When I served as the commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company in the 227th Maintenance Battalion At Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, I inherited a lot of problems from the previous regime. One of the inherited problems that I decided to deal with early was the issue of the ARTEP (Army Training and Evaluation Program) failure. The company had failed its previous ARTEP miserably, but I was not about to repeat that performance. I made plans to perform the company ARTEP just after the summer monsoon season ended while it was still relatively warm outside. I also appointed an ARTEP advance party to go out and scout for a good field location to set up for our ARTEP and to deploy in advance of the main body of the company during the actual ARTEP to establish initial perimeter defense and communications. The ARTEP advance party had selected one helluva good field location for our ARTEP field site. The first two days of the ARTEP had gone relatively well. The surprise packages that we had prepared for aggressor attacks had worked out magnificently. We even captured a few aggressor prisoners of war (POWs) that we detained until the third day of the ARTEP. Captain Jones came out from Battalion to give me a critique of the second day of the ARTEP and to secure the release of the POWs that we had detained from the previous evening. Since he showed up right after breakfast on the third day, his soldiers were being wined and dined in the mess tent when he arrived. We had actually taken pretty good care of his soldiers while they were in captivity. Of course, his first comment to me was that it was a dirty low-down trick to turn on the lights of the deuce and a half’s to blind his aggressors. I replied, “Is that so? So, in your opinion, it’s okay for your soldiers to cheat and use night vision goggles, but it’s not okay for me to level the playing field and blind them? I call that bullshit. Besides, in war, there are no rules other than those spelled out in the Geneva conventions. It seems to me that you’re just a sore loser.” Once again, I don’t think that he appreciated my comment. As for day three of the ARTEP, Captain Jones said that the focus would be on company missions, radio communications, and communications security and authentication. The first two company missions to be tested would be our Laundry and Bath Detachment and our Classes II & IV supply issue and receipt. Immediately after Captain Jones left with his aggressors that we had captured from the previous evening, I held a staff meeting with the personnel from my Laundry and Bath Detachment and from my Class II & IV supply warehouse. I was especially worried about the Laundry and Bath Detachment because of my previous experience with their operations during Team Spirit the previous winter. Lieutenant Woodson assured me that all of the problems that they had encountered the previous winter had been subsequently solved. I asked him to prove that by demonstrating to me with a quick run through. I told him that I would take a quick shower at his male shower facility, and that I would have Lieutenant Wilson from the Self-Service Supply Center (SSSC) shower at the female facility. Lieutenant Wilson and I took brief demo showers at the shower facility, and it worked out quite well. I asked Lieutenant Woodson, “Woody, how well does the laundry unit work?” Lieutenant Woodson replied, “Sir, that unit always worked. We never had it deployed at Team Spirit. If they ask us to demonstrate it, we have it ready to go with sample clothing packs to wash.” “Good. Be prepared for that to happen. Cuz I expect our full show to be deployed to Team Spirit this year.” “Really, Sir?” “I don’t know. I can’t predict the future. But if I were a betting man, I would bet my biffy that we’re taking this show to Team Spirit.” The ARTEP evaluations for the Laundry and Bath Detachment and the Class II & IV supply issue and receipt operations went extremely well. The ARTEP evaluators actually took showers themselves and watched as dirty uniform packs were being processed and washed at the laundry unit. While we were in the field that day, the Graves Registration staff was called back to Garrison to assist the mortician because two bodies had been received for processing. The ARTEP evaluators decided to conduct their Graves Registration evaluation back in Garrison while our team processed those two bodies for embalming and shipping back to the states. The Graves Registration team had to conduct a few additional tasks as well, but the evaluating team let them conduct those tasks outside of the mortuary in Garrison as well. I received a warning order from Captain Jones that my mess hall, my perishable food storage supply operations, my bulk petroleum operations, and my hot refuel operations would all be evaluated on the following day. It looked as if day three had gone very well. I told my staff to be prepared for aggressor operations that evening, as we once again changed up the southern and eastern perimeters. If an attack came this time, I expected it to come against the northern and western perimeters because aggressors hadn’t really tried to penetrate the western perimeter previously, so they might be thinking that our defenses would be sloppy over there. Let them think that. I told my quick reactionary force to turn the Port-a-potties around so that the doors were facing the western perimeter. I also wanted one member of the quick reactionary force to sit in the center-most Port-a-potty with an M-60 machine gun. If and when an attack started on the western perimeter, I wanted that quick reactionary force along with that soldier with the machine gun to surprise the aggressors. That would be our machine gun surprise. We had to assume that aggressor attacks would continue as long as we were in the field. That evening at about 2130 hours, the attack started. Just as I had suspected, the aggressors tried to penetrate our northern and western perimeters. The machine gun surprise worked brilliantly. I think shock number one was when the aggressors noticed that the Port-a-potties were facing the wrong way. Shock number two was when the center-most Port-a-potty burst open, and a soldier popped out with the machine gun blazing away. Once again, our defense worked flawlessly without any exercises in futility nor operational inspection hiccups.
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