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Fifth Job of Bob - Army Part XVI - Dumptruck load of sand in the middle of the strasse
This entry was posted on 12/8/2010 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
"You have been at the computer typing for three hours," complains my wife. "You have been telling me for years now to write a damn book," I always return. "Be careful what you ask for." "You ought to write a book," I have heard from more than one person over the years. Persons of course who have never....written a damn book. Writing a book is one of the hardest things I have ever done. This book, "Jobs of Bob" is almost finished. I have four other books well under way; and, eight more books in the early staging process. Because my bill-paying job is a dead-end, benefitless, low-paying poster child for our current misery economy, nowadays when asked what I do for a living, I have taken the liberty to self defining myself as, "fuck'n writing books."
Don't think the endless "misery economy" and its facilitators has been overlooked on my book-writing hit-list either. Like I said, "Be careful what you wish for." But I digress.
Some of these recent reflections going so far back and at such a then active time in my life, got me to thinking how memories settle out in your mind after a good chunk of time passes. This following memory about dumping a load of sand on a busy German street seems like it should already be written down somewhere, but no, I never jotted it down anywhere. But, for years after I got out of the Army, I would tell it once in a while. I told the experience enough that it now seems like it must have indeed been written down some place.
Then years went by where it no longer maintained a spot on my story-telling shelf. I quit bringing up Army tales for years. Now as I try to do this job chronology, I almost have forgotten a few of these vignettes. Go figure. In fact, stories I would have told with easy enthusiasm years ago, I now find painfully hard to recollect. So goes the art of writing about the past.
Some brain surgeon got the bright idea to place an athletic field in the middle of our home military complex in Nuremberg. The odious Merrell Barracks. The whole of the interior of the place was asphalted over - with a smattering of cobble stones - in the days I was stationed there, it was mainly used to park our Army equipment and our privately owned cars.
There was an abandoned horse stable in one portion of the facility. I suppose at one time much of the area was an equestrian parade grounds. Enter the mobile Germany of the 1960s and 1970s - asphalt and cobble stones ruled. Besides, we used the old Nazi rally grounds down the road for our sports activities. The German girls loved to watch us play American baseball and football. Poetically the incredulous chickies parked their little tookuses on the same stone seats the masses adored Adolf from when he ramped up the hype in his speeches to the home of the Nazi party.
None-the-less, there would be a football sized grass area resurrected in the middle of the Merrell complex. I remember the oily piles of asphalt during the excavation process. The ground underneath looked dead and contaminated to some depth. I remember thinking how creepy it looked.
We Engineers got a nod to do most of the work - we of course had the correct equipment to tear up shit. At that time, I was still driving my dump truck - the dandy M-51 Cold War era armored plated dump truck. We had three of these beasts and would haul the old asphalt to the land fill, and then swing by a nearby air field to pick up a load of sandy loam from a stash of ballast they kept out there. Then I would haul the load of sand to the new athletic field back at Merrell.
The amount of earth to be moved in and out of about a two-foot deep area the size of a football field is stunning. The project took awhile. Back and forth I traveled. I would take a detour through the city park area and stop at the bratwurst vender for a brat and beer. It was right up my Wisconsin alley.
I never thought of it much at the time, but I repaired a shit load of tires in those days. What with all the junk that Engineers run over in the course of their work on target ranges and the out-back at large, flat tires where just part of our culture. I doubt if I could even lift one of those big tires upright nowadays. We had air tanks on the dump trucks so we could air up tires we repaired on the spot. The big trucks also had a spare tire between the cab and the wall of the dump bed. There was a armor plated extension on the dump bed that angled over the top of the cab consummating the locking in so to speak of the spare tire. The dump bed had to be lifted a bit to get any spare tire out of its nest or put one back in.
We were on our way back from the air field with a load of sand. For some reason I was giving Ol' Sergeant Shocky a ride back to Merrell. He was given some oversight of the project - most likely because it would get him out of sight. He was a small fellow with a big whisk broom mustache and a soft-spoken demeanor. Sergeant Shocky had the distinction of being one of the only guys that had been stationed in the 84th Engineer Company twice. In those day, you usually rotated around to different units every 12 to 30 months. If you spent twenty-five years in the military, you could have quite a portfolio of duty stations - very few of them would be repeats. Shocky was up to his ninth year in the Army if I remember. He had been in 'Nam a couple of times too. Ol' Sergeant Shocky had another distinction although not so distinguished. He was a notorious drunk - hence the special assignment watching dirt piles.
At any rate, I was well into the city and perhaps a mile from the barracks. It was rush hour in the afternoon. There was a little congested bypass I had to negotiate before I hit the main boulevard to home base. Boom! Out goes a front tire. Had I lost one of the eight rear tires I could have limped the last mile with out even much notice of the flat.
I pulled the truck part way up on a side walk to stay out of Comrade's busy traffic. I pulled the lever to raise the dump bed a bit to be able to remove the spare tire. Despite the industrial-esque size of the jack, lug nuts, and tires, I must say I do remember getting it all changed rather quickly. To only have that farm-boy energy back again. Anyway, Shocky disappeared into a nearby mom and pop grocery shop which were ubiquitous in Germany. Before I could even get the lug nuts off he was downing his second beer, standing on the sidewalk watching me.
As we hopped back up into the truck after completing my task, Shocky handed me a beer and was downing his third. "Gun'er," he said, "Or you won't be able to merge back into the traffic."
I fired up the big truck, looked for a momentary break in the traffic to jump back on the road, and pushed the accelerator to the floor. I felt a double jolt, once as we left the sidewalk curb, but what the hell was the other noise? Something was wrong. I looked in the side mirror and said, "Oh, shit!"
I had put the flat tire up in the spare tire rack before tightening the good tire lug nuts. In the mean time the heavy load of sand caused the dump bed to slowly sink back to normal. Problem with that - the lift lever was still engaged. When I hit the accelerator, the bed shot up like a rocket. I dumped the whole load in the middle of the busy intersection.
Ol' Shocky shrugged, got out of the truck, and strolled back in to the shop to get another beer. I flagged down a jeep from another unit and asked them to take me out to the air field to get one of our scoop loaders. Knowing Ol' Sarge would be alcoholically indisposed on my return I commandeered one of our guys from the air field to drive the scoop loader and I rode on the side back to the crime scene.
When I got back to the pile of dirt with the loader about a half hour later, Sergeant Shocky was drinking a beer and joking and laughing with the traffic cop that had stopped to block the sand pile with his squad car. Ol' Sarge must have been well into his seventh or eighth beer. The cop seemed not the least concerned about the GI holding the beer or the pile of sand or the fact Shocky handed me a beer when I finished sweeping up the mess.
Now there's a guy that it might be interesting to know what happened to after all these years - I suspect a few more beers have been consumed since I saw him last. He was in a mom and pop grocery store a block from Merrell. Ol' Shocky was back by the beer cooler putting one down and reaching for another. It was two in the afternoon on a Tuesday I think.
But then again, what the hell was I doing in there too on a work day? Oh ya, I must have been hunting down a candy bar.
Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Sergeant First Class Scott James Brown, 33, Windsor, Colorado (formerly of Brookfield, Wisconsin) died in Baghdad, Iraq on Friday, May 18 2007. Brown was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Brown had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. His Humvee was hit with an improvised explosive device and small arms fire as he was riding on the passenger side of the vehicle. Two other soldiers in the vehicle also died. The Journal Sentinel also noted Brown's wife had recently got out of the military. Brown went to Brookfield Central High School, in Brookfield, Wisconsin. He has a son named Taylor who was eleven years old when Brown died. At the time of Brown's death, his son lived in New Berlin, Wisconsin with his mother Kristen Leedom. The Website denverpost.com noted Brown was on his third tour of duty in the Middle East. His earlier tours took place from February 2003 through January 2004 in Iraq; and from July 2005 through November 2005 he served in Afghanistan. He was supposed to attend drill sergeant's school after a brief stay at home with his wife, Delilah Brown, in December of 2006. But, instead, he was sent back to Iraq. Brown joined the Army in March 1998, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in December 2000. He was due back from his current Iraq tour of duty around January 2008. An obituary posted on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Web site notes Scott enjoyed outdoor activities like camping, fishing, and four wheeling. His favorite football team was the Green Bay Packers. He enjoyed driving his Jeep on the beaches of North Carolina and he loved the mountains of Colorado. At the time of his death Scott Brown was survived by his wife Delilah Brown; his son Taylor; and Taylor's mother Kristen Leedom; stepdaughters Cassandra and Victoria; sister Debbi Brown-Hood; brother Michael Brown; stepfather Lory Ferguson; and, mother Lynne Brown-Ferguson. He was preceded in death by his father Vernon Brown. Sergeant First Class Scott Brown was the 75th Wisconsin military service person killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
99,004 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,794 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,432 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1413 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
830 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
31,992 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,469 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
103 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
27 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
145 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
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