In the absence of Joe21 and to reduce transfer posts.....

Jul 30, 2019, 12:26 PM

military training story - 1969 : When I arrived at Ft. Bragg for Basic Training someone with poor information decided to assign me to train to drive the 2 1/2 ton trucks to help transport things for our company. That was poor judgment since I had never driven a manual transmission vehicle of any type. The training took place in a large area that appeared to be an abandoned parking area - it had one large pine tree in the middle of the lot and I am convinced that the only requirement to pass the training was to manage to not hit the tree. After getting approved to drive, I went on to enrage the mess sergeant by turning over almost all the food for the entire company when trying to deliver it to the field. After Basic , the driving credential went with me to Advanced Infantry Training at Ft McClellan , Alabama, where I was assigned to patrol the base in a jeep on weekends while other people got to go home on weekend passes. Had fun drag racing the other jeep patrol guys and gained experience changing gears but would have loved to get off the base like everyone else. The real point of this story, for those curious enough to wonder if there is a point, was that the driving credential also showed up after moving to Ft. Benning, Ga. for NCO School where I was informed that I would get a week training to drive the huge "cattle trucks" and would transport living humans in my company to and, hopefully, from training locations. Not wanting to deprive the Army of such a large number of healthy men to ship to Viet Nam by killing them ahead of time, I wanted to fail the training. Nothing seemed to work toward my desired failure throughout the week and I felt doomed to the task of waking up an hour earlier than everyone else (and that was already very early) to be taken across the large base to get a truck from the motor pool so we could load up after breakfast. On the last day, however, I was in the final stages of the training where I was actually on roads within the base instead of in a remote area. The guy training me guided me to perhaps the only hill on the base where I stopped at a red light, checked the rearview mirror and saw a car flying the base commander's flags with the stars on its front fenders stop just behind us. Quickly seeing salvation from wiping out my entire company, I hit the clutch and let off the brake and the huge truck started rolling back wards to possibly end only one or two lives. My trainer decided at that point that I could not be cleared to put another commanding officer in danger and I was spared from all driving duties from that day forward even though I did not hit the General's car.

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In the absence of Joe21 and to reduce transfer posts.....

Re: In the absence of Joe21 and to reduce transfer posts.....

Re: In the absence of Joe21 and to reduce transfer posts.....

I was really trying to get it all in just one sentence

Re: In the absence of Joe21 and to reduce transfer posts.....

Re: In the absence of Joe21 and to reduce transfer posts.....

Good story! Thanks for sharing-

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