Replies

Man, I can never top your stories. But i'll give you a little taste of ft. Polk.

We were up at the Peason Ridge training area, praticing company/team operations. Peason Ridge is just north of FP and it is a huge, pretty much sparsely vegetated area. One night, at 0300, I had to give an operations order for the next day's attack. We were in a tactical assembly area, all of my 113s and tanks were on a 360 perimeter. My CP was in the middle. This ain't like lite infantry, however, the diameter of the AA must have been about 3 or 4 hundred meters. Anyway, I'm dead tired, cause we've been training up to go to NTC since forever. I'm giving the oporder inside my 113 (which you probably know, is pretty small inside) with the ramp down, using red filter flashlights. All the usual subordinates are there, XO, 1SG, mech and tank plt ldrs, FIST, ADA plt ldr (had an attached vulcan plt), stinger team ldr, AVLB section leader. So here we have myself and about 10 subordinates going over the concept of the operation when all hell breaks loose. Lots of yelling and screaming. I first thought we were really under attack by another company as part of a prank, or perhaps some gun nuts stealing weapons (its happened at ft. polk), but the loud noises don't sound human. They are really loud though. We all look at each other...WTF? Suddenly, about 30 wild dogs come charging into our vision (remember its very dark), going right for us. I'm ashamed to say that all of us jumped inside the 113 and pulled up the ramp. You can't imagine how nasty that was, we hadn't showered in about a week, and we all sweat like hell during the day. So we just sit inside packed like sardines, smelling each others funk for about 30 seconds before they leave and go who knows where else.

Course i never told my bn cmdr that my company had been overrun by a pack of wild dogs, lol.

Another thing we say on peason ridge were wild horses. I think they are called mustangs.

I wouldn't trade my time in the army for anything. where else in the world could you have fun like that.

I trained on the 113 when I was in the mech track of my Infantry officer Basic course at Ft Benning. I remember going off to the YAK ATTACK (Our NTC prep place) a huge "firing center" in the Yakima desert in eastern Washington State. The whole thing looks like the surface of the moon nad is just about one huge RANGE. The tanks fire there...the grunts fire everything in the inventory there....you name it. You spend three months in the field eating MRE's (Meals REJECTED by EVERYONE) twice a day and T-Rats for dinner if you're lucky and get a field shower maybe once every four days. Hey, you ever notice that once you get past the first ten days without a shower or change of BDU's that everybody starts smelling like food? I'm not kidding. I can remember closing my eyes and taking a deep sniff. If I smelled PIZZA it was pfc Jones. If a cheesburger it was SFC SMITH. Really.

Anyway, troops being the inventors they are found a way to gather fresh meat (most of us officers had at least a full mag of live ammo to keep the biker gangs from stealing an M16 or an M60 which has happened...) using just their M16s and accessories and blanks.

Here's what happens: You take an M16 blank and pop the crimp. Then you take a blank M60 rd and pop that crimp and pour the powder from the M60 into the previously emptied M16 cartridge and recrimp. NOW you have a MEGA M16 blank cartridge. Next, you take a couple of cleaning rods and screw them together and slide them down the barrel of your rifle....and single load your round. Presto! HARPOON GUN. The rod will go clean thru about 3 inches of pine board at 25 feet. Now...we always had wild dogs (your story reminded me of this) snuffling around our positions scrounging for food. They were usually huntin' dogs that got lost and formed packs turning feral. They could be dangerous especially to smaller animals and kids cause they had no innate fear of man. But you'd hear them sniffing around our fighting positions and then you'd hear "VOLLEY FIRE" blam blam blam blam blam! and a sort of gurgling animal scream and there'd be a huge dog with ten harpoons stuck thru it and the guys would build a firepit and break out the hot sauce.....Roast leg of dawg is actually pretty good. Beats RAT on a stick any day.