Grandpa’s War – Part 3 -A Mission

According to the old 95-Bravo training manual, part of our job is to secure the rear area. In short, provide security. And we’d soon draw a mission to do that.

Our vehicles had caught up to us, but we didn’t know where we were going or what would happen next.

Events, of course, would decide that for us.

We’d been pretty much sitting on our butts doing some light training, but not much else.

While a lot of people think soldiers just sit around, that’s not true. That’s a science-fiction story concocted by a hundred thousand war movies written by people who don’t know better.

Soldiers like to stay busy. Boredom is an enemy and we hate it with a passion. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that “War is an organized bore” and we’ll fight it every way we can.

So far his words were right on the mark, though. No matter how much we tried, there was always never enough to do.

So, getting a chance to do something, anything, was a welcome change of pace.

Here’s the background for the mission we drew.

SITUATION – Supposedly, a bomb was found outside the entrance to the Dew Drop Inn. I’m not sure how true that was, but that was the rumor floating around the Inn. But rumor or not, it prompted someone to start taking things a little more seriously.

SOLUTION – Security was suddenly an issue and everyone was wondering how to approach it. Then someone realized there was a company of MPs doing nothing. We’re the experts on security so they gave us the job.

We had our vehicles and we were assigned to patrol the camp and its area. After all, the job of an MP is to secure the rear area, isn’t it.

RESOURCES – A bunch of highly trained, highly motivate MPs. They have their vehicle, weapons, and no bullets.

You read that right. We had no bullets!

“I guess we can always throw rocks,” Cpl Eric McArtor said.

While tossing a rock worked out for David, it wouldn’t work so well for us. There was lots of sand and few rocks. So, even that idea might not have worked. Besides, none of us had the haircut to play David.

The Captain must have passed that simple observation up the chain of command. We were pretty much toothless tigers and worse, we knew it. In the event of a situation, there was very little we could have done except run like hell or die.

I don’t know where they found it, but we got one box of ammo per M-60 machine gun. We’re not talking the typical green army metal box that holds 500 to 1000 rounds. We’re talking a cardboard box about the size a 2-piece KFC chicken meal would come in. It held a single belt of ammo of about 100 rounds. The M-60 machine gun fires 550 rounds per minutes. You do the math.

Either way you cut it, we weren’t in much better shape.

We had nothing for the M-16s or our side arms. So we patrolled the camp with empty magazines in our rifles and a mean scowl on our faces. It was a show of force we hoped would be taken seriously.

It must have worked. We didn’t have any issues.

Or as a girl we knew observed, “That or you’re all so damn ugly you scared them off.”

There’s a distinct possibility that she was right.

Previous – Everyone’s welcome at the Drew Drop Inn Next – TAA Thompson

All photographs Copyright – Richard L. Muniz