December 16th 1977 2:32 A.M. U.S Mountain Time... temperature... -38 F... wind speed, 36 knots!
I was raised on a wheat & cattle operation and the local High School was about capable enough to teach you how to add, subtract, multiply and divide as well as how to read and write at a basic level which I'm sure is evident in my post here. So, on my 17th birthday after granualating early, I joined the Air Force so I could escape the farm. I was promised training as an aircraft mechanic and was looking forward to my education.
After basic training graduation ceremonies were completed in San Antonio, TX, I was immediately ordered into the Commanding General's office. I was ordered to sit at a chair directly in front of the General and a full bird Colonel came up on my left side and placed his right hand down hard on my left shoulder. At the same time, a Major/Major (Lt. Colonel) came up on my right side and pushed his left hand down hard on my right shoulder. The general leaned across the desk smiling big with his hand held out to shake mine and said...
Congratualations son, you have the honor of being able to vollunteer for the Combined Services Corps, I know you'll make us proud!
Yes Sir!... just one question, respectfully Sir?
Anything son!
What's the Combined Services Corps?
So now I was a "vollunteer" as such for a special forces type job and you never met a guy less suited to the purpose. After all, I only joined to get an education and escape a pretty brutal and grim situation at home. They sent me first to Ranger school. I failed at almost every turn. They would ask all of us several times a day if we wanted to quit and I hated them so much that I wasn't about to give them that satisfaction. I was sure I would wash out and would soon be back to mechanic's training. Nobody liked me there and I hated 'em all right down to my training partner. I was paired with this ex-gang kid from Chicago. I'm polishing my boots, minding my own business and had never disrespected this kid in any way. All 6'2" and 220 pounds of his muscle head gets up in my face and says...
What are you... from like Kansas or something?
I thought for a minute... Kansas... Montana... not all that much different compared to his experience!
Yeah, something like that.
Hey everybody, this guy's from Kansas, we should call him Dorothy!
I got right up and back in his face... all 6'0" and 162 pounds of me and said...
Alright, you can call me Dorothy... as long as I can call you my little black dog Totto!
The nicknames stuck!
After Ranger ganualation, I went on to sniper school, demolition school and then some long training as a medic. I was now qualified to shoot you, blow you up and then piece what's left back together again!
I was assigned to the Flea Circus out of Fort Hood TX. The unit name is classified until at least 2081 and then only at direct Presidential discrecion. When the ramp dropped on the C-130 and me and Totto saw the landscape, he said...
Dorothy, I don't think we're in f@iggin' Kansas anymore!
Hey, you got that right Totto!
As the civilized people debated important problems and the guys who were stronger, smarter, better educated, better motivated, more morally correct and all around better people trained their little hearts out in Georgia for missions they desperately wanted and would never get, the great unwashed in my unit did things like...
In Central America, we suddenly are the biggest Babe magnets one Friday night and all the hot chicks suddenly came out of the woodwork and wanted to take us out for a night on the town. We all did so, but the medic (me) couldn't hold his liquor and had to excuse himself soon after the party started. 45 minutes later, I'm burying my parachute on the top of a hill. Across the valley and to the other side of the hill I see a bunch of pickup trucks moving along with their lights off. They are transporting men and arms. I pull up the laser gun and pull all three triggers for 3 seconds and in a hail of sparks, the whole thing was reduced to the size of grains of sand including solid steel! One man on the ground and a C-130 gunship did all that. 45 minutes later, I've been skyhooked out and am back at the party. Now comes the hard part. I've gotta go have sex with a young lady who's only with me so Daddy and Brother can move weapons in peace. She has no idea I pulled the trigger! To this day the whole deal messes with my brain.
In the Philippenes, we are at a place called "The Heights". Fueled by pacifist money and distributed by our supposed Allies in the Middle East, 500 or so Islamic outsiders laid claim to the entire Island as a Muslim paradise! They dropped arms and no training on 8-14 year old kids. We found out in about 3 days that they weren't terrorists... they were starving kids! We fed them, tended to their family's medical needs and refused any more illegal orders to use force against them. After all, in order to qualify as my enemy, you have to have the capacity to do me harm and they didn't qualify. Give 'em food and some stuff to barter with and you never saw that kid again! The Colonel was none too pleased and pointed his loaded and cocked .45 at my head. I told him...
Colonel, respectfully, that may or may not get the job done. You want to do it right, put the gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.
He hesitated, so quickly I grabbed the gun and pushed it into my mouth and struggled to pull the trigger. It went...
Clump!
As the trigger fell on his shirt sleeve. It is at times like that when you decide for sure who you are and what you are about. I fully expected the gun to operate correctly. My squad tackled the Colonel, his two aids and the 4 MP's and gave them all orthopeadic injuries that left them walking on their collective elbows and @ss@s the rest of their miserable lives! Four of us took them out in about 10 seconds flat! Left with a situation that the Navy would classify as mutiny, they shipped us back to the States.
all the while, back at the ranch, people are debating who shot J.R!
At morning parade, by ones mostly and rarely twos and in a blue moon by threes people wouldn't show up. You never asked. They simply were gone. This sort of thing continues to this day. I went from Dorothy, to Mean Mr. Mustard to Luckyboy when I came back from my 3rd no return mission. I've come back from a total of nine in all. So we packed our shoots while praying and hoped that the misery would be over soon. Still, it goes on. There is no wall, no memorial; in fact, their relatives are told they died in some accident. We get medals we can't wear for 99 years and only after the President at that time signs off for it.
I'm not sure why I'm bothering telling you kids this at 47 years of age. After all, I'm sure you have no ears for it. It just strikes me hard to see the list of the fallen. My oldest Brother is on the Vietnam Memorial wall. He died in 1969. I'm not trying to take anything away from that, but don't you see, we and our Opteron chasing, living in McMansion houses and driving SUV's lifestyle is killing the best of us. The few that get "lucky" and make it, really don't make it and society isn't about to pay the true cost of waging war. I just wish you all had eyes and ears for it, that's all!
I was raised on a wheat & cattle operation and the local High School was about capable enough to teach you how to add, subtract, multiply and divide as well as how to read and write at a basic level which I'm sure is evident in my post here. So, on my 17th birthday after granualating early, I joined the Air Force so I could escape the farm. I was promised training as an aircraft mechanic and was looking forward to my education.
After basic training graduation ceremonies were completed in San Antonio, TX, I was immediately ordered into the Commanding General's office. I was ordered to sit at a chair directly in front of the General and a full bird Colonel came up on my left side and placed his right hand down hard on my left shoulder. At the same time, a Major/Major (Lt. Colonel) came up on my right side and pushed his left hand down hard on my right shoulder. The general leaned across the desk smiling big with his hand held out to shake mine and said...
Congratualations son, you have the honor of being able to vollunteer for the Combined Services Corps, I know you'll make us proud!
Yes Sir!... just one question, respectfully Sir?
Anything son!
What's the Combined Services Corps?
So now I was a "vollunteer" as such for a special forces type job and you never met a guy less suited to the purpose. After all, I only joined to get an education and escape a pretty brutal and grim situation at home. They sent me first to Ranger school. I failed at almost every turn. They would ask all of us several times a day if we wanted to quit and I hated them so much that I wasn't about to give them that satisfaction. I was sure I would wash out and would soon be back to mechanic's training. Nobody liked me there and I hated 'em all right down to my training partner. I was paired with this ex-gang kid from Chicago. I'm polishing my boots, minding my own business and had never disrespected this kid in any way. All 6'2" and 220 pounds of his muscle head gets up in my face and says...
What are you... from like Kansas or something?
I thought for a minute... Kansas... Montana... not all that much different compared to his experience!
Yeah, something like that.
Hey everybody, this guy's from Kansas, we should call him Dorothy!
I got right up and back in his face... all 6'0" and 162 pounds of me and said...
Alright, you can call me Dorothy... as long as I can call you my little black dog Totto!
The nicknames stuck!
After Ranger ganualation, I went on to sniper school, demolition school and then some long training as a medic. I was now qualified to shoot you, blow you up and then piece what's left back together again!
I was assigned to the Flea Circus out of Fort Hood TX. The unit name is classified until at least 2081 and then only at direct Presidential discrecion. When the ramp dropped on the C-130 and me and Totto saw the landscape, he said...
Dorothy, I don't think we're in f@iggin' Kansas anymore!
Hey, you got that right Totto!
As the civilized people debated important problems and the guys who were stronger, smarter, better educated, better motivated, more morally correct and all around better people trained their little hearts out in Georgia for missions they desperately wanted and would never get, the great unwashed in my unit did things like...
In Central America, we suddenly are the biggest Babe magnets one Friday night and all the hot chicks suddenly came out of the woodwork and wanted to take us out for a night on the town. We all did so, but the medic (me) couldn't hold his liquor and had to excuse himself soon after the party started. 45 minutes later, I'm burying my parachute on the top of a hill. Across the valley and to the other side of the hill I see a bunch of pickup trucks moving along with their lights off. They are transporting men and arms. I pull up the laser gun and pull all three triggers for 3 seconds and in a hail of sparks, the whole thing was reduced to the size of grains of sand including solid steel! One man on the ground and a C-130 gunship did all that. 45 minutes later, I've been skyhooked out and am back at the party. Now comes the hard part. I've gotta go have sex with a young lady who's only with me so Daddy and Brother can move weapons in peace. She has no idea I pulled the trigger! To this day the whole deal messes with my brain.
In the Philippenes, we are at a place called "The Heights". Fueled by pacifist money and distributed by our supposed Allies in the Middle East, 500 or so Islamic outsiders laid claim to the entire Island as a Muslim paradise! They dropped arms and no training on 8-14 year old kids. We found out in about 3 days that they weren't terrorists... they were starving kids! We fed them, tended to their family's medical needs and refused any more illegal orders to use force against them. After all, in order to qualify as my enemy, you have to have the capacity to do me harm and they didn't qualify. Give 'em food and some stuff to barter with and you never saw that kid again! The Colonel was none too pleased and pointed his loaded and cocked .45 at my head. I told him...
Colonel, respectfully, that may or may not get the job done. You want to do it right, put the gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.
He hesitated, so quickly I grabbed the gun and pushed it into my mouth and struggled to pull the trigger. It went...
Clump!
As the trigger fell on his shirt sleeve. It is at times like that when you decide for sure who you are and what you are about. I fully expected the gun to operate correctly. My squad tackled the Colonel, his two aids and the 4 MP's and gave them all orthopeadic injuries that left them walking on their collective elbows and @ss@s the rest of their miserable lives! Four of us took them out in about 10 seconds flat! Left with a situation that the Navy would classify as mutiny, they shipped us back to the States.
all the while, back at the ranch, people are debating who shot J.R!
At morning parade, by ones mostly and rarely twos and in a blue moon by threes people wouldn't show up. You never asked. They simply were gone. This sort of thing continues to this day. I went from Dorothy, to Mean Mr. Mustard to Luckyboy when I came back from my 3rd no return mission. I've come back from a total of nine in all. So we packed our shoots while praying and hoped that the misery would be over soon. Still, it goes on. There is no wall, no memorial; in fact, their relatives are told they died in some accident. We get medals we can't wear for 99 years and only after the President at that time signs off for it.
I'm not sure why I'm bothering telling you kids this at 47 years of age. After all, I'm sure you have no ears for it. It just strikes me hard to see the list of the fallen. My oldest Brother is on the Vietnam Memorial wall. He died in 1969. I'm not trying to take anything away from that, but don't you see, we and our Opteron chasing, living in McMansion houses and driving SUV's lifestyle is killing the best of us. The few that get "lucky" and make it, really don't make it and society isn't about to pay the true cost of waging war. I just wish you all had eyes and ears for it, that's all!
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