When I served as the Commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company in the 227th Maintenance Battalion At Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, the company passed several major tests and milestones. And the company picked up new missions without skipping a beat. My company had participated in the Team Spirit field exercise, but we had finally deployed back to Garrison at the end of the exercise. After Team Spirit operations wound down, daily life in my company returned to normal. When I say that things returned to normal, I mean that the usual things such as monthly ten-percent property inventories, daily physical fitness, weekly training activities, assigned MTOE (Modified Table of the Organizational Equipment) missions, and other duties as assigned were being performed. However, that is where normal ended. So what remained? Abby-normal? Hint for those of you that are not familiar with jargon, that is slang for abnormal. Well, I guess if you look at it kinda slant-wise and kitty-wumpus with a slight skew to the left, then I guess you could call it abnormal. Why the skew to the left, you ask? Well, that’s a great question. You see a skew to the left means that it’s counterclockwise. Get it? Got it? Good. Other than that it has absolutely no bearing on my point. What is my point? Well, you see it’s a little bit convoluted but things weren’t exactly normal after everything settled down. I’m not saying that they were abnormal. I’m just saying that they weren’t exactly normal. For example, range week and the brilliance in action during that range week. Specifically, an incident that I happened to witness at a Claymore familiarization range. At that range, I arrived just in time to observe a soldier damn near blow his head off with a Claymore mine. Now, the Claymore mine is a beautiful piece of machinery. And it is stupidly simple to operate. But there is one significant point about that weapon that is very important for soldiers to understand in order to operate it correctly. The Claymore is a directional weapon. Let me repeat that. It is a directional weapon. But the part about it being directional seems to get lost on some soldiers. You know. Those abnormal ones I was talking about. Cuz in every bunch of soldiers, there’s always gotta be one. At least one. There may be more. But there is at least one abnormal one. The Army must’ve figured that out too. Cuz they had been bold words printed on the face of the weapon that read “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.” Those words should be an obvious clue. Well, they should be, but not to the abnormal ones. Then there are those signs near high-voltage substations and transmission lines. You know the ones. They’re the ones with the red lightning bolts and the skull and crossbones that say “DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE KEEP AWAY” or “DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE KEEP OUT.” There are a variety of these signs but the point remains don’t mess with the high-voltage cuz some serious shit can happen and usually does. What can happen? Oh, I don’t know, so I’ll just hazard a guess. Instant toast. Barbecue right quick and in a hurry. Now, here’s the deal with high-voltage. You see, 110 volts is not high-voltage. It is relatively lightweight. Sure. If you get shocked with 110 volts, it will likely bring your bell and light you up. And you will remember the jolt for a good spell afterwards. But will it kill you? Not likely. Unless you’ve got some underlying health conditions such as a really bad heart. But don’t try to juice yourself at home just to see how it feels. Cuz if the circuit breaker doesn’t cut loose or you cannot let go, you may get more of a charge, then you were bargaining for. Now, when you get up to the 220 volts, you are starting to talk about some heavyweight voltage. If you take a shock from that shit, your chances of getting up and walking away from it are only about… Well, they ain’t very damn good. However, when you get up to 440 volts, that right there is some seriously high-voltage. And it will kick your ass straight to hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. By the way, that is also referred to as transmission line voltage. That is the shit way up there in the sky, high on a telephone pole. Yeah. I hear you asking. If it is so damn dangerous, how in the hell do all of those birds sit their ass on the transmission lines without getting fried. Well, here’s the funny thing about electrical current: it seeks the path of least resistance. In the case of the transmission line with birds sitting on it, the transmission line is the path of least resistance. However, electricity is always looking for a way to get to ground. Let me repeat that. Electricity is always looking for a way to get to ground. Birds don’t generally touch the ground, so they don’t get fried. No barbecue bird. Damn. No quick meal. However, people aren’t always as smart. Or lucky. And people can’t fly. So they have to touch the ground. And if they’re doing some abnormally stupid shit like pretending that they’re electrical technicians, they may actually touch metal support bars on those telephone poles that they’re climbing when they’re pretending to be electrical technicians. Have I properly set the stage? Yep. You guessed it. I got a call one afternoon from Lieutenant Woodson who sounded very rattled on the phone. I asked him to settle down and tell me what in the hell was the matter. He told me, “Sir, some crazy damn fool soldier is climbing up a high-voltage power line to hang his TV antenna. I am scared to death that he is going to fry his ass.” I replied, “God dammit Woody, give the sonofabitch a direct order to get his ass off the pole. Who in the hell does the soldier belong to?” “I think he is in the 61st Maintenance Company, Sir. Here’s the thing. He has already climbed up there once to hang his TV antenna and gone up over the 110 service.” “God dammit. Lock his heels and watch his ass while you send somebody to get an NCO or an officer from the 61st Maintenance Company.” “Yes Sir.” 15 minutes later, I got another call from guess who. You guessed it. Lieutenant Woodson was back on the phone. He said, “Sir, I went inside to find someone to send over to 61st Maintenance Company. While I was inside, the sonofabitch went back up the pole. This time, he went up over the 220 service to hang his TV antenna.” “God dammit Woody. I told you to watch his ass. Did you ask why he’s going up there to hang his TV antenna?” I replied. You also told me to send somebody over to 61st Maintenance Company. There was nobody outside to send over there, so I had to go inside the barracks to get someone. When I asked the damn fool why in the hell he is going up there, he told me that he wanted to get better reception for his TV.” “I will put in a call to the 61st Maintenance Company Commander. Meanwhile, keep his ass off of that poll.” However, while we were talking, the damn fool soldier headed up the power pole one more time. The third time’s the charm, right? Wrong. He went up over the 440 service with no problem. But one of his elbows bumped the 440 wire while he was touching the metal crossbeam at the same time. Remember what I said about electricity is always looking for a way to get to ground. It had just found a way. Toast. Barbecue. The smell of fresh ozone in the morning. Except this was evening. The dude didn’t live to make it to the hospital. I don’t know if his TV got better reception, but he went through one helluva exercise in futility, as did all involved.
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