Frisbee Fun, an EOD adventure

This is another tale from my time as an EOD tech at Ft Dix, New Jersey.

It was summer and we had to perform range clearances. There were many different kinds of ranges, each set up for firing a different kind of ordnance, from 40 Millimeter grenades that are fired from a tube under some M16's called an M203, to 155 Millimeter Howitzer shells. On that day, we had to clear the LAWS rocket practice range. Instead of shooting actual rockets, for training purposes, they shot these little blue tipped rockets to save money and reduce the amount of damage done to the range equipment. The equipment was an armored vehicle that was towed back and forth on a set of railroad tracks.

They were small, but still had a small explosive tip and need to be handled with respect. The Render Safe Procedure allowed them to be moved, so we spread out in a line and picked up the duds as we went, collecting them in a pile. After a few hours of this, we'd scoured the entire range. I won’t name names, but in the end there were two others there with me. An officer that was new to the company, and another sergeant.

I don’t recall who came up with the idea. I only remember talking to the other sergeant and thinking it was a fine idea if we stacked all of the practice rounds inside the armored vehicle, along with the entire case of C-4 we'd brought to ensure total destruction. We had some Flex-X as well to maintain explosive continuity. We strolled up to the new officer and asked him if it was okay. He didn’t even hesitate, just told us to get it done. We giggled like school boys all the way back to the armored vehicle.

Once we were done setting everything up, we pulled the two initiators and shut the back doors. We'd set the charge for fifteen minutes, plenty of time to stroll back to the burm at the front of the range and then climb up the fifty-foot ladder to the observation tower. We sat there with or new officer trying to look nonchalant.

The charge went off right on time, blowing one of the back doors open and throwing the other at least sixty feet into the air. It hung there like a bloated kite, then fell back to the ground and sliced through the two rail lines like a hot knife through butter. The sound was muted from distance and being partially contained which made it seem less real. We'd just registered the damage to the vehicle and tracks that we would have a tough time explaining, when we heard the sounds of something cutting through the air. The noise was getting closer, and we all spotted it at the same time. It was the six in thick, armored hatch from the top of the vehicle, and it was coming directly for us as if it were nothing more than a Frisbee, tossed by some child.

A 400 pound Frisbee traveling at about thirty miles an hour.

There was nothing to do but watch it come. We were fifty feet up in a range tower that sat on a berm that was thirty feel above the level ground. When it was less than three hundred yards away, it started to cant to our right. I still thought it would cut through the tower's support and we would all be going on Mr. Toad's wild ride, but it canted even further until it passed us and shot into the trees next to the entrance road. There was a crashing noise, louder than the initial explosion and two pine trees were cut clean through before the damned thing imbedded itself into the New Jersey sand.

The expression on the young officer's face can best be described as a combination of surprise, relief and the haunted look of one that knows his ass will be grass. It was time to leave, and we broke speed records for ladder climbing, berm running and sand sprinting. We hopped in our truck and flew out of there without so much as a glance back for fear we would see someone witness our escape.

The next day, calls were made, asses were chewed and a new officer had been broken in right.

Levity, a DLI Adventure

In Road Trip, Parts 1 & 2, I described my drive to DLI in the spring of 1991. This is a story of my time at DLI and I think it sums up the reason why I didn’t re-enlist again, and why the Army was likely very happy I didn’t. It's easy to blame my active duty experience as an EOD tech, for my difficulty in adapting to the real Army. After all, as a good friend recently reminded me, EOD units back in those days didn’t act, feel or were treated as if we belonged in the regular army. We were not only encouraged to be unconventional; it was a necessity for survival

Yes, it would be easy to blame my military upbringing, but there was more to it than that. The fact is that while I was always good and sometimes great at whatever job I did in the Army, I had little patience for the Army. I have no idea what a day in the life of a soldier is like today, but back in the Cold War 80's and post Desert Storm 90's, it was populated with people intent on making your life unpleasant for no other reason than they were bored and had the power to do so. There was a lot of bullshit, not for the sake of readiness, but for lack of purpose. Nowhere did this occur more often, than in training schools. Basic training is designed to break people down and then build them back up the Army way. I understood that going in. I also recognized that everything the cadre did was per plan and for a specific reason. They didn't just mess with us for kicks or to abuse their authority.

Unfortunately, once you left Basic Training where the cadre was trained specifically for this task, you went to other training called AIT, or Advanced Individual Training. In these schools, soldiers with experience in that job, or Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), were in the role of instructors and sometimes company cadre. After all, you still needed a sergeant to march you to and from class and tell you what do outside of class. The unfortunate part was that these people never received training beyond instructor courses. They had been through basic training and remembered it was miserable, so they assumed their job was to make the soldiers in their care miserable as well. 

Not all of them were like this, and each school was different. I've heard that now, it is common for Drill Sergeants that are properly trained to hold these positions in all AIT schools, and for better or worse, it makes sense. When I got to DLI in 1991, I'd been an E-5 sergeant for five years. My platoon sergeant was an E-7, Sergeant First Class and a complete bastard. Let's call him sergeant Douchebag. I reported properly, conducted myself professionally, yet he pegged me as a shitbag. Shitbag, by the way is an actually Army designation for one that doesn’t carry his or her weight and should not be in the service. Being prior service active duty didn’t seem to help. In fact, having left active duty to become a Reservist is the main reason he took a dislike to me. 

Reservists weren't well thought of back then and I doubt it has gotten a lot better. My former status as EOD also irritated him for some reason. I'm sure I also failed to answer his questions to his satisfaction. Regardless, he told me to my face he didn’t care for me or my attitude and didn’t think I belonged in "His" Army. I realize now it was my pride that got the better of me. Instead of trying to win him over through diligence and good deeds, I copped an attitude.

It seemed that this man LOVED inspections. He went beyond clean and gigged more than one person for "vertical dust" clinging to the tile bathroom walls. So of course, step one for me was to decorate my room. There are Army regulations, then there are post regulations that can be stricter than the Army regs, and sometimes there are company or unit regulations that can take it up even another notch. I always knew the regs. In this case, post regulations allowed for civilian bedding. The beds we had were twin size so naturally I bought a matching set of Legend of Zelda sheets and comforter. This went very well with my full sized cardboard cutout of Wolverine and my boogie board. The only thing green on my part of the two person room was the carpet, and I would have got a throw rug if I'd had the money. 

Sergeant Douchebag simply LOVED it, and made sure that somehow I was always one of the random rooms to be inspected. He picked around 5% of the rooms to inspect each week on a random day and yet my room was always included. Randomly. Sergeant Douchebag also handpicked other student NCO's to be squad leaders that shared his love for douchebaggery. This people were real pieces of work and they agreed that I had no place in "their" Army. They tried hard to do something about that. Unfortunately for them, besides being an asshole, I was pretty good at cleaning, physical training and other Army type activities. They tried hard, I'll give them that, but they couldn’t pin anything on me. I was the only one that could do it for them. I would have had to do something that gave them the opening they needed. So of course, I did.

The Army doesn’t specifically have a rule against sergeants dating lower enlisted unless they are in your chain of command. In a class environment, we were all just students. However, they did have a big problem with soldiers have sex in the barracks. Apparently, we were supposed to either spend all of our meager pay on hotel rooms, or we were supposed to abstain. Did I mention we were all between 18 and 25 and under a lot of pressure? The only people that abstained didn't do so by choice.

The rule was, that you couldn’t have a member of the opposite sex in the room with the door shut, or your punishment was the same as if you were caught mid coatis. Students were caught from time to time with the door shut, and the universal expletive that escaped everyone's mouth upon being discovered was the same: "We were just studying!"

I gave them the opening they so desperately wanted when I started dating a private. The plan they had for my downfall, was the tried and true "Health and Welfare" inspection. These were conducted under the auspice of protecting soldiers from themselves, but the real goal was to bust us for breaking the rules. These inspections happened about once a month, and almost always in the middle of the night.

I knew that they knew that I had a girlfriend. I knew they were coming for me. What I didn’t know was when. I'll admit that I had my girlfriend in my room with the door closed from time to time. Times when my roommate was elsewhere (I'm not an exhibitionist). Did I deserve to get busted and kicked out of school for this infraction? Possibly. A rule is a rule after all even if I find it ignorant and unfair. But like all rules, they had to catch me first. 

A flaw in their system was the student Charge of Quarters. Every night a student had to serve down at the Company Head Quarters and stay awake all night in case something happened. This person staffed the phone and 99% of the time nothing ever happened. They did however overhear a lot of talk between company personnel. For instance when the next random Health and Welfare inspection was going down. I got word that it would be the very next Friday night, around 2:00 AM and that my door would be numero uno on their random search. 

I was driving around the next day with a friend of mine, when I was struck with divine inspiration. The people that were attempting and partially succeeding in making my life difficult, wanted to find me with a girl in my bed. I would oblige them. I drove to a nearby sex shop and purchased my one and only blowup doll. The cheapest was $25 dollars and as luck would have it, she had blond hair.

That wasn't enough fun, so my inebriated friend (I often played sober driver since I don’t drink), suggest we fill her with helium. I'm very grateful that cell phones were still uncommon and the ones that existed lacked a camera, or we may have been the first entries in the People of Walmart website filling up an inflate-a-mate on the clown shaped helium dispenser sometime past midnight. 

I didn’t want to get charged with some other violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so I borrowed a two piece swim suit from a nice lady sergeant that lived down the hall. I think the doll looked rather stylish. I tucked her in next to me, and laid awake on the verge of hysterical giggles for over an hour. Then I fell asleep.

The first thing I noticed was the pounding. It sounded close. It was followed by angry shouting and the sound of a key being inserted in my lock. Panic rocked me awake as I felt someone in bed with me. I could just make out blonde hair from the light coming in through the drapes. I was fucked, royally and truly fucked. Three people entered my room in a rush. SFC Douchebag was leading the charge, flanked by a not so douchey First Sergeant and the pretty decent Company Commander. What the FUCK? The CO never went out on these inspections. I locked eyes with SFC Douchebag and he looked past me to my bed and smiled in triumph. He rushed forward and threw back the sheets to reveal…

I never gave her a name, but just as he reached for my Legend of Zelda comforter, my groggy brain recalled how I'd spent the night. She didn't float up as fast as I would have liked, but she did head for the ceiling. I was looking at the Captain, and saw his face shift from disappointment to glee. I almost forgot my line. Almost. 

"We were just studying!"

That was it for the company commander. He and the First Sergeant bolted out the door before they lost their military bearing. That left me alone with my number one fan, and my doll. I stood at attention and waited for the shock to wear off. When it didn't, I held my pose until the First Sergeant came in and took SFC Douchebag out into the hall. There was a short debate about the perversity of being in possession of such a doll and I heard the commander say "swim suit". 

The First Sergeant said "Carry on," and shut my door. I'm not drawing any conclusions, but shortly after that SFC Douchebag was moved down the hill to G Company. My life got a lot better and so did the lives of most Foxtrot company students. I was there for another five months and we never had another middle of the night inspection and no one was ever written up again for vertical dust. My doll made an appearance at our class picnic as substitute volleyball, and then was passed on from student to student in a series of pranks.

I don’t know what happened to her, but she's never tried to contact me. Maybe I should have named her.

Part Two, Monterey or Bust

You might want to read Part One first.

Fifty miles East of Reno, my left rear tire blew out. It didn’t just go flat without warning, it exploded, throwing rubber in all direction. I slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the shoulder. There was a slow steady stream of cars, but I wouldn’t have called the traffic heavy. I managed to get off the road enough to safely work on the car. I was grateful I had a spare, but it was a doughnut, nut a full sized replacement. It was rated for fifty miles. Perfect. By the time I had the first tire off, it was pitch black. The sky was overcast and I don’t think I had not seen so much. You read that right. Before the lights went out, I was impressed with how far I could see, but once it got so dark I couldn’t see my own hand, I welcomed the blinding headlights. Over the thrum of the cars, I could coyotes. My imagination had them converging on my car just before I climbed back inside and dragging me out into the brush. I didn’t see even one, but the howls did get closer as I worked.

Once I was road ready, I cruised the last fifty mile of my daily trip and pulled into the Motel 6. The room was an exact copy of the one in Cheyenne, down to the ugly ass comforter and bizarre art. The bed was as I’d feared and I considered curling up on the carpet which at least had a thin layer of padding. Despite the lack of comfort, I was exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before, and the day of thrills and chills. My alarm woke me at 4:00 and hit the snooze, knowing that no tire shop would be open until 9:00 or later.

There was one shop open in all of Salt Lake that had tires that would fit my rims, but they were a different brand than what I had. The salesman probably still tells stories about that day and I'm sure I paid for one of his kids orthodontics work, but I was back on the road with 300 miles left to go and five hours to do it. I didn't get off to a very fast start. Not long after I crossed into California, traffic slowed to a crawl. I had no idea what was going on, but it was hard to imagine that a traffic jam would occur this far away from a major city. As I rounded a corner and got a view of the road ahead, I saw the cause for the slow down. It looked like a border crossing. I'd just left Reno, so I knew I didn’t somehow accidently cross over into Mexico. I'd heard my dad refer to the state as the Republic of California, but what the hell were they checking? I didn’t have a passport. I did have my military orders and ID, and I hoped that would do.

When I got a few car lengths from the structure, I saw people in uniforms searching vehicles. What the hell were they looking for? Illegal aliens? Drugs? Guns? Then I remembered the guns I had in my trunk. Two pistols to be exact, a .454 caliber Casual revolver, and a Swith & Wesson model 645. I also had some knives and other equipment, all of which I was allowed to have in the Army, assuming I signed the weapons in with the armorer. 

Finally it was my turn and the man with the gun asked me to exit my vehicle. He then asked me the last question I was expecting.

"Do you have any fruits or vegetables?"

I thought for a second, but I was sure I only had junk food. I assured him I didn’t, but he must have seen my perplexed look and instructed me to open my truck. He looked through some bags, pushed some stuff around and at one point lifted the bag I had the guns in. They made what I thought was a very distinct gunny sound, but he set them back down without comment. Then he uttered a phrase that seemed so out of place and understated that it has stuck with me since.

"Move along."

 I was more confused than ever, but I complied and was soon back up to a the speed required for me to meet my deadline, slowing down only when my trusty, and I found out later illegal in California, radar detector chirped. I went through the garlic capital of the worked and then the artichoke capital of the world and finally, I saw Monterey Bay. I’d been there before and the view was bitter sweet. I took the exit and within minutes was at Foxtrot company, Russian Village on the backside of the Presidio where just a few short year before there had been only grass and trees. With ten minutes to spare, I presented my orders. The sergeant eyeballed me and said:

 "You're a little early. The next class doesn't start until a week from tomorrow. You could've showed up next Sunday, but since you're here, I'll get you a room in the temporally barracks until you get assigned to a platoon."

Classic Army, hurry up and wait.

Road Trip Part 1, Monterey or Bust

In 1984, I went on Active duty in the Army on a 4/2 contract, which is Four years active duty, two reserve. I had signed up on what's called delayed entry, so even though I went to basic in June, my contract expired in April 1990. I had gone back home to Minnesota and served my almost two years of reserve time in an Intelligence unit holding an analyst slot.  I had no intention of re-enlisting. I was happy to be out and even let my hair grow long. As far as I know, there isn't any photographic evidence of my brief mullet experiment in the summer of 1990.

Desert Shield began later that summer and despite my adoration for my growing curly locks, I felt the call. We anticipated going into Iraq and were convinced it would be a quagmire. It became clear very quickly in the fall of 1990 that we were going to war. I wanted to rejoin my EOD unit when they got deployed, but I didn’t want to join back as an active duty soldier. I was told it was possible, but that I had to get in the system. In September, 1990, less than a year after receiving my freedom, I signed an 8 year Army Reserve contract and joined the 19^th Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Company under the 13^th PSYOP Battalion.

I needed a job, so I was put in an Interrogation slot and started attending drill. I waited for my orders to be deployed as an EOD tech, but they never came and I couldn’t be deployed with the 19^th because I had no Military Occupational Specially (MOS) in the Reserve.  In February, 1991, the war ended and I had 7.5 years of reserve contract left to serve. 

A few months later, orders came to send me to the Presidio of Monterey California for Russian language school. It was a one year course and I'd been given two weeks warning to report No Later Than (NLT), Close of Business (COB) Sunday, April 14^th. On Friday morning, April 12^th I hopped into my 1970 Chevy Camaro with big 60's on the back and started my 2,200 mile journey. The red Camaro had acquired the nickname Camaro of Death, which is another story. Let's just say for now that it had some attitude and had served me well.

My first day was any easy 875 mile trek to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I'd book a room at the Motel 6, where they may leave the light on for ya, but they also bought mattresses built entirely from solid rock. After a less than restful night, I got back in my car with the goal of making Reno, Nevada by nightfall. I had been to most of these states before, though Nevada and Wyoming were new, but I'd been to California and many other states. I’d gotten to all most of those paces by plane. I'd even driven in the opposite direction between Minnesota and the East coast four times. So what was the big deal about driving to Cali?

In April.

In a Camaro.

With big ass tires in the back made for street racing.

I found out about two hours into my journey on Saturday morning. You see my friends, there are these little bumps in the road that start in Wyoming and end over in Salt Lake City, Utah called the ROCKY FUCKING MOUNTAINS! There was a winter storm advisory and the local radio station announced the highway was going to be closed. I thought about it and decided that a little snow didn't scare me. I got to the place where the road starts to get really steep and there were no police blocking it, so I rolled on. A few hours later, I was on top of the world, or at least North America and I was starting to wonder the big hairy deal was. There was some snow, sure, but for a man raised in northern Minnesota? Please. 

There was a gas station up there and I pulled in to use the bathroom and fill up. A man came out after I'd honked a few times because it said there was no self service. He looked at me like I was an alien. True, I hadn’t seen any other cars coming or going that day on I-80, but I didn't think I was doing anything odd. He walked all the way around my car until he got to the license plate.

"Uh huh," was all he said and he filled up my tank. He waved me off and he looked very sad, as if I had just told him I was dying of terminal cancer. Creepy. But, I was on the road again and looking forward to seeing the Great Salt Lake that I'd read about in McCammon's Swan Song. Ten minutes later, I started seeing tractor trailers pulled off to the side of the road, followed by a couple of SUV's. I noticed that I could no longer see the actual road, just a flat section of snow and ice that extended from one rock wall to the other.

It was about that time I got hit by the first crosswind. I have no idea how many miles per hour it was blowing, but it slammed the Camaro of Death thirty feet sideways and I could have touched the rock wall to my right if the window had been down. I could see the storm form behind me. It grew in strength until it threatened to overtake my car. I got slapped both ways and almost spun completely around, but refused to slow down below 40 for fear of being buried alive and not found for days. My ass cheeks were clamped so tight, I could have converted anthracite into diamonds. I had a death grip on the steering wheel and briefly wondered if it could be bent.

Finally, I hit a stretch of road without any gusts and I while it still looked like an ice age was hot on my ass, I could see the sun break through ahead of me. I was out of the worst of it, I was safe. Then the road started slanting down. By down I don’t mean a gentle grade, but to me it appeared to be a flume ride at Six Flags, except this one was frozen solid. Oh, and here's the really cool part for those of you that have never driven on this section of I-80, it's curvy. It's a road cut into the side of a mountain, so it keeps switching back. I didn't touch the breaks for fear I would lose the illusion of friction that somehow kept me from shooting off the road and out into the air. My hands and jaws and yes, even my ass cheeks, went from uncomfortable to painful to numb and I have to admit I don’t remember the last fifteen minutes.

One instant I was anticipating how death would feel, and the next I was riding through a residential area on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. I was suddenly overcome with the urgent need to empty my bowels and bladder and pulled into the first convenience store I saw. I was still wearing my gloves and winter jacket. Hell, the inside of my car was still around 50 degrees. When I step out of my Camaro, I judged the temperature to in Salt Lake be around 75. People were looking from me to my car and then up to the mountain and back to me again. I walked around the front of my chariot just in time to see a solid block of ice at least three inches thick that covered the entire bumper and grill, fall off in one piece onto the parking lot. 

Later, with a completely empty digestive track and a liter of ice cold Mountain Dew, I stood beside the Great Salt Lake. It was salty. It was great. After five minutes, I got back in my car and continued on toward Reno where another rock solid Motel 6 bed was waiting to cause me pain. 

Tune in this Friday, for the exiting conclusion in Part 2.

You had to see it

I'm a writer. Even before I focused on my craft and gave it the time and energy it deserved, I was a story teller. When I was a child, I was a liar. I told lies to escape punishment like many kids do, but I also told lies to get attention.  They were stories that I made up and not meant to cause trouble. I realize all kids do this to some extent, but I probably did it just a bit too long before I realized it was wrong.

I tell you this as a preamble, because as I relate things that have happened in my life, there are times when I am obviously exaggerating for comedic effect. In one post I described my balls as being made of brass and being as big as church bells. In another, I claimed I sprinted faster than a car in a quarter mile. I know most readers will either like or dislike these exaggerations, but few will believe I'm claiming them to be true.  I'm spending two paragraphs to make this point, because when I tell you this next story about my dad, people will undoubtedly believe I am exaggerating or stretching the truth for effect. I'm not.

These blog posts are to help me with my writing while hopefully entertaining my friends and fan (I know I have one somewhere). But they are also to help keep my memories alive. Some are funny, some are tragic. Most of the stories dealing with my father I will tell so that I don’t forget. Like all father son relationship, ours was complicated, but never doubt that I loved him.

I'm going to tell you two examples of his shooting ability. He loved to hunt. His life revolved around hunting season. He loved to hunt anything and everything, but his main passion was deer hunting. Over the years I saw him demonstrate his skill as a hunter and shooter. You need to have both to consistently take down the game you want, but there are times when even he seemed to exceed his own legendary abilities.

The first occurred when I was too young to hunt. It was the mid 70's and we were all still a family and dad decided to take my sister (who was hunting age) and I along for a road hunt. It was the last day of the season, and he hadn’t seen jack shit on our property. The snow came early that year and it was already deep. On that day, we drove out in the morning and saw nothing. We went back out that afternoon. We were ordered to scan the fields for any movement. I don’t think he'd ever been skunked before, and he wasn't about to go a season without putting some meat in the freezer.

We'd been driving around since lunch, and it while there were still a couple hours before sunset, a bad storm had moved in and the snow was coming down in huge flakes. I was in the front seat scanning the right side, but visibility was down to less than a hundred yards. I prayed for a deer and just when I gave up, I saw the flash of horns out of the corner of my left eye. I was so surprised I couldn’t speak. Dad saw the movement and turned just as the buck bounded across the country road less than fifty feet in front of the car and leapt into the field to our left.

We were going about 35 miles an hour. Dad slammed on the brakes and the station wagon went into a sideways slide. With one hand, he pulled out his still loaded rifle and with the other, he shoved open his door. He held it open with his left foot and used the door frame for a rest. I'd already lost sight of the deer, but he must have still had sight picture with his 3x9 scope, because he squeezed the trigger once and smiled. It was a rare site, and I cherished it.

The car came to a stop and he told us to stay put. We strained to see him, but he disappeared into the storm. Fifteen minutes later, he came back, dragging the field dressed buck through the hip deep snow.

A year later, my parents got divorced and two years after that, my dad moved to Thief River to be the manager of a compressor station for Great Lakes Gas. He purchased 80 acres of land 50 miles north of Thief River near a preserve. He was right between state land and farmers fields. The deer were corn fed and plentiful. It was a freakishly warm November and there was no snow. I left my stand around noon to grab some lunch and met my dad and his girlfriend by the cars. The entrance road to the land ran along a ditch bank and the next to the farmer's field that usually had corn. Behind us was all forest, but in front of us were fields for miles.  

After lunch, we headed back toward our stands. When we got past the trees that ran like a wind break along the ditch bank, my dad grabbed my arm so hard I almost screamed. I stopped and followed his gaze. There was something out there, but even with my glasses, I couldn’t tell for sure what it was. My dad had 20/10 and he whispered that it was a buck. He crouched down and moved up about twenty yards to a small mound of dirt and told me to lie down. I did what I was told, but I still had no idea what he was thinking. I lay down on my back and he looked at me like I was high.

"Roll the fuck over."

I did and he lay down and used me as a shooting rest. After a few minutes, he whispered, "Four point."

For those of you not raised by my father, you would likely call it an eight-point buck. But he only called one side for reasons that were never fully explained. I tried to turn my head to get a look, but he growled at me not to move. After a couple of minutes of adjusting, he told me to take a breath and not to move. His actual words were, "Don’t you some much as fucking twitch until I after I take my shot." I took a breath and held it. I have no idea how much time passed, but I was starting to see spots when his 300 Weatherby Magnum boomed. He got up and I followed, sure he'd missed. But he was smiling.

"Let's go get him."

We got in his station wagon and he set the trip meter to zero. We rolled down the ditch bank toward the main road that was a mile away. When we the trip meter said ¾ of a mile, we stopped. I walked behind him into the field. We'd passed the deer by about a hundred yard and we walked back to it. The bullet had taken the buck in the spine, breaking its back and killing it instantly. We were one hundred yard shy of three quarters of a mile. I realize that a car odometer is not an accurate judge of distance, but even if it was a ways off, he shot at least 1,000 yards and likely closer to 1,100. I'd seen the ballistics, and I know that the round would do it. The rifle was stock and even though it is a beautiful limited edition Colt/Sauer bolt actions rifle, it had not been modified and was not what snipers call a "One Minute of Angle" weapon, which guarantees a high rate of accuracy.

I've seen him accurately shoot a lever action from the hip like the character on the TV show The Rifleman, snap a rifle to his shoulder and take a deer mid jumped while on a drive and I'd witnessed him make many long shots from a rest. Standing still, jumping away or at a full run at 500 yards, there wasn't a deer he couldn't take with a rifle. Come to think of it, he was a fair hand with a shotgun (best in Bemidji at Trap and Skeet two years in a row), and was spooky good with a pistol too. I'm a fair shot. I'm sure I inherited some of his natural skill, but I'm thousands of rounds behind him. He took his skills and sharpened them all the years of his life.

He passed away in 2008. I haven't been able to hunt since. It just doesn’t feel right to do it without him. It was the one thing we did together as father and son.

A Sign of Pain to Come

Since you all seem to take enormous pleasure from my tales of testicular terror(for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, see my post entitled "Anesthesia is for Pussies"), I've decided to relate an encounter I had as a teenager in my hometown of Bemidji, Minnesota.

I graduated in 1984, much to the surprise of many. For those of you too young to remember, the late seventies and early eighties were the boom of video games. The first was Space Invaders, but the speed at which new games were introduced into local arcades and bowling alleys was astounding. Before I graduated, they even came out with the first home gaming system called Atari. Those were wonderful and magical times, at least for people that had money. Don’t get me wrong, I made and spent more that I should have on games, but they didn’t overshadow a kid's life like they do now. We had no Internet and the Atari was a bit lame.

We still had to entertain ourselves the old fashion way. The way teenagers have been entertaining themselves for hundreds, if not thousands of years. We got into trouble. The ways and types of trouble were limited only by our own imaginations, and we had a lot of imagination. I will refrain from complete descriptions of our high jinks since I'm not familiar with the statute of limitations on all of our activities. I will instead focus only on the return trip from one of our nightly excursions.

It was summer and we were young and restless. We were also tired after a night that involved some running a lot of hiding and even more walking. Despite our tired feet and sated appetite for trouble, we were obliged to complete a ritual we had followed for years any time we passed through a particular section of houses on the way back to the trailer court we lived in. You see my friends; there was a house in that neighborhood that was not like the others. One of those houses wasn't quite the same. It was in fact mostly underground. The roof line was waste high and there were no visible windows. There was a lot of experimental housing back in the seventies, either for environmental purposes or just to be different. Near the house that I lived in before the divorce and our relocation to the trailer court, we lived near a house on stilts.

But it wasn't just the hobbit hole of a house that drew our interest; it was the people that lived inside. They seemed strange to us. We never saw them come or go, yet the place was clearly inhabited. In retrospect, it's obvious we were scared of the place and its inhabitants, but we wouldn't have admitted it to each other at the time. So we did what all kids do when they are afraid of or don’t understand something. We messed with it. We did this by grabbing a piece of fire wood off the pile behind the house and chucking it on top of the roof. Then we would haul ass, laughing like the idiots we were.

On the night in question, something was different. Instead of the usually door slamming and swearing, this night the deafening report of a 12 gauge shotgun trapped the giggles in our throats as the buckshot shredded the pine needles above our heads. To say that we broke into a run in the exact opposite direction of the man with the shotgun doesn’t quite do our flight for survival justice. I had honed my flight or fight response for years by stupidly teasing bullies, and I went from zero to a full balls out sprint in .05 seconds.

We all knew every square foot of the surrounding five miles of land and like a flock of birds, pivoted in silent communication and headed for the clearing that was across the road from our homes and safety. We had chosen speed over stealth and it was the right choice. Three abreast, we broke land speed records together as we escaped the tangle of pines and increased our pace across the open ground. The lights from the trailer court were in site and we knew that once we cleared the wood fence and were out of a line of sight, we would be safe.

The clearing had changed over the years. The most recent addition was a large pole barn on the south side. Large trucks often pulled in churning the sod into a makeshift driveway roundabout. There were no trucks there that night, but a new addition had been made. The people that owned the warehouse were concerned that people may get curious and want a look inside. In response to their concern, they had decided to erect a no trespassing sign. It went up the very next day. Unfortunately, they had been working on it early that day. They got as far as cementing in the bottom section of the sign post. Like many city signs, they would then bolt the upper post that had the sign affixed to the lower section that was cemented into place. The lower sign post was just three inches higher than my inseam, and I assure you the cement had plenty of time to harden.

I hit that raised post in full sprint and running the fastest I'd ever run before or since. I was actually gaining speed and leaving my friends behind as I hit it full force with my nuts.

Let me assure you that the post was just fine. It did not suffer from the impact. I however went from eye watering speed to zero in .00001 seconds. All the air left my body and I collapsed forward onto the pole, where I rotated like a wounded merry go round. My "friends" took half a block to notice and to slow down. They came back, fear quickly being replace by amusement. If you read the other post about my vasectomy, you will understand that I don’t say lightly that I would rather get the vasectomy reversed than relive running ball first into that pole. I had been kicked in the jewels a few times and had other testicular mishaps involving bikes or fence posts over the years, but nothing before or since can really compare to the pain I felt that night. And while there was pain, it was not focused. It included everything from my thighs up to my belly button.

The man with the odd house and twelve-gauge hadn’t followed us and my friends carried me back, trying hard not to laugh. They failed. As teenagers do when they fear discovery or danger, they split after setting me near my front door. No one was home, so I didn’t need to sneak inside. I went to my room and whimpered, waiting for the pain to pass. With nothing else to occupy my mind, I imagined the amount of damage I’d caused to myself. I’d never experienced this amount off pain before and yet there was a numbness that convinced me I had at the very least ruptured a testicle and at worst severed by penis.

It took me over an hour to get up the courage to look. The lack of blood was reassuring and after further examination, I was still intact. Over the next few days, there was swelling and a lot of pain, but I was whole.

We never spoke about the incident again, but my friends and I had come to a silent agreement that our nightly adventures had ended.

VIP Cookies, an EOD Adventure

Not all of my time as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician was spent blowing stuff up. We also had a mission to support the Secret Service with bomb search and if necessary response services. We did this for the UN when it was in session and for the President or Vice President whenever they were traveling in our area. During the Presidential campaigns, we also supported all of the candidates and spent weeks on the road starting with the primaries all the way through to the election.

We were given $400 dollars to purchase suites. Even in 1986, you couldn't get much for $400, but we were expected to have at least two suites a nice pair of shoes and as many shirts and ties as were needed. If you ever attended one of these functions, it was easy to distinguish between the Secret Service and us. Our suites were cheap and our hair was a lot shorter. We also didn’t have a giant stick up our ass.

I'm not sure why most of the Secret Service agents were such pricks to us. Maybe it was the fact that we got to move around, while they mostly had to stand in front of doors for hours at a time. Or maybe they just felt superior. Who knows, but after a few weeks, I gave up trying to be nice and get along. Especially after the fourth time they made sure to order enough food for all of their agents, but conveniently forgot us. It was common to go without a meal break for eight hours during the Primaries in 1987-88. We were always short staffed and had to drive from function to function without a break. There were also periods of time we didn’t get paged for three days and kicked back at a hotel, but we made up for it running solid for the next forty eight hours.

Since we didn’t have time to stop and eat and weren't given a plate at 99% of all the functions we supported, we scrounged any chance we could. As luck would have it, the VIPs were usually brought into the events via the kitchen. We were responsible for searching the VIPs route in and out and if he/she stayed at the hotel, their room as well. We found it very convenient that there were large rolls of saran wrap in the walk-in coolers. I would search the entire cooler, then scarf down a half a pound of cold cuts. Once I was no longer dizzy with hunger, I would wrap up another half pound for whoever I was teamed up with.

Sometimes, there is no event. Sometimes, the VIP is just staying at a hotel and they roll in through the front door. In those cases, we primarily search the room and the rooms on either side, above and below. It was during one of these times that we were supporting Vice President Bush. I know there are a lot of people that don’t care for the Bush family, especially George Junior, but let me tell you a couple of reason why I liked the Bush Senior.

First of all, he served in WWII as a dive bomb pilot. Regular pilots were crazy enough, but dive bombers did just what it sounds like. They were launch off a carrier, flew toward the enemy's battle ships and carriers, gained a bunch of altitude, and dove at the big ships. At the last minute, they would pull up, often pulling enough G forces to black out, and then they would fly back and reload a new bomb and do it all over again. Bush senior was shot during one of those missions. After the war, he entered government service and spent the rest of his working life in service to his country.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq10-1.htm

That's was enough for me to warm up to him, but in the two times I was within ten feet of him, he noticed and took the time to talk to me. The first time, he was at some hotel giving a speech, and he'd been around long enough to know I was EOD. I was 19, but looked about 17. He shook my hand, thanked me for my service and made small talk. I was impressed and happy, but didn’t think much of it. Three months later, I saw him before his speech at the dedication of Ellis Island. They were finally cleaning the place up and we'd spent a full day crawling through a buildings coated in a hundred years of pigeon poop. We cleaned up for the big show, and he shook my hand and said, "Minnesota right?" He'd remembered where I was from. That impressed me. We chatted for about five minutes and then it was time for his speech. Say what you want about the man, he had class.

And now back to the story currently in progress.

I wasn't starving, but I was a bit peckish. We usually had a lot of time to search, but we were called in last minute and the Vice President was ten minutes away. It was then that my sergeant taught me how to search a room expediently. You see the reason we were there was to make sure no one blew up whichever VIP we were protecting. Back in the 80's, they didn’t have a bunch of micro circuit boards and tiny power supplies. Hiding a bomb that could be remotely controlled was hard to do and left signs. Or, it was wired into existing power supplies. So, while my sergeant hit the bathroom and turned on and off all of the switches and gizmos, I jumped up and down on the bed and chairs. Yeah, you guessed it. If there was something there, it would go off one us instead of the Vice President. But hey, we got an extra $150 a month hazardous duty pay!

It was while I was bouncing on the bed, that I noticed the plate of cookies on the bedside table. It was a big plate and they were big cookies.

Chocolate chip.

Six of them.

I knew I didn’t have much time. My sergeant would never approve, but it occurred to me that six just didn't look right on the plate. Five, if arranged properly would not only look better, but seriously, how many big ass cookies did one Vice President need?

It was so big it wouldn't fit in my jacket pocket so I had to break it into four pieces. I rearranged the cookies that were left and brushed the crumb evidence off my hands and suit. We were in and out of that room in less than five minutes. A Secret Service agent, with requisite stick in his ass, was waiting to guard the room. I smiled and waved at him and we walked away. My sergeant suggested we go up to the roof, so I followed. We were in Boston, and it was a warm spring day and the view was magnificent. I was feeling pretty good, until my sergeant said, "Okay, hand over the cookie."

Apparently he'd done the math and noticed six had become five. I figured my ass was grass. I pulled out the four pieces and he studied them and then me. Then he took two of the pieces and quickly gobbled them down. "This never happened," he said and walked back to the elevator.

It was a damned good cookie. Too bad there hadn't been any milk.

Pocket Change, an EOD Adventure

Getting old and reminiscing about our youth is a common theme in popular culture, whether it's a song or a movie. I have no desire to go back and relieve those days, but they are worth remembering. I was fortunate to have some experiences that were powerful enough that I was able to lock in the time and place clearly in my mind. To remember how it felt to be in that younger body, and to clearly remember the smells and sounds and feelings. Some of the most vivid memories I have, are from the four years stretch of active duty that I served in the US Army. Friendships seemed to develop faster and events seemed to be more important.

I've never served in combat, and it is simultaneously the source of my greatest relief and greatest regret. I was a Cold War soldier. The Soviet Union was the enemy and it seemed very likely that during my tour from 1984-88, we would meet them on the battlefield, likely in Europe. During that time, there were still many Vietnam Era vets on active duty, and many young soldiers like me, were in awe of their stories. People did not support the troops and soldiers were looked down on.

I had a bumpy ride getting to my permanent duty station and even when I found my home, it was not smooth sailing. But those are stories for a different day. This story is about a time when I had brass balls the size of church bells and felt that if I wasn't exactly immortal, I was certainly invincible.

I was 19, and stationed at the 60^th EOD, Ft Dix New Jersey. EOD stands for Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Our job was to render safe unexploded ordnance, and we were damned good at it. On that sweltering summer day, I still had marks to show where the two prongs of the badge, affectionately known as a "Crab", were shoved into my chest by my loving and supportive unit members. Thank god that an EOD detachment consisted of no more than fourteen people.

On the day in question, we were out at the grenade range. Ft. Dix was a training post, and many basic trainees went through there over the years. One of the required parts of training was throwing a live grenade. Thousands of trainees went through every year, and with all of those thousands of grenades, some were bound to fail to function as designed. Every post is different, and at Ft Dix, we dealt with a wide variety of ordnance and even had our share of IED's(Improvised Explosive Devices). But what we had the most of, was grenades. The lot were dealing with that summer had a larger than normal percentage of springs that were broken. For those of you that don’t know, the "spoon" on a grenade holds back a striker with a spring. When the pin is removed and the spoon is released, the spring slams the striker into a fuse that in turn burns for a few seconds before detonating and setting off the explosive. The batch we were dealing with had a lot of broken springs, so the striker never flipped over and the fuse wasn't initiated. The render safe procedure for a grenade was the blow it in place. We did this with a block of C-4. We always put two blasting caps in it to make sure it went off, redundancy in all things.

A tech's biggest enemy in those days was complacency. I'm sure it is still a danger for the EOD techs today, but they also face a greater threat in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bad guys figured out that these guys were rendering safe all of their nasty roadside bombs, so the started specifically targeting EOD. The school is about 8 months long and it takes years of real world experience to get really good at the job. I barely scratched the surface in my short stint and don’t claim to have achieved the expertise of a ten or twenty year vet. By targeting the techs, they slow down the process, spread the rest of the guys thin and in turn killed more people with their IED's.

We didn’t have to deal with any of that. Hell, back then we didn’t even have bomb suits. They were introduced just as I was getting out and I never wore one on an incident. Our uniform, especially in the summer, was boots, pants and a t-shirt. A hat could fall at an inopportune time and the uniform blouse could get in the way. The only thing we had on us beside the stripped down uniform was our Hero Kit. It was a leather tool belt that held a dive knife, a demo pocket knife, a blasting cap crimper, a Leatherman tool and a roll of electrical tape hanging by a short chain.

When we had so many dud grenades, thanks to faulty springs, it made sense to go out first thing in the morning with a bunch of supplies and camp out at the range instead of driving back and forth each time. We did that for a couple of weeks and I will admit that I had become complacent. On this particular day, I remember sitting in the air condition van and arguing over whose turn it was to walk down range it the blazing sun. We all liked to blow stuff up, but it was like Africa hot that summer. There was no sense in arguing either, since I was low man, but it was matter of pride to be able to come up with the best excuse for why I shouldn’t go next. It also helped pass the one hour wait time. When a grenade fails to function as designed, there was a mandatory one hour wait time. It used to be 15 minutes, then 30, then 45 and but at that time it was an hour. The time would be increased each time there was a grenade somewhere that decided to wait until longer the current limit to go off. I sometimes wondered while walking down range if I would be the reason the new wait time was 75 minutes.

I stepped out of the van after 55 minutes, went to the back of the van and prepared my C-4 charge. Then, with 200 basic trainees and a cadre of mostly Vietnam era veterans watching, I walked around the large brick wall and onto the range to find the grenade. Did I saw walked? It was more of a strut. No quite a full out pimp walk, but it those big brass balls made it hard to walk like a normal person.

I knew that it was another broken spring. I knew it to the point where I didn’t even question it. I strolled down range, my gigantic balls clanking in the rhythm of my pace, sure of my invulnerability. The Drill Sergeant had said that the female trainee had "really chucked it", so I headed for the middle of the hard packed dirt range that was pitted with holes from all of the blasts. It resembled a prairie dog habitat. When the holes got too deep, they were supposed to close down and grade it, but that slowed down training, so they always pushed it as far as they could.

During a rainstorm a few weeks before, I'd had to reach down into several holes, some up to my shoulder before I found the grenade. Even with gigantic brass balls and a strong believe in my invulnerability, I questioned my intelligence after the 3^rd hole. But there was no rain in sight as I made my search on that day. The heat index was on the ratty edge of being unsafe for outside training and after fifteen minutes of checking holes, I was getting frustrated and thirsty. I looked up at the blast resistant glass for some help, but the Drill Sergeant only shrugged. I headed for the wall, resigned to perform a foot by foot grid search of the entire range. When I was ten feet from the wall, I saw a bulge in the sand at its base the size of a ball, or in this case, a grenade. The private that had "really chucked it", had done so straight down into the ground. I figured that the range sergeants were going to be pissed that I blew a hole in their brick wall, but rules were rules and I set my charge down to blow it in place.

As I bent over to place the charge a strong wind came through and uncovered the grenade. I expected to see another broken spring, but instead, I saw a very healthy spring straining against the sand, attempting to complete its mission. More wind blew and the spring twitched in anticipation.

There are many times in stories where the author will describe a segment of time slowing down for the intrepid hero. I have to tell you that while there is an illusion of time slowing; the reality is that the adrenaline that hits your system speeds up your brain function into overdrive. In less than a second, I disregarded the idea of running, or throwing the grenade. I remembered the change I had in my pocket. At EOD School, a crusty old sergeant had told me to always carry two dimes and a quarter. The two dimes were for a bomb fuse I never saw outside of training, but the quarter was for this very moment. For many years after I got out, even after my brass balls shrunk to almost normal size and I no longer believed in my invulnerability, I carried two dimes and a quarter with me everywhere I went.

I pulled the quarter out of my pocket and slid it between the striker and the fuse just as the spring overcame the sand. There was a loud click as it snapped shut, holding the quarter in place. Now in auto pilot mode, I used a strip of electric tape to secure the quarter, and since I had already picked it up, moved out fifty feet before I set it and the C-4 charge down. I pulled both igniters and walked slowly back to the van.

I was greeted with a scowl from my sergeant. "What took you so long?"

I told him and he shrugged. We went back to waiting for the next dud as more trainees threw grenades and the sun sagged down toward the horizon. It was just another day on the job, and even at the time I didn't find it very remarkable. It was my most interesting grenade, but at the time, that was like your most memorable glass of water. Compared to the other beverages, it was still pretty bland.

Anesthesia is for Pussies

My first mistake was going to my vasectomy alone. I'd scheduled it on a Friday when my family was out of town, and because I drove myself, I couldn’t have general anesthesia.

The vasectomy wasn't a mistake. We'd wanted two children and we were blessed with two beautiful girls. We were done. Any other form of birth control was either a pain to deal with or had serious health risks for my wife. So I didn’t give a lot of thought to the procedure, at least until I got to the clinic.

After all, my father had one. If he was to be believed, he had it done within minutes of laying eyes on me.

I was escorted into a room that had as it's centerpiece, a large stainless steel table that looked a lot like the tables they used to perform autopsies. A thin blanket was spread out on top of the table and there was a disposable paper sheet often seen in regular exam rooms. There was also a pillow, which I thought was very considerate. I was told to change into a standard ass hanging out the back hospital gown.

My general practitioner came in and once again assured me that this was a simple procedure and he had performed it several times. Then as he laid out his instrument of torture, he asked me if I wanted a mirror so that I could watch. The idea was intriguing, but I passed, and it was the only intelligent decision I made.

"You'll feel a small poke," he said, and I tried not to imagine scenes from prison movies. I felt the needle as it entered my scrotum and it didn't hurt that much, first on the left and then on the right. He waited a respectful time and the asked if I could feel anything. I couldn’t, and he made two small incisions with a scalpel.

"Ok, now I'm going to deaden the tubes and surrounding area. This might hurt."

Most of you know, that doctors are full of shit. They do things that hurt and so are masters of understatements. If it's 'just a little prick', it's going to hurt. If he tells you it might hurt a little, it's time to grab the fucking table and bite your tongue so you don't scream or whimper like a little girl and shame your ancestors. I may have gurgled a little, because he assured me he was almost down when in fact he was only half done.

He gave the Novocain time to work and I was relieved. It was basically over. The Novocain had deadened my sac and I didn't even feel the blade that cut me, so I was over the worst right?

Wrong.

For some reason, it didn’t take. I found that out when he secured a clamp onto my left vas deferens, which is the fancy name for the tube that carries a man's sperm from his testicles up to his Seminal vesicle as seen in the image below.

*Important note, my junk is bigger, especially the nuts.

My doctor noticed what he described as my 'discomfort'. Or perhaps he heard me when I said through gritted teeth, "MotherFUCKER!". Regardless, he noticed something was amiss and applied more anesthesia. It was no more effective than the earlier shots. He then asked if I wanted to quit and reschedule for a day when I could get general anesthesia.

I thought about it, and it sounded appealing. But I knew myself, and I knew that if I escaped his table, I would never come back. I heard my self tell him to go ahead. I was impressed with myself until I felt him cut the tube. It's a tough little tube and took about two very long seconds to get all the way through it. I felt the pain in my toes and in my scalp. My hands ached from gripping the table and I wished for one of those raw hide bites prisoners used to put in their mouths when they got whipped.

"I'm going to cauterize the ends so they can't grow back."

Here's an interesting fact. They use an electric device similar to a mini arc welder to cauterize human flesh. Simultaneously, I got to feel the burn as well as the electric jolt while smelling my own flesh burn. It was…a unique experience. I could feel myself getting a little shocky, but I kept breathing and trying to send my consciousness elsewhere. I got by telling myself it was almost over. I had done it, and it wasn't really that bad, right? Then my doctor said something that shook my confidence just a smidge.

"Ok, we're halfway there."

Repeat the same as above but this time I knew what was coming and what it would feel and smell like. Ten minutes later, he was giving me my instructions to take it easy. He'd apparently had men not take him seriously in the past, so he showed me a picture of a testicle swollen to five times it's size with blood because some macho man had decided he could play contact sports the day after his surgery. He clearly didn’t know me.

I'd already cleared my weekend, and had nothing more rigorous planned than walking to the bathroom. In retrospect, that journey was a bit long. I should have brought a mini fridge and a blanket into a bathroom and nested.

Confession time. In the months and years that followed, I told a few men that my procedure was no big deal. I did it solo and drove myself home. Anesthesia is for pussies.

What can I say? I'm a bad man.

TGIF WTF? An EOD Adventure

It's that time again. What time you say? It's time for me to reveal a story from my past that will cause you to laugh or at least smile at my expense.

It was the mid 80's, and I had just returned to Ft Dix, NJ from Explosive Ordnance Disposal School. I'd been able to get back to NJ to see my girlfriend (we'll call her Gigi), about once a month. It had been closer to six weeks since I'd seen her and I was very eager. What made my return even more special was the fact that it was my birthday. My 18th birthday had been spent doing 1,800 pushups at Basic training in Ft Leonard Wood, MO and my 19 hadn't been much better, spent alone, friendless and more importantly, girlfriendless. But number 20 had real potential. I had a girlfriend, and I was going to get me some. Heck, it was my birthday, so maybe I would get something…special.

I caught a ride with a friend back to Ft Dix. I got to my barracks, dumped my gear, showered and got ready for my birthday date. Gigi was going to pick me up and take me to TGI Friday's, her treat. Now that may not seem like a big deal for some of you, but you have to remember that it was the 80's, and I was making about $12,000 a year as a Specialist in the US Army. Also, eating out at restaurants was a fairly new experience for me, and any place that didn’t have a drive through was classy in my book.

Gigi was on time for once and greeted me with a deep kiss. I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and carry her back into the barracks, but that type of activity was frowned upon, and besides, I was hungry. We got to the Friday's and she gave me balloons and a present. It was a good sized box, but light and I had it pegged as a shirt. I was right. It was a shirt. A shirt composed of the most interested combination of colors, but it did have sleeves and a collar so it had to be a shirt. I thought it was the ugliest damned thing I had ever seen, but I smiled and thanked her for the gift and tried to figure out a convincing story for how it would get ruined while we looked at the menus. Still, like a jingle that you just can’t stop thinking about, I kept repeating in my mind a happy tune. I’m going to get some nookie, I'm going to get some nookie*.

*The actually word has been replaced with "nookie" to keep this story PG-13.

As I said, I was not rich and neither was Gigi, so when the waiter came I ordered a hamburger for my birthday meal. The waiter turned to my girlfriend, who promptly ordered the swordfish. Really? Swordfish? I wish I had ordered second. But what's the big deal right? I’m going to get some nookie, I'm going to get some nookie.

All the servers came over with my complimentary desert and sang me the happy birthday song. I could have done without that, but what the heck, it was my birthday. When the check came, Gigi said she didn't have any money. She must have spent it all on the shirt. Thankfully it was just after payday and I had stopped by the cash machine, because back then hardly anyone making less than $40K had a credit card. I only knew two enlisted soldiers that did. So cash was still king and thankfully, I had enough to cover our meal and would have been able to cover the steak I really wanted, had I known I was paying. But what the hell, I was back from training, I had a girlfriend and it was my birthday. I’m going to get some nookie, I'm going to get some nookie.

We walked out to her car and I watched her ass sway this way and that. I thought that there might not be time to go back to her place and maybe we should find a quiet place to park. I climbed in the passenger seat and watched her get in. My gaze traveled from her cleavage to her eyes and back to her cleavage. The shirt was forgotten as was the Swordfish, burger and my $50 bucks. The moment was drawing near and I was past ready. I had a fleeting moment of regret that I hadn't rubbed one out before the date, but back then 2-3 times was no problem for me, so I shrugged it off. Besides, I was always a giving lover and tonight was my birthday. I was halfway between her cleavage and eyes for the 4th time when she uttered these five words to me:

"I'm breaking up with you."

It took a few minutes of silence for the message to get into my brain, past my nookie chant. My reply was articulate as always.

"What?"

The ride back to my barracks was long and quiet. She had her reasons, though she didn’t seem to be able to articulate them. For months I had ignored the allure of the women in class and the surrounding area because I had a girlfriend and you just don’t do that sort of thing. I'd visited when I could, called regularly, but now that I was back, she'd broken up with me.

On my birthday.

Shit.

In retrospect, things did work out for the best. Gigi was not the girl for me. A couple of weeks later, my roommate saw the birthday shirt and liked it. I traded it for one of his that I liked. The first night I wore it, I caught the eye of an exotic dancer. It was white and glowed in the black light. The exotic dancer said it made me look innocent and thought she should corrupt me. I finally got the nookie I so badly needed, but that is a story for another time and another venue.

A Day at the Beach, a DLI Adventure

Fair warning. I'm about to tell you a story but not one of fiction. Instead, I'm going to use this blog to capture some of the more colorful stories of my life.

I posted a new profile pic the other day on Facebook and then made a wall post describing the scene. I referred to it as a time in my life when I had the world by the ass on a downhill slide and didn’t know it. I went on to say that the road to that place had been bumpy, but that it had only gotten better since.

I've been thinking about that for the last few days and it is as true a thing as I can say about my life.

The time was 1991. The place was Monterey California. I was there to attend the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio to learn Russian. I had served a 6 year contract, 4 Active 2 Reserve and got out in April 1990, only to sign an 8 year contract in September 1991 as Desert Shield became Desert Storm. By the time I was in a unit, the war was over. March of 1991, I got orders to Monterey because I needed a new job, as my active duty job didn’t exist in the Reserve.

But all of that is another story. This story is about friends. Next to me in the picture, is my roommate and all around awesome guy, Brian Nelson. I am embarrassed to say I can't remember the other guys name. Brian was known far and wide as "Bridude". He was and I'm sure still is a great person and a true friend.

It had taken a coupe of months to get the cash together to buy a wetsuit and board, but we had them. We had also just watched a special on sharks and learned the area from Monterey to San Francisco was called the "Blood Triangle" because of all the great white shark attacks. But were we nervous? Not that we would admit to each other. Soldiers are a different group. What we find funny does not always translate in the civilian world, and there is little a soldier enjoys more than busting his friend's balls. We did agree that there was nothing funny about a shark attack, and that this one area was off limits.

The day we picked sucked. It got cloudy and colder than normal, but worst of all were the lack of waves. Boogie boards don’t require the same size wave to have a fun ride, but they do require a wave. We were out paddling around at Asilomar beach in water as calm as the lakes I grew up swimming on. I was in my grey and black O'Neal suite and Bridude was in what he thought was a green and back suit of the same manufacture. It turned out that when wet, it was actually yellow. Better yet, we'd learned on the shark special that the color was called "Yum, Yum Yellow".

We refused to leave until we caught at least one wave, so there we floated, our concern replaced with boredom, frustrated and cold. That is until I looked down into the calm crystal clear water and saw a shark of at least eight feet glide beneath me.

I remember trying to speak and failing. I distinctly remember thinking it was bullshit when I saw people on TV or in the movies struck dumb, incapable of speech and how ludicrous it was to happen to me. I kept trying until I managed to squeak out the following:

"It…It's a…It's a fucking shark. IT'S A FUCKING SHARK!!!!" Quickly followed up by, "Don’t splash, it will go for you."

Unfortunately, what Bridude heard was, "He's going for you!"

My eyes we fixed on the thing under the water. It moved so fast, darting back and forth between Bridude and I as if it just couldn’t decide which one of us would be more delicious.

Then I lost it as it darted directly beneath me. For those of you that have never seen one, a boogie board is less than half the length of a surfboard, and yet I managed to get every inch of my body on that board. If all I'd had were a Popsicle stick, my ass would have been high and dry.

I heard a voice, as if from far away. It sounded like Bridude, but that couldn’t be, because he was just a few feet…I looked up and saw him standing on the beach, over a hundred yards away. I had no idea how he's managed it, but I had never wanted to be next to him more in my life.

I searched the water for the shark but couldn’t find it. I tried to banish the image from jaws of it coming directly beneath me and without causing a splash, began to paddle toward shore. When I was about twenty feet out, I caught the smallest wave ever recorded and rolled up onto the beach.

We both agreed that while we could have gone back in, we'd achieved our goal of riding a wave and besides, it was getting late anyway.

In the year we were there, that was the only shark we ever saw. We got pretty good on the boogie boards and before I left, I managed to learn how to ride a surfboard.

We had many interesting adventures in Monterey, but those stories will have to wait for another time.

How my dad won the Coast Guard Medal

My latest novel, The White Face Bear, is semi autobiographical. The majority of it is of course fiction, but the main character is more like me than any other fictional character I've ever written. The prelude to the TWFB is a very accurate portrayal of one of the three bear hunts my dad went on (if you take out the mystical pieces of course). Finally, the journey Jeff Bennett takes to Kodiak, Alaska to spread his father's ashes mirrored my journey in 2008, two months after my father died.

The story that I couldn't tell in the book without an awkward data dump, is the story of how my father won the Coast Guard Medal while serving at Air Station Kodiak. The Coast Guard Medal is the highest award a Coasty can receive for acts of heroism in peacetime. It's a story worth telling, and I want to share it here.
It was a pretty standard November day on Kodiak, which meant no one had seen the sun in weeks and the usual misting rain was mixed with snow. It was early in the morning, and the temp was a wet 30 degrees.

Dick was an Aviation Electrician's Mate, 2nd class. His job was to keep all the birds working. Many times over the years, he discussed the difference between the brown shoes, or Airdales as he called them, and the black shoe Coasties that scuttled around on their boats like crabs. Air Station Kodiak - Rescue had a few fixed wing craft in 1967, but most of what they had was helicopters. Specifically, the Sikorsky HH-52A Sea Guard. By today's standards, it looks odd, and one wonders if it can even get its big ass up in the sky, but in 1967, it was the shit.

He was a fair pilot that could drive anything with wings or rotors, but he mostly flew test flights of the aircraft he fixed and not as pilot in charge during actual rescues. One of the best helicopter drivers was Dick's best friend and hunting partner, Grant. When a call came in about a couple of men that had been lost in the mountains for three days, Grant was driving. The crew complement was three, in this case it was Grant and a corpsman, so Dick decided to go along as the third to help search and to work the winch.

Searching for hunters, or in this case poachers, up in the mountains was rigorous work that rarely yielded a positive result. The sad fact was that in those days they had to rely on nothing but their eyes, and there was a whole lot of ground to cover. The odds of them finding anything was minimal, but Dick's eyes were better than most and he would rather ride on a call than sit back at base.

Up they went, on the hunt as they had many times before and began their search with the most likely hunting grounds for mountain goat. Dick and Grant had hunted everything worth shooting in Alaska and knew where many of the best spots were. The Sea Guard cruised at 85 miles per hour and had a maximum range of 474 miles. Up they went and the search began. After a few hours, they had to refuel, and then out again for another look. By that time, a storm had moved in and the winds were picking up. Grant took her in as close to the peaks as he could and Dick searched for a flash of color, or a straight line that had no business being in nature.

They were low on fuel and had run out of places to look. The two men were surely lost. Their bodies might turn up in the summer, or they may never be found. Maybe they weren't missing at all, maybe they had just got tired of the dreary weather and their dreary wives and decided to head for the mainland. Dick knew people who felt that way, his wife being at the top of the list. For him, though life was what happened while you were waiting for the next hunting season to open, and there was no better place on God's little green earth than Alaska for that.

Grant banked the beast toward home when Dick saw a flash of color. He blinked, rubbed at his eyes and looked back where he'd seen the flash. Nothing, just more snow, now beginning to swirl in the storms gust, and then he saw it. This time he called out for Grant to bring her around for a closer look. Grant nodded, as he saw it too and both men assessed the situation. It wasn't good. They were almost bingo fuel, and if they went back for more, it would be two more hours and past dark before they got back. The two figures looked frozen in place, as hard as the rock and ice that seemed to encase them. It was doubtful at this altitude and temperature that either was alive, but if there was even a chance, they couldn't delay two hours.

The men had somehow shimmied their way along a ledge no more than a few feet wide that suddenly ended. The cliff face rose up eighty feet to another ledge that was cut back into the mountain a mere fifty feet. The wind was gusting toward the mountain, which meant Grant would have to hold the chopper in a steady hover, with his blades a few feet above and next to a mountain, with 60 mile per hour gusts buffeting them from behind, while the corpsman lowered the basket eighty feet to a two foot ledge below.

Grant smiled and moved the Sikorsky into position. He was one of the best to ever hold a stick and he knew it. Dick went back to work the winch that would lower the corpsman. The man made no move toward the door, his eyes frantic. Grant ordered the corpsman in the basket, but the man refused. Dick lost his temper and yelled at the man and when he refused to move, threatened to chuck him out of the helicopter.

Time was running out and Dick grabbed the corpsman, shook him and told him he would go down but that the corpsman had to work the winch. He responded, like a condemned man after hearing the governor's call. Dick went down into the storm on a wire basket held by a cable that looked too damned thin to hold one man, let alone two. He hated heights. In a plane or helicopter, he felt in control and gloried at the feeling of riding the wind. It was a lot different swinging underneath one and bouncing against ice covered rock.

He got level with the outcropping and got a close look at the two men. Both of their eyes were closed and they looked dead. The wind eased up for a second and Dick stepped across to the ledge. One man was able to move, but the other was literally frozen in place and he had to pry the second man loose, frustrated at the lack of leverage the iced surface allowed. He managed to help the first man in the basket. The corpsman lowered the winch, and Dick repeated the process, though the second man didn't show the signs of life the first had. Dick feared the second man was dead, but he strapped the poacher in place and as he signaled for the basket to be raised, the man's eyes popped open.

The basket went up for the second time, and Grant eased the helicopter away from the overhang as it rose to prevent it from slamming against the rock like it had the first time. Dick was watching the progress when the chunk of ice he was standing on broke loose. He fell and later couldn’t remember what happened. Grant was watching and saw Dick's hand lash out and catch something solid. The momentum of his body swung him up and back onto the thin ledge a few feet down. Adrenaline screamed through his veins and he had to force himself to take long deep breaths to steady himself. After a few minutes, he spared a glance down and saw one of the poacher's rifles, frozen in place, its barrel hanging out less than a foot over the edge.

Then the basket was there and he was riding it back to safety. Once inside, Grant wasted no time heading back to base. Dick didn’t want to look at the fuel gauge, but he did. The needle was pegged with five miles left to go and he remembered the expression, 'running on oxygen and imagination'. He hoped their imaginations would hold out. Grant brought it in with his usual light touch, as if he had just been out on a leisurely check ride on a sunny summer day. He'd called ahead to the hospital, and the medical team was waiting with two gurneys.

Dick still had an urge to strangle the shit out of the corpsman, but the man had worked hard on the two victims the whole way back and was clearly capable as a medical practitioner. Dick focused on the checklist for the post flight operations instead. Once they were done, they set foot back on the ground. Grant stopped gripped his shoulder, smiled and nodded. It was enough.

Both of the poachers lived, though each lost a few pieces and parts to frostbite. Dick and Grant got more drunk than usual and life went on. A few months later, word came down that Dick had been awarded the Coast Guard Medal for his part. That was as good a reason as any to get drunk that day, but this time they decided to take a little trip to the base commander's house. It seems the old man was having a party and forgot to invite the hero and his driver, so Dick and Grant decided to crash it.

Wind from the rotors raised holy hell on the picnic, and it was no surprise to the men that the commander refused to put steaks beer in the basket. Neither man was written up, but neither did they reenlist.

Science and Religion

Not Science vs. Religion.

I read a resent post on FB that sparked a debate between atheists and theists. There was a lot of fantastic and respectful debate. I was genuinely impressed that it didn’t turn into a flame war, though there were a few digs on both sides. It was pointed out that people of faith could come across and smug and condescending. I have noticed that some of the atheists came across as arrogant and condescending. Both attitudes are disrespectful, so let's take the question of people's intelligence and mental state out of the debate. Too often, when people hold opposing views, I see both sides attempt to degrade or dehumanize each other, as if someone that disagrees with them must be faulty in some way. This is a fallacy and cheapens the accuser. One issue we face today is the complete lack of respect between people that possess opposing views. It doesn’t matter if it’s politics or religion, too often people classify their opponents as being stupid or backward or extreme.

One position that was discussed was that debate over the issue is useless. I agree that if a person that believes, either in a specific dogma, or just believes in the existence of a soul, debates with someone that doesn't there won't likely be any resolution. That doesn't mean the exchange shouldn’t occur. I don’t agree with blind faith in anything. I think people should examine their beliefs and dis beliefs and justify, at least to themselves the reasons for them. Even the act of asking the question means that we are open to other possibilities. Being open to a possibility is not a weakness of character. Only a fool assumes they know everything or has all the right answers. Each person need only look to their past to find example of when they were proven wrong and learned from the process. Why do some adults assume that at some point being wrong is no longer possible? For that matter, that a conflicting opinion must be wrong.

I love science. I understand some of it, but even if I had the abilities to understand all disciplines, I would never have the time to verify or test all hypotheses. I trust in the scientific process and the community as a whole to verify and validate findings, but I am also skeptical, because occasionally, this trust is betrayed. Because of the scientific process, hoaxes and bad science are uncovered eventually, but blind trust of science as the answer without even a basic understanding of the scientific process, is simply replacing the faith of one deity with the faith another, by deifying extremely intelligent scientists. It is certainly dangerous to assume that even a group of scientists are right when they insist on the validity of a given theory, yet there is a lot of pressure to create legislation based on theories that have not been given the time to be challenged and validated using the very scientific process they claim supports their position.

I do believe that there is more going on that a simple cycle of life and death. I believe that there is some purpose and some part of us that continues to exist after our meat suite dies. I don’t go to church because I have never found a dogma I can believe in. Religion is humanities attempt to explain what they can't understand. There are and have been a large number of religions and variations of religious systems created by mankind. They can't all be right. There can't be hundreds of true creation stories. I think what some people mean when they say "I'm spiritual, but not religious" is that they don't follow a specific dogma. I don’t feel a need for ritual. I don’t feel the need to find others that share my beliefs, but I also don't begrudge or demean those that do.

I don’t understand why people from both sides of this argument feel that the views must be apposing. I'm not talking about faith in a religious system, I'm talking about the possibility that there is something more that the death of the body. That there may be a purpose for our sentience, and that beyond sentience, we are more than the sum of our organic parts.

I am not a believer in or supporter of the new efforts around "Intelligent Design", because it feels like a cheat or a way to try to prove what can't be proved with pseudo science and half truths. Having members of a particular religion attempt to use science to prove the literal truth of their scripture (e.g. the earth is only 7,000 years old), is just as absurd as scientists trying to use the scientific method to disprove the existence of a soul (a non dogma specific constant among most religions).

In the 1600's, the scientific community was split into two camps with regards to the nature of light. One camp believed that light was a wave. The other camp believed that light was a particle. Both groups had evidence to support their claim and both believed the opposing camp was wrong. I wasn't there, but I'm guessing some unkind things were said by both sides. The problem with both positions was that the evidence each of them was using was proof only for their position, but did nothing to disprove the opposing view. Each side assumed the two theories were mutually exclusive. Because Newton was the one that proposed the particle theory and he had some horsepower, most scientists jumped on his bandwagon. For almost two hundred years, only idiots thought that light was a wave. Then in the early 1800's, some smarty pants created a test that proved light did in fact have the properties of a wave. Take that you stinking Newtonians! They must have been stupid to think light was a particle. That is until 1905, when a real smarty pants name Einstein, discovered what most of you reading this now know, that light is in fact both a wave and a particle. Three hundred years from when the first theories were put forth as scientific fact, we finally had the answer that it was both.

I'm only 44 and don’t think that if I devoted the rest of my life to the study of this issue that I would be any closer to understanding it if I live to be a hundred. I'm also not sure where we are on the time-line from the origin of scientific process to the point where we will have all the answers. Certainly, there is a finite point sometime in the future where we will run out of scientific questions, assuming a sustainable technological society with no expiration date. If we were at that point we could look back at the primitives living at the beginning of the twenty first century with sympathy bordering on contempt. It's possible that the universal duality of wave and particle that exists in matter as it does in light may be as blueprint for the seeming duality we now perceive between science and spirit. I don't have the answer, I have my answer and currently I'm content with it. I'm also open to hearing new views so I can consider them. Until the question is answered definitely one way or the other, I hope both sides can strive for acceptance of each others beliefs without resorting to smug or arrogant condescension.

News and updates on the writing front.

First, I had my short story "Garbage Man" accepted in the reprint anthology, Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales by Sam Dot Publishing. It's a collection of stories from the Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers group. It is currently available now from Genre Mall.

A new story of mine, "Field Test", is part of the anthology Unspeakable: A New Breed of Terror from Blood Bound Books. It's currently available on Amazon.

Liquid Imagination is also doing a reprint anthology in conjunction with Choate Road that is scheduled to be out by the end of the year. I will post an update when I have the title and the TOC, but my story "Jihad" will be a part of it.

I was invited to participate in the Fell Beasts anthology from Dark Quest Books, due out sometime late this year. My twisted tale is called "Spelunking". Here are the names of authors involved and I couldn't be happier to share some pages with these folks. I've been lucky enough to meet many of them and to call at least some of them friends.


Thomas A. Erb
Adam P. Lewis
Jason Sizemore
Kelli Dunlap
Dean Harrison
Michael West
R. Scott McCoy
John Everson
Tim Moore
James A. Moore
Bob Ford
Brady Allen
Scott Christian Carr

Last, but definitely not least, is the impending release of my 2nd novel, White Faced Bear on October 31st from Belfire Press. The bulk of the edits are complete and I want to send out a huge public thank you to Louise Bohmer, my editor. She has been a joy to work with and has made my book better, period. The next steps are a full technical edit, cover art creation etc. It is a very exciting time and I can't wait to see the final product.

One Minute Weird Tales - Best Dressed

It took a while, but my One-Minute Weird Tales video is up on their website! Very cool feeling to see a 100-word story turned into a multi media video. Enjoy!