It snowed a lot in January and then continued on into February. Forty-nine inches of white was a January record as I recall. Down in the main fort the snow melted near as quick as it hit the ground. Not so much in the back country. There it piled up and was pretty as could be. The cold made eating in the field a rush to finish while whatever the stuff that came to us from the mess hall was still warm. However, gobbling it down was a danger. Cut the roof of my mouth on a piece of crispy liver. Yup, that was some crispy all right.
The day we learned to operate and fire the LAW was a lesson in how quick hands could go numb at a humid ten above. Figured it at about forty-five seconds, give or take. Would've been nice if the cold had made our ears numb also.
We were hepped up to fire that little, cardboard, rocket launchin' baby. Damnation, it was like a little bazooka and we all knew about bazookas. The name was cool and every set of the green, toy, plastic soldiers had more than a few tiny GI Joe's with one of those tubes perched atop a shoulder. Plus we'd all seen the war movies. Yup, we were excited. Sat there in the bleachers while the Sergeant up front droned on and on about how to set it up, aim and squeeze the trigger. Then blithered on and explained in detail all the bad things that could happen should you be in line of the back blast or set it off while peering down the tube. Blah, blah blah.
A volunteer was called for. A hundred, forty-two hands shot up (would've been two more but they were on sick call. Unlucky bastards). One was chosen and he strutted down from the bleachers and up to the man. There was shown how to squeeze the trigger and use the aiming sight. Then was directed to an all blown to hell tank about a quarter mile away. You could see the strain on the man's face as he bore down on the trigger with all his might. Then it fired. Holy-crapamundo was it loud! Like a stick of dynamite being being lit off on his shoulder. Surprised me his head was still hitched on when that baby launched. Then there was the rocket, floating slow motion toward the tank; first and only projectile I ever saw move through the air (couple of months later we became familiar with the shower of red and green tracers greeting us in an ambush but we only saw the trail of light, not the bullet). Lucky sucker actually hit the tank, where we were told it would knock a hole in the side, fire ball bearings through the opening then bounce around inside at high speed till they were stopped by something soft like a teddy bear or an eyeball.
Of course we all got to fire one. Don't know what they cost back then but nothing the government bought was cheap, so us boys in green no doubt ran up quite a tab for our hour's play. Seemed like everyone hit the tank, even me. I looked real close, figuring there must be a wire or something guiding the rocket but saw nothing. To that point, it was the finest show of sharp shooting I'd ever seen. But there was an even better moment a week later.
Over the weeks we fired pretty much everything the Army had to offer a grunt, grenade launcher, thirty caliber machine gun and finally, the fifty caliber. All I have to say about the fifty is the Army didn't make good enough ear plugs. I was deaf for two days and still can't hear worth a damn.
Finally came the day we fired for record with the M16. We did ourselves proud and set a post, Army, Western Hemisphere, world and solar system record. Came real close to the galaxy record but fell one target short of a company from somewhere in the bowl of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor for you nit pickers). Truth is I can't say how good we actually were. You'll see what I mean.
The range was uphill a dozen or so miles from the main fort. Right up there where winter reigned in all its majestic whiteness. Once off the bus and into the bleachers, our weapons squeaky clean and oiled to the gills, the sergeant in charge let us know the company that was supposed to arrive and individually mark our scores, couldn't make it. The man said it had to do with the weather. My thought was, "we'd made it, why couldn't they?" Made no sense at all.
Next, the man let us know that about half the pop-up targets were buried under a couple of feet of snow and would stay that way no matter what he did. Then added we'd have to score ourselves,
"There will be no cheating! I repeat, no cheating! You'll just have to figure out what to do when there's nothing to shoot at! Also, the maximum score is one hundred and eight, I repeat, one hundred and eight! No one, but no one will score more than one hundred and eight!! Understood!!!"
Yeah, we understood all right. Understood how good that Expert's badge would look on our dress uniforms.
As I recall, three of our self-scored marksmen did in fact score higher than one hundred and eight. That was to offset those of us who barely broke one oh five. From what I learned later on in combat, how good you could shoot didn't matter a whole lot when you were firing at someone you couldn't see. So maybe those pop-up targets that didn't pop up made a lot of sense.
Of course we all got to fire one. Don't know what they cost back then but nothing the government bought was cheap, so us boys in green no doubt ran up quite a tab for our hour's play. Seemed like everyone hit the tank, even me. I looked real close, figuring there must be a wire or something guiding the rocket but saw nothing. To that point, it was the finest show of sharp shooting I'd ever seen. But there was an even better moment a week later.
Over the weeks we fired pretty much everything the Army had to offer a grunt, grenade launcher, thirty caliber machine gun and finally, the fifty caliber. All I have to say about the fifty is the Army didn't make good enough ear plugs. I was deaf for two days and still can't hear worth a damn.
Finally came the day we fired for record with the M16. We did ourselves proud and set a post, Army, Western Hemisphere, world and solar system record. Came real close to the galaxy record but fell one target short of a company from somewhere in the bowl of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor for you nit pickers). Truth is I can't say how good we actually were. You'll see what I mean.
The range was uphill a dozen or so miles from the main fort. Right up there where winter reigned in all its majestic whiteness. Once off the bus and into the bleachers, our weapons squeaky clean and oiled to the gills, the sergeant in charge let us know the company that was supposed to arrive and individually mark our scores, couldn't make it. The man said it had to do with the weather. My thought was, "we'd made it, why couldn't they?" Made no sense at all.
Next, the man let us know that about half the pop-up targets were buried under a couple of feet of snow and would stay that way no matter what he did. Then added we'd have to score ourselves,
"There will be no cheating! I repeat, no cheating! You'll just have to figure out what to do when there's nothing to shoot at! Also, the maximum score is one hundred and eight, I repeat, one hundred and eight! No one, but no one will score more than one hundred and eight!! Understood!!!"
Yeah, we understood all right. Understood how good that Expert's badge would look on our dress uniforms.
As I recall, three of our self-scored marksmen did in fact score higher than one hundred and eight. That was to offset those of us who barely broke one oh five. From what I learned later on in combat, how good you could shoot didn't matter a whole lot when you were firing at someone you couldn't see. So maybe those pop-up targets that didn't pop up made a lot of sense.
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