. for the sake of anonimity and because he was one of the dumbest humans i ever met we're gonna call this fool by his christian name, doug. doug, dougy, or dumbass was not the best driver, he was the guy that volunteered....
 
it was still dead of winter. as an aside... out at the farm sits a wellhead for the city of hays... it has a flip lid on the top so they can get in when the winters are bad... at one point it may have been required... anymore not so much... but that winter was still bad... my first encounter with uncle sam not caring about me came at the hands of glenn (by the way that dumbasses name too). this time would be one helluva ride... (when helluva passes spell check you know youre in trouble)
 
me and doug stopped at mcd's and had breakfast. we then rolled out on to I70 headin to kc. we got about 15 miles and he saw a car in the ditch, eager to help, he locked up the brakes and we went after them, only not like to help, but after them none the less... a tow truck (guy with 4wd) pulled us out, we're gi's so he didnt charge us (veterans preference i guess) 60 miles later we hit salina, same damn thing. didnt learn lesson the first time and this time he braked and we hit another car... there was an hour long exchange of information and much chuckling by him. we left again. this time dragging a fender which i made him stop and let me pull off... it was the right rear one...
 
so off we went again... road warriors with whiplash... two accidents with a "professional' driver.... then we hit kc... or mebbe he hit kc... he hit two concrete dividers which should have killed us at 65, but as "luck" would have it we only lost about two thirds of the driver side of the van... nice!!!
 
i wish i could still find my orders... lol... they say i am to travel by "limousine service" which apparently means something different to me and folks from hollywood... when we got to the meps center he reported to the place for {bleep} ups, i went to see col. XXXX. i waited outside, i was half adrenalin jazzed from damn near being killed and half frightened about the results of my "test". if the army runs a background check on you, and you fail, guess what job you get if you don't pass? you get no job. they don't, won't want you. i waited for about 30 minutes and col. xxxx wanted to see me. i went in. nervous as a schoolboy on his first date... i had done so much to make this happen, sacrificed even more, damn near got killed too...
 
he asked me to sit. and i did. he asked me why it took so long for me to get there, did i oversleep? i referred him to the claims people, told him doug was a dumbass, with all due respect sir, and they needed to provide me with better transportation home.
 
he left the room and was gone for about ten minutes, i took that time to calm my mind. i have some odd quirks about me, i remember everything and i have a field of vision that extends past my ears. i wrestled with the paperwork on his desk in my mind... i saw nothing glaring so i assumed i was okay. he came back and sat down. i attempted an "at ease" when he walked in but was curtly stopped. "as you were soldier" he said. i acquiesced. and then he layed it all out. i had passed my background check with flying colors. i was, if i wanted one of two jobs, going to get to be on the forefront of the cold war... which in hindsight doesnt sound like much, but to be a few days older than 16 and handed a top secret security clearance seemed like a feat enough...
 
as an aside... by this time my brother was a nuke engineer in the navy, my step brother a white house guard. this was during the reagan administration. i have pics of my step brother in his snappy ass marine uniform behind gorbachev and reagan. my brother served on the uss guitarro ssn -665. nuke sub carrying trident missiles... whole family of bad assed brainiacs and about to add another one... my job would involve "communications" work. i spent almost a year in training for which we'll get to in a bit...
 
so i was offered one of two jobs... both sounded pretty important... when he offered them to me and asked which i wanted, i asked him which one he would choose and why. he dropped all the army formalities and told me the latter, not the former. he said second job would be more fun. he outlined the duties and the security obligations. and then he produced the long sought after contract, which i also still have; although it has been renigged on by congress many times since then. he shuffled it over in front of me, i looked at him, and asked again if i could have a different ride home. he said yes. i signed the contract.

if you are a male, having problems with a male authority figure, nothing will give you greater joy than the news i was about to tell my father. i wasnt special forces, but i was er uhm... somebody they gave a clearance to and thats all i can tell you. it was all i knew really too, but i was still gonna stick my thumb in his eye.

and i did... and ive regretted it ever since...
 
as i prepared to leave meps later that evening after dinner, col. xxxx approached me. i was in the dining hall and he walked to the table. as he came up i tried again to do the "at ease" thing... he sloughed it off again and sat at the table as i stuffed my hungry country ass mouth with food.... he told me doug was gone... i looked at him kinda perplexed and said" you killed him?" he chuckled and smiled and said no"he cant drive for uncle sam anymore, you both are flying home" oh great.....
 
i was taken by pontiac airporter to the airport and i got on the plane. flew back to hays...
 
i developed an attitude. you know, and i'm sorry about this but i did. my birthday is in october, 25th actually, this all happened in the late winter. i was 16 and a half basically. already credited for 8 months in the service because i was showing up for drills at a med i vac reserve unit...(precursor to life watch).... you had to learn a bunch and figure stuff out real quick... i got transferred out. didnt get a vote. wasnt why army hired me so they sent me to a transportation (which no one even knew my MOS number) unit. i became unhappy, quickly.
 
one day we were out sweeping tents to put away after an FTX. that was when i saw her. she was the most beautiful woman i had ever seen. we had a great time joking and playing around while we were doing this task. she had been to basic already. i had not. i was immediately smitten.....
 
only two kinds of redheads in this world... and she was the kind a man would do foolish things for... her name was.. er Susan... :D and i knew from the first time i saw her she would be my wife, er... first wife... :D
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
What the ... fff, jeez, yes, of course.
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heh heh...:D im just kidding anyway... been really busy redoing a house for an old feller so he can retire in the house he was born in... and i gotta say... it looks like it hasnt been lived in since then....
 
so the first unit i was with was a medevac. these guys were some extremely professional, no nonsense guys, all were either officers or warrant officers. i didn't fill a slot with a body that they needed so they drug me along somewhat resentfully. the commander did not know why i had been assigned to such a small unit, that basically had enough slots for the people it needed and that was at a shortfall even still. i wasn't going to be a medic. every guy there had either med or flight school training and what they were doing was working training exercise missions as their training. so we'd fly to a military war game. but the medics usually aren't "just" training as there is almost always real life injuries. and on a medevac chopper one of the first thing you notice is that all the space available is filled by necessary equipment or people. the only extra space is for the wounded and thats not much either. (in some cases they still ride on the struts). so anyway... what usually ended up happening is that i would ride to the practice war with them, they would drop me off and start packin troops off... they'd come back at the end of the night and get me, but i spent all day usually commandeered by some company commander because he saw me getting dropped off... lol... i wish i could say it hurt my feelings but it didn't. i was a paintbrush on house framing day and i knew it. the commander asked me how the hell i ended up in his unit. i gave him Col xxxx number and said he told me if there ever became assignment issues, he was the POC (point of contact). he called him as i sat in his office. it was an interesting situation. the unit commander was upset that i was taking the slot of a soldier who has been waiting and been already through AIT (advanced individual training). i could tell he was trying not to hurt my feelings as every time he'd say something about my uselessness he always through in a caveat that i was gonna make an excellent soldier, or i was extremely intelligent and capable. after five minutes of this onesided conversation, col xxxx was allowed to respond, what he said did not sit well.... oh, i forgot to mention they both were col.s the tirade that came about jeopardizing mission safety and unit cohesion followed by an unveiled threat to take it straight to a general at F'n ARCOM over that nonsense is insane. he was silent again so i figured col xxxx was speaking. the commander hands me the phone. col xxxx says i'm getting a new unit assignment. told me not to worry it'd be okay. and offered that this wasn't going to reflect poorly on me in any way. then i handed the phone back to the commander. he hung it up without even lifting it to his ear. he was done whether the conversation was over or not.
 
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