After paying some dues marking time in a regular Combat Engineer squad, a dump truck diver position came up empty as the former driver rotated back to the World (home). Each platoon had a dump truck - the dandy M-51-Cold-War-era-armored-plated-heavy-duty-combat-Five-Ton-Dump-Truck, if you please.  Get hit by one of those beasts in your car and you probably would not live to tell the tale. There would be no evidence the truck ever hit anything.  It wasn't the fancy articulating industrial scoop loader that was my official training designation, but as serendipity dictates, I found out it was actually a more lucrative gig.  

    As a Scoop Loader Operator, I would more often than not be attached to the mercy of train flat cars on railheads, or the 10-ton flatbed truck and its operator to haul my machine around.  As a dump truck driver, I had mobility.  And, that vehicle was one of our only mainstays of transportation in the Engineers.  Our whole company had only one Jeep and it did not always run.  The massive dump trucks were reliable and believe it or not actually rather easy to navigate. 

    One day during an extended war-game exercise in some vast deep German forest, Dep the Mad Shitter became depressed.  He was not the camping, out-doorsy type.  He liked clubbing it up in Queens, hustling chicks, and the partying in the city.  He hopped in my passenger seat during an extended delay in a convoy movement and bemoaned his tale of woe.  

    I thought for a second and said, "I got just what the doctor ordered." 

    The large metal tool box under the dump bed was a perfect refrigerator.  I popped open the door and there in lieu of tools, was at least two cases of German beer in the dump tool box.  

    "You'll get my therapeutic bill in the mail," I said. 

    Somewhere there is a picture of me standing on my dump truck hood giving both middle fingers to whoever the poor schlep photographer might have been. On occasion, in the field, I would sleep on the large warm hood.  And if you were clever enough, you could heat food on the engine with tin foil.  

    Once there was an ignition problem, and I could not turn off the engine for it would not restart.  We pulled the truck, I popped the clutch, started it, and left it running for four days.  

    I remember one fond romp during a training maneuver.  It was easy to get myself intentionally lost while assigned to the dump truck.  And so many people had me running errands I could fudge any time-line.  I remember passing a guest house (tavern) in the boonies.  Being from Wisconsin it reminded me of a hunting bar Up North.  I parked the beast right up front by Comrade's sporty little compact cars and strolled in for a break.  Four hours later, and a gaggle of new found native friends later, I stumbled out to find the truck still waiting patiently, like an elephant in a pack of sun bathing seals.  

    There were so many Reforger fall war games I can't remember which year was which.  Reforger involved shipping over National Guard and Reserves to play bad guys for a couple weeks.  Each year we ended up in a different corner of Southern Germany.  At the end of the exercise one year, many of us were to meet at a rally point in the village square of some German town I have long forgotten the name of.  I had one of our officers, a First Lieutenant, with me in the front seat.  That was the fate of the officers in the Engineers.  Be in Artillery or Armor and ride in a Jeep.  Draw the Combat Engineer card and ride in style in the Five-Ton Dump.  

    We made our designated meeting point at Midnight - as did about 400 other GIs from various units.  Army vehicles jammed the small square.  Suddenly, some jackass set off a military flare over the church.  Then as if the dam broke, flares, fireworks,  and god knows what else filled the night's sky.  The flood gates of bad behavior unleashed. There were shouts, revving of engines, bangs, pops, small explosions, and general all-around shenanigans. 

    The officer in the front seat looked at me and said, "Keith, get me the fuck out of here, I have this feeling of impending doom that I am the only officer in this cluster fuck and I have no intention of acquiring ownership of it.  Push these fuckers out of the way if you have too.  That's an order."  

    Mission accomplished, he was forever in my debt, and he got to continue on with his military career without the blemish on his officer's record of being on site when a small German town was terrorized by crass Army Engineers, Artillery, and  Armored units - most of whom were most likely way tired of playing the role of defenders of the Western World.

   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)