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 was currently participating in the Team Spirit field exercise, and it had deployed the following elements: the company headquarters, the company mess hall, the Class II & IV supply warehouse operation, packaged POL, water purification operations, transportation operations, delivery of palletized meals forward to the combat elements during the Team Spirit exercise, the laundry and bath unit and clothing exchange operations, a field Self-Service Supply Center (SSSC), and the Graves registration operations My unit mess hall had just finished an evaluation for the Department of the Army Philip A. Connelly Award for Food Service Excellence. I wasn’t sure if we had won the competition, but I do know that I heard ‘very good’ said a lot by the evaluation team. The phrase ‘very good’ seemed to be their way of saying outstanding or superior. I am not sure why that was, but I didn’t question their methods. After the conclusion of the Connelly award evaluation, my company continued to perform its normal field operations in support of the Team Spirit exercise. In addition to my company, the 227th Maintenance Battalion had two maintenance companies. Those maintenance companies were the 595th Maintenance Company and the 61st Maintenance Company. The 595th Maintenance Company did not deploy to the field for the Team Spirit exercise. The 61st Maintenance Company had deployed to the field for the Team Spirit exercise and was in the same sector as my company. Their area of operations was located about five miles east of my location. They had a vehicle recovery section and they were responsible for recovery missions. That is an excellent question. Why am I telling you all of that? Here is why dear reader. In addition to delivering palletized meals forward in the ‘combat zone’ (Team Spirit exercise box) and issuing classes II & IV supply, packaged POL, and Self-Service Supply Center (SSSC) supplies in the field, my unit mission seemed to have expanded to rescue and recovery as well. The only thing is that whenever I received a radio transmission requesting assistance, my Battalion Commander or Battalion XO did not refer to the mission as a request for assistance. They transmitted in the clear, “Calling ‘Nine-One-One,’ over.” The first time that they put out a call in the clear to ‘Nine-One-One,’ I simply disregarded it. I didn’t know that shit was for me. I thought perhaps they had been lounging in the mud too long drinking Soju or that they had been attacked by some devious North Koreans and captured. I also thought that perhaps those devious North Koreans had coerced them into putting out those weird transmissions. It was possible, right? I mean, we were even pretending to fight a make-believe war against the North Koreans and everything. So, it was possible. Okay. It was not very probable, but it was possible. However, when my Battalion Commander keyed the mic on the radio and said, “Wright, god dammit. Pick up the goddamn mic,” that got my attention. Apparently, he wanted to talk to me. And he seemed a little bit upset that I wasn’t responding. Gee. I wonder why? So I replied, “What in the hell is this ‘Nine-One-One’ shit? Then he said, “from now on your radio handle will be ‘Calling Nine-One-One.’ When you hear somebody using the phrase, ‘Calling Nine-One-One,’ you need to respond and handle whatever mission comes along.” “Why is that Sir?” “Cuz, whenever I call you, I just know that the job will be done and it will be done right.” “Yes Sir. So, why did you call this time? Get somebody from your transportation platoon to borrow a wrecker from the 61st Maintenance Company to handle a recovery mission.” “Do you know which unit that this mission is in support of Sir?” “No. But you can get all of the details At the 61st Maintenance Company Field Shop Operations.” “Yes Sir.” Now, it appeared that I was taking over recovery missions that should’ve been handled by the 61st Maintenance Company. I wondered why in the hell my old friend and nemesis, Captain Jones, formerly the Battalion S2-3 Officer and now the newly appointed commander of the 61st Maintenance Company, wasn’t handling these sorts of missions. Maybe it was because he was running his company just as efficiently as he had run the Battalion S2-3 shop. Interesting. But if that was the case, that was bullshit. I shouldn’t have to do his job and my job. But I guess if you want something done right, you gotta call the right guy for the job. And I was the right guy for the job. My name even said so. Get it. Wright. Right. My driver and I drove the driver from the transportation platoon over to the 61st Maintenance Company Field Shop Operations Office. The Transportation Driver picked up the wrecker, and we learned the grid coordinates to the recovery location. When we arrived at the recovery site, we learned that the vehicle that needed to be recovered belonged to the 61st Maintenance Company. The vehicle that we needed to recover turned out to be the Company Commander’s vehicle. Go figure. I wondered where in the hell the Company Commander was? The driver didn’t seem to know. He had apparently lost his company commander. I asked him, “What happened to your vehicle?” The driver from the 61st Maintenance Company replied, “Well, you see, Sir. My Company Commander wanted me to shift into four-wheel-drive to do some offloading, so I did that. Then, the vehicle just stopped working.” “Wait-a-minute. Did you shift your vehicle into neutral before you shifted into four-wheel-drive?” “No, Sir. I didn’t know I was supposed to. That was the first time I’d ever driven a four-wheel-drive vehicle.” “Was your commander in the vehicle when you did that?” “Yes Sir. But then he left in another company vehicle. He told me to wait here until help arrived.” “I see.” I took a quick look underneath the vehicle and noted that it appeared that a driveshaft had broken loose from the transfer case and fallen to the ground. It was just as I had suspected. No wonder my nemesis, Captain Jones, had disappeared. It was also no wonder that the Battalion Commander had issued the call sign ‘Calling Nine-One-One’ to me. I instructed my soldier from the transportation platoon to remove the fallen driveshaft from the vehicle before he attempted to tow it back to the 61st Maintenance Company Field Shop Operations Office. We rescued that vehicle and assumed our new role in rescue and recovery under the call sign ‘Calling Nine-One-One.’ We handled that mission and all subsequent recovery missions with no further exercises in futility.
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