This is an experience that left a bad taste in my mouth about the Army for a least a decade after I left. I remember playing the vignette over and over in my mind after I got home - it haunted me in fact. And from my observation from serving during those days, bull-shit-esque bad experiences seemed to be endemic for many guys that served in the Viet Nam era and the time that immediately followed it. The end-of-Nam era as well as the post-Nam era were and are both forgotten, neglected times for the Army. The nation discarded the whole time frame it had grown so wary and disenchanted with. My enlistment transcended both eras.
With less than a year left in my enlistment, the powers that be finally got my industrial scoop loader fixed and we actually used it. Up until that time the large articulation-steering heavy machine had sat in the motor pool for a couple years unable to be started.
"Specialist Keith, now that the Scoop Loader is repaired, you will be assigned to it," I remember my lieutenant saying.
So to my cautious and suspicious chagrin I had to give up my lucrative dump truck driving job. So, in that winter January of 1977, I started operating my platoon's scoop loader. It was large enough that if my task was more than five miles from our home base, it had to be carted around on a flatbed trailer via a ten-ton truck. Or, at times we strapped it down to a railroad car for transport. Regardless, I was hostage to other people's schedules. I at least had had some freedom of arbitrary movement with the dump truck job.
In February, we got an uncharacteristic heavy snow for our region in Germany. Some of my platoon was sent out to the small military airfield near Nuremberg to plow out the runways and landing pads. As well, it was darn cold. I remember taking a break for an hour or so in the tiny terminal beneath the control tower. In the mean time, a sergeant from another squad than my own continued the vigil of pushing the snow out of the way with my loader. One thing to keep in mind was that we rarely used the loaders on concrete surfaces - most of our work was done with dirt and debris.
The loader bucket-scoop had a removable blade. We used the machine so much on that concrete airfield we wore down the blade and even damaged the connecting bolts. As fate would have it I was not even at the controls when the bucket fell apart. Then if I remember, the powers that be insisted that it still be used to finish the job as best as possible.
A few days later, the shit hit the fan, primarily after I dropped the vehicle off at the main Regimental repair shop. There was an old sergeant in charge of something there and he was for all practical purposes a tyrant. He was one of those guys that actually started his service in 1945 at the end of World War II and was still hanging on to what ever little thiefdom he had left.
Ol' Tyrant Sarge raised a stink about his beloved and now wrecked military scoop loader - as if it was his personal property - and in a few days I was being harangued from all directions about the wrecked bucket-scoop. Bear in mind, this was not a hand shovel. These machines were huge...and expensive for the time.
"Your going to pay for this out of your own pay check, Keith!" I remember being told more than once from various antagonists. By the by, had that scenario actually come to fruition, on Army pay, I would probably just now be finishing up the debt 35 years later.
The thing that struck me immediately at the time was the then recent events in Viet Nam. Just over a year earlier, during the American evacuation from Saigon in April of 1975, the United States government had abandoned billions of dollars of assets and equipment. In fact, on a visit to Hue, Viet Nam in 2005, I popped into a museum that had a collection of abandoned U.S. Army equipment they kept as trophies so to speak.
Those that were of age in 1975 should still remember the news clips of the American-built helicopters being pushed off the sides of aircraft carriers after their South Vietnamese Army pilots escaped to the waiting ships in the South China Sea.
In the shadow of that world event, Ol' Army Specialist Fourth Class Bob was being persecuted for allegedly damaging an Army Scoop Loader. Not to mention we were actually using it for a real mission, and everybody and his brother had been driving it on the assignment.
One day a red-headed lieutenant from Regiment Headquarters looked me up and explained he was my Council. Council? Even as a 20 year old mook, the reference that I needed "Legal Council" in the matter of my scoop loader seemed like overkill.
I talked to Red-headed Luey at least one more time - nothing was accomplished - he said he would let me know when my case would come up at Regiment...it never did. I left Germany...scoop loader paper work still long yellowing on someone's desk.
But, the experience of being nagged about a damaged piece of Army equipment - damaged on the job with no malicious intent - left a sour taste in my mouth for years.
At least I have the peace of mind, that I did not push my god-damned scoop loader off an aircraft carrier in to the South China Sea.
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)
Marine Corporal Matthew Ross Zindars, 21, Watertown, Wisconsin, died on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 in Diyala province, Iraq. He was serving in Battery K, 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, California. Zindars was one of three Marines killed in the combat operation when the Humvee he was in was struck by a roadside bomb. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted Matthew was very active in watercraft, snowboarding, rock climbing, and camping. He enlisted during his senior year in high school. The Journal Sentinel quoted Matthew's father as saying his son discussed attending the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater to study journalism after his military obligation. Zindars had volunteered for his second tour in Iraq in which his death occurred. He was born on September 12, 1985. In his youth Matthew was a member of the Lutheran Boy Pioneers and he attended Trinity-St. Luke's Lutheran School. He played football at Watertown High School, and graduated in 2004. Zindars entered the Marines in October 2004, and first deployed to Iraq with an artillery unit in March 2005. The Watertown Daily Times noted Zindar's Marine unit's job on his second Iraq tour was to perform security operations and clear explosives from roadways. He was due to return home in October 2007. The Watertown paper also quoted a friend of Matthew's as saying Zindars liked lifting weights in his teens. He had joined the Marines at 18 years old while still in high school. He was also a two-year member of American Legion Post 189. Wisconsin 2007 Senate Joint Resolution 79 states that at the time of his death Corporal Matthew Zindars was survived by mother Lynn Zindars; father Kenneth Zindars; sisters Tracy Kempf−Reichardt and Jennifer Kempf−Wilson; and brother, Mark Zindars. Matthew was preceded in death by brother Jason. Corporal Matthew Zindars was the 78th Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since March of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
99,171 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,811 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,433 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1442 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
833 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
32,001 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,828 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.
