The new base I'm on actually has my old unit, the 1st battalion of the 6th Field Artillery Regiment on it. I'd been told that upon the 1st Infantry Division (1ID) moving from Germany (where I served in 1/6FA) back to the US, 1/6 had been deactivated and its colors cased. Turns out they'd waited a year or so and reactivated it. Instead of being based out of Bamberg, Germany, it's now out of Fort Knox, Kentucky. Now they're doing a tour out here in Afghanistan.
The army is not like other jobs in that people don't stay put usually. It's more like high school. You can go back and visit, but you're not going to run into too many people you knew if you don't come back for years. You get sentimental for memories and the buildings might stir those up, but you're going to go down memory lane by yourself, usually. Even if you do run into a teacher who refused to retire, they usually only have a fleeting recollection of who you were because they've been dealing with a rolling parade of kids, each of whom thinks he or she is the most important person ever and surely worthy of remembrance. They smile and nod, perhaps mention the name of a class member of yours, and then politely extricate themselves to leave you on your journey with nostalgia.
So, the Army's like that. Certainly there have been changes in the six (SIX!) years since I got off of active duty, but an awful lot is very familiar. I was tempted to stop by the battalion headquarters to see what was what, to hear the familiar jargon and fussing, to see the soldiers running around, to look at the various drawings of centaurs that are sure to be emblazoned there (military units have mascots they associate themselves with, obviously 1/6FA are the Centaurs. The sub-units of the battalion; Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Service and HHC were the Gators, Bulldogs, Cobras, Scorpions and Hawks, respectively). I've even considered swinging by the gun line to take in my great killer beasts.
I didn't do any of that though because my time is past. Time marches on and it's a trifle sad and a touch desperate to cling. You never, ever, ever want to be the 48yo fraternity alum who drops into the old frathouse and starts telling stories about "back in my day" and plays beer pong with 20yos. Leave the past in the past, at least insofar as subjecting yourself to people who are currently in their present.
All of that is a Ajax-patented, long-winded way of simply saying that "you can't go home again." If you're going to be able to get anything out of it, it's not by going to a place you know and subjecting yourself to strangers, it's by reminiscing with someone who was there with you when you were going through it.
As six years is an awfully long time in the army (people get out, people get promoted, people go to other units), I have kept an eye out for anyone I used to know, and run across a couple of people I vaguely remembered but none I shared much of a past with. Then, at dinner one night, I looked up and sitting at the table across from me was none other than SGT Burge, now Staff Sergeant Burge.
I went over and politely reintroduced myself. I look NOTHING like the man he once knew as Lieutenant, then Captain, Carpenter. He recognized me nonetheless. We chatted briefly before I left him to his meal. I've since run across him once or twice and we've chatted about "back then", but mostly just one story that he told me when we were in Iraq that I'll never forget.
I kept a daily journal of the first 100 days or so of that deployment. So, without further ado:
Deployment Journal: Day 33; Tuesday 16 March 2004
This morning SGT Burge, the Survey NCO, came knocking on my door at around 0600. I got up, dressed and met him out at the gun, where he was putting down a stake to mark the position and then I led him to the other firing points. It takes about five minutes for his equipment to come up with the right grid for each of the positions so he and I shot the bull about all sorts of things.
I asked him about morale down at FOB (Forward Operating Base) Gabe, where the rest of 1/6FA is located and he said it was getting better. I asked him how his was doing since during the MRE (Mission Readiness Exercise) at Hohenfels (a training center in Germany) he had told me that he was going to quit and he’d go to jail if he had to because he was tired of all the stupidity. I have found that it is best not to crush guys when they talk like that because I have a good position as one of the only officers that the guys will talk to about anything and I have to let some things slide to keep that confidence (officers really can't tolerate insubordination). I also was pretty sure he was venting because he was frustrated, but with SGT Burge it gets hard to tell.
He said that he hated working for his new boss, a Staff Sergeant (SSG) because the guy didn’t know what he was doing. As is the case in the Army, many times people go long stretches where they don’t do their primary jobs and this was the case with the boss. First SGT Burge told me how the guy had mis-surveyed in the guns down at Gabe because he didn’t know what he was doing and SGT Burge had to go behind him and fix it. The SSG had put extra numbers, two zeroes, at the end of the grid’s easting and northing when he realized that he hadn’t had enough numbers, an altogether huge error and unforgivable in this line of work; had it not been corrected, artillery rounds would have landed miles from their intended target, most likely with catastrophically deadly effects.
As for the boss’ general competence, SGT Burge told me a story about killing a puppy.
The dogs at Gabe are a problem as well (they attract flies which carry the flesh-eating bacteria leishmaniasis) and there was a little puppy that was near the guard shack that was coughing blood. They talked about it and decided they had to shoot it. SGT Burge said he’d take care of it, but the boss was very insistent he be the one to do it.
They took the puppy just outside the perimeter (it followed them) and the SSG went to shoot the dog but it stayed at his heels. He tried to step back but still the dog stayed by him. SGT Burge told him to kick the dog and the SSG said he wasn’t kicking a puppy. SGT Burge asked him what difference it made since he was going to shoot it anyway. The boss continued to try and jump away from the dog with no success when SGT Burge, frustrated, and wanting to be done with the whole thing, booted the dog. The puppy went flailing and lay still when it came to rest. SGT Burge said, “We might not have to shoot it after all.”
The puppy started though and the boss quickly aimed his weapon and fired. The idiot fired down the sight though and at that short distance fired just below the dog and missed it. He did it once more before SGT Burge yelled at him to fire down the barrel not the sights. He shot again and hit the dog in the hind quarters making it yelp. He shot once more, again in the hindquarters, and, of course did not kill the dog.
SGT Burge yelled at him, telling him that if he wanted to kill it he had to hit the torso or the head, in other words something vital, and not the ass. The SSG hollered back saying he didn’t know and that he hadn’t done that before. The boss re-aimed and this time hit it in the chest. The puppy slumped, obviously dead.
When it began to twitch a moment later though the SSG jumped back waving the rifle around before firing once more and “spider webbing” its head, as SGT Burge put it. SGT Burge grabbed the SSG’s rifle and told him that if he ever waved around a loaded weapon like that SGT Burge would shoot him. The SSG apologized and said that he had never killed anything before and had gotten excited but was glad he had done it because now he knew he had that “killer instinct.”
He kept on, blabbering about how he needed to know if he could do it because it was much harder for him to shoot a dog than someone who could defend himself, if it ever came to that.
Now, SGT Burge is a good ole boy from West Virginia who looks like a biker what with his bushy moustache and shaved head. He plays football (american) on a team with the Germans and is altogether a tough country boy. I could see how having to work for someone like that (altogether incompetent and a sissy to boot) would drive him nuts since I do work for someone like that.
I bet you don't fondly reminisce over stories like that with your High School buddies.
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