Times I Got in Trouble in the Army, Vol. 2 (Special Memorial Day Edition)
That time with the Humvee at the beach.
This is just a regular Army story, but I figured I’d to post on Memorial Day, when we honor those who sacrificed their lives in combat. This story contains no such bravery or terrible loss, but it’s a military sort of day so here we are.
I will dedicate this to Staff Sergeant David Weisenburg, my friend and fellow Oregon Guardsman, who died in Iraq in 2004.
Dave was big-hearted and funny and loved by most everyone who met him. I didn’t get to serve with him directly, yet I know he was the exact sort of serviceman this nation needs: compassionate, loyal, selfless, brave. It was Dave who talked me into enlisting, and without him I wouldn’t have all these odd stories, wouldn’t have met all those splendid folks.
Thank you, Dave. We miss you.
One reason for Oregon’s rep as a peacenik sort of state is we don’t have much military presence. There are Air National Guard fighter wings in Klamath Falls and Portland, Coast Guard stations along major waterways, and a depot in Umatilla, but the closest true active-duty military base to the Willamette Valley is Fort Lewis, two hours north on the Puget Sound.
Outside of the fighter wings, Oregon’s most prominent military presence is the Oregon National Guard, which has armories scattered around the state, most of which are organized under the 41st Infantry Brigade, which was my unit. The jewel of the ORNG’s properties is Camp Rilea.
Camp Rilea was founded in 1927 as Camp Clatsop, and was tucked between Warrenton and Surf Pines as direct support for the artillery batteries dotted around the mouth of the Columbia. The base was the mobilization site for the 41st Division’s deployment to the Pacific in 1941—where the unit earned the unofficial nickname “the Jungleers”—and served as the ORNG’s primary training grounds ever since.
I ended up at Rilea often and generally looked forward to those drills even if they were overnight and the billets were old, because Camp Rilea at least had fresh air wafting in from the northern Pacific and you could see the sun set. That happened to be our official nickname: the Sunsetters.
Another perk to Rilea was we’d often get to shoot, which is how this story begins.
Our CI section was fairly small and professional and had the company’s best shots, so we were usually picked to qualify first because we’d qualify fast, then be sent on some other mission or menial task for the day.
On that particularly weekend, we qualified with our M9 pistols and then with our M-16s, and then Specialist Maples and I were sent to sit on the beach in a Humvee at the south end of Rilea’s stretch of ocean front. It’s important to note the Army doesn’t own the beach since all Oregon beaches are proudly public.
Except Rilea’s firing ranges were still pointed seaward, so we were stationed in the Humvee to deter civilians from driving through live fire exercises, but we had no authority to stop them. If a driver decided not to heed us, we’d simply radio back to the range to cease fire until they passed through.
Maples was a taciturn yet thoughtful battle buddy from my first day in the unit. We roomed together in Bosnia and shared a warped sense of humor, so we didn’t mind each others’ company but there was no denying: we were bored out of our gourds.
We were also seated inside a beast of an off-road vehicle on an empty and open stretch of beach. So there should be no surprise when I tell you eventually one of us wondered aloud if we might spin some donuts in the sand. And the other considered the idea and mentioned that no one ordered us not to.
In fact, the opportunity to play with toys is one of the few luxuries the Army affords, and one of those toys is the Humvee, the service-wide nickname for the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). The Humvee has a powerful diesel engine, a super-wide wheelbase, and huge tires meant for tackling tricky terrain. In all my years in Humvees, no slice of time was more joyous than those we spent carving up the beach like Duke boys, feeling those wide wheels bite deep on tight turns, the back end whip around, casting up clouds of sand.
As the most secretive section of our company, we were not generally prone to stirring pots, and we were aware officers may not applaud chewing up the beach. But also, what did they expect of two dudes in their 20s with a half day in a Humvee on a wide stretch of desolate sand? We were far enough from the flag and we doubted anyone from Rilea would see this stretch of beach, much less care. Still, we decided not to make too destructive a scene, and returned to our spot after fifteen minutes or so, grinning like we’d just opened gaming systems for Christmas.
Then we spotted a pickup truck a ways down the horizon. I was due to flag down the driver, so I got out and made my way toward the oncoming pickup, waving my arms in an official-yet-friendly manner. But the driver didn’t slow at all, and actually steered clear of me, wagging his finger from the cab as he drove past, directly into the fire zone.
“Cease fire, cease fire! Civilian on the range!” Maples called back on the radio, and the other end copied and the small arms stopped. The pick up, meanwhile, drove north for awhile, then came back, still avoiding us. Then the driver stopped at the edge of our scratched patch of coast, and popped out of the cab and commenced taking photos of us, our Humvee, and the shredded beach, and I realized he was mad about the circles in the sand but I still wasn’t sure why, and I waved for him to talk to us, but he just shook his fist angrily and got back in the cab and drove north again.
“What’s his problem?” Maples asked when I opened the passenger side.
“No idea,” I said. “But he’s gathering evidence on the donuts.”
The pickup was gone for a while, and then a little later we heard over the radio the angry driver was clear of the north end.
“Should we report the pictures?”
“Mmm,” Maples seemed to consider this. “I think no.”
So we stayed mute and stationary, and at lunch we leaned our MREs on driftwood logs to heat and considered that, all in all, it wasn’t such a bad day to be in the Army.
A while into the afternoon, the radio crackled and the firing range sergeant was on the other end.
“Come in, South Watch. Do you copy, over?”
Maples was on the mic since he had seniority.
“We copy, over.”
“Roger. There’s a civilian report on some cookies spun on the beach near your location. Can you confirm? Over.”
“Uhhh, roger that. We can confirm that yes, cookies, or, as we call them, donuts, were spun, over,” said Maples.
“Copy that, South Watch. Camp Commander orders you to refrain from spinning cookies on the beach. There is some sort of special crab out there and tearing up the sand kills them and destroys their habitat, over.”
“Copy that, Sergeant. No more cookies. Over and out.”
And so we returned to waiting quietly until we were finally called in later that afternoon, hoping the situation was blown over. But drill weekends can be boring and news travels fast because Army units are silos of gossip, so everyone already knew about the donuts and barraged us with commentary and questions as we dished up chow that evening.
Thanks so much for slowing down qualification today!
Of course is was you two. Sneaky secret squirrels. Just be glad you didn’t end up in the ocean! Why if you were in my unit, I’d…<blahblahblah>
Heard the beach was a blast! For you two, I mean. Not the crabs and their families.
Too bad you didn’t have an up-armor out there. Coulda rained even more havoc on ‘em. A real crabtastrophe.
One common Army maxim is Shit rolls down hill. You know this dynamic, I’m sure. Like, if an Commanding Officer gets chewed out by superiors, that energy will be transferred downward through the ranks and that’s when being enlisted hurts most.
But there would be no cascading deritrus that day, at least not for us. From what we gleaned, the pickup drove to the guardhouse, asked to see the base commander and reported us for reckless driving, blowing up the Commander’s ear for an hour. This apparently wasn’t the first time, as that particular civvy was known for keeping an eye out for weekend warriors and just these sorts of shenanigans.
That day, however, the shit ceased somewhere uphill. Maybe it was Sergeant Oaks, our NCO who especially liked and looked out for us. Or maybe the commander figured it wasn’t worth dressing down two of the finest dang soldiers in the whole 41st Brigade. I like to think that second one.
Still, to all the fallen crabs and their brethren: I’m sorry for the carnage I caused. I wish I could confidently say the cookies weren’t worth your suffering, but I’d really need to read some hard casualty stats to feel true remorse. Like even if it was just two or three, I’d definitely spin those donuts again. Upper limit? Seven or eight, tbh. And please, do some drifting on the sand in a Humvee before you @ me.
Such a crabtastic story.
Enjoyed your writing very much and your humor is great!