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, and they had attempted to perform their ARTEP in the middle of the winter. Those were two mistakes that I was not about to repeat. I 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. After a few small safety hiccups while preparing our initial defenses, preparation of our field site came together quite nicely. Late on the afternoon of the first day, Captain Jones, the 227th Maintenance Battalion S2/3, came out to our field site to discuss ARTEP operations with me. Captain Jones was a rather arrogant, cocky sonofabitch. He was in charge of evaluating my ARTEP. The thing about Captain Jones was that he didn’t like me much. In fact, that sonofabitch didn’t like me at all. But that was okay because I didn’t like that sonofabitch either. I usually let him know that I didn’t like him every chance that I got. Anyway, I was pretty sure that the only reason he came out to my field site was to scope out our defensive preparations so that he could go back and brief his aggressors on how to attack our perimeter. That was all right with me. Cuz you see to the average idiot like Captain Jones, our southern perimeter looked like it was wide open. But if you recall, my southern perimeter was naturally protected by deep ravines that were reinforced with concertina wire and razor wire tricked out with booby-traps such as M-80’s, flash-bang grenades, and flares all rigged up to tripwires. My Eastern perimeter also looked like it was wide open because it was backed up against a mountainside. However, I didn’t show Captain Jones the little surprises that we had waiting for any aggressors that might attempt to attack us from the east by coming down that hill side. Captain Jones also insisted on meeting with me at the TOC (Tactical Operations Center). I was pretty sure he just wanted to know the location of the TOC. When he asked for a tour of the entire field site, I refused on the basis of operational security. He left my field site kinda pissed off. But hey, the way I looked at it, it’s always better to be pissed off than pissed on. After Captain Jones left the field site, I called an Emergency staff meeting to brief all my officers and senior NCOs. The first order of business was to move the TOC. When they asked why, I said, “Captain Jones insisted on speaking to me at the TOC. That means that he wanted to know the specific location of the TOC. He is hoping that his aggressors penetrate our perimeter. Put most of our security on our northern and western perimeters. They will try to attack the southern and eastern perimeters where we already have surprises waiting for them. Expect them to attempt to capture the command tent and the TOC. Expect them to attempt to attack soldiers’ sleeping tents. Captain Jones asked for a tour of the entire field site, but I refused. He left here pissed off. Expect the aggressors to hit hard and hit often, especially tonight. By the way, I will not be in the command tent this evening. Nor will I be in the TOC. That would be too obvious.” When I dismissed the staff to make preparations for the evening aggressor surprise party, I asked Lieutenant Woodson from my Laundry and Bath Detachment to stay behind for a minute. Lieutenant Tom Woodson was affectionately known to all of the other officers in the company as Woody. Whenever Woody was in the presence of other lieutenants, and they thought I was nowhere to be found, he did a helluva impersonation of me. I had actually caught him in the act of impersonating me once, and I had to admit that he did one helluva bang up job impersonating me. Fast-forward. I said, “Woody, the reason I asked you to stay behind was because I need your services tonight. You know that clown act you do where you impersonate me?” Woody replied, “Whu… What impersonation Sir?” “Don’t play dumb Woody. I know all about it. I even got pictures to prove it. You are pretty damn good at it. Anyway, I need you to be me tonight. In other words, you’re going to be a sacrificial lamb, so to speak.” “Really, Sir?” “Absolutely. Go talk to the first Sergeant to get rank for your helmet and uniform. You already know how to do the rest.” “Is this legal Sir?” “It is if I say it is. And I say it is.” “What do you want me to do?” “I want you to walk around the field site acting like a commander. Basically, acting like me. Can you handle that?” “Yes Sir.” “Good. Get to it. These dumbass aggressors ain’t going to know what hit them.” At about 2130 hours that night, the first trip flare went off on the southern perimeter followed by an immediate loud, “sonofabitch.” Machine gun fire immediately lit up on the southern perimeter against the silhouette of the figure caught in the concertina wire aggressor surprise that we had waiting. Soon after, a loud bang of an M-80 went off on the southern perimeter. I saw the quick reactionary force deploy to reinforce our nonexistent defenses on the southern perimeter. It seemed like the fight was on. About 15 minutes later, a trip flare went off in the woods on the hillside next to our Eastern perimeter. Soon after that, we heard an exasperated yell as somebody must have found some excrement. That hillside was littered with raw sewage (shit). We had strung concertina and razor wire all along that hillside, so the only way to get through was either to attempt to go over the wire or under the wire. Under the wire was the easier choice, but then the aggressors had to crawl through shit. Great choice. If they chose to go over the wire, they risked setting off our booby-traps or getting caught in the wire. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation. When the aggressors finally called off their attack for the evening, I would say that the aggressor surprise party had worked quite well. I would have to plan more surprises for the following day. The first day of operations during our ARTEP went quite well without any exercises in futility, for my unit at least.
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