The 5th PMU was alerted, if you can call it that, for its first field exercise about a month after I arrived in country. In a previous post I mentioned that the 5th Preventive Medicine Unit was just like that comedy show on TV called MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital). Their idea of an alert was to phone everyone after they got to work in the morning to tell them to prepare for a field exercise. We had a full Colonel for a unit commander, so he didn’t do much other than tell the first sergeant and his executive officer to handle things. He liked to give us speeches, though. He started every speech the same way, “Soldiers of the 5th PMU. You are my children and I am your master.” Today, we received a phone call to tell us that the commander wanted to speak to us about the field exercise. He said, “Soldiers of the 5th PMU. My children. Monday we shall form a series of convoys to deploy to Uijongbu to a field site at Camp Mosier. Captain Bradley, my executive officer, is in charge of convoy operations and will provide further details.” Camp Mosier was the home of the 43rd MASH (of movie and television fame) from the Korean War until 1970. Captain Bradley spoke next. He said, “Folks, we’ll move in groups of three vehicles spaced 15 minutes apart. I need to know who is licensed to drive vehicles in the Republic of Korea. We will deploy to Camp Mosier, the site of an old medical unit, and set up our tents. Any questions?” It turned out that not many of us were licensed to drive in Korea. Go figure. We only had 14 vehicles, of which three were deuce and a half trucks. We had one M880 power wagon and ten jeeps. All of the vehicles towed something, but nobody could back a trailer or generator or any other rig hooked to the back of a vehicle. Oh, they could jack-knife them just fine, but back them up, no way. No sir. Wasn’t happening. Watching them back trailers was like watching a bunch of clowns perform at the circus. When we were at the field site, and it started getting dark, the leaders wanted to get all of the trailers and generators spotted in their designated parking spots. However, that just wasn’t happening. The harder the drivers tried to back their rigs into place, the worse things became. Finally, the first sergeant took charge. He said, “Does anybody know how to back a trailer without jack-knifing it or possibly tipping it over and causing an accident?” I stepped forward and said, “I do, first sergeant.” “Well, why in the hell are you just standing around with your thumb stuck up your ass while everybody else makes a jackass of themselves? Why didn’t you say something?” “Well, you see, it’s like this first sergeant, nobody asked me if I could back a trailer, and it seemed like you all wanted to let your blond-haired blue-eyed boys give it a shot, and I kind of liked watching the show.” “Okay, smartass, let’s see you give it a try.” “Just tell me where you want the damn shit parked, okay.” “You know, all I’ve seen so far is talk.” “Yeah, Yeah. Like I said, just tell me where to park the shit.” “Okay smartass, put the first generator in between those two poles, but don’t hit that tree.” “Got it.” Two minutes later, the first generator was parked. Then I asked, “Where does the next one go?” “How the hell did you do that?” “It’s like I told Jim the first day I got here, I can drive anything with wheels on it. Do you want the other shit parked or not?” After getting all of the trailers and trucks staged, setting up the rest of the field site was uneventful. During the day, the medics performed combat first aid and other field medical training. The rest of us made ourselves scarce. As soon as it got dark, a few of us would brave the little built-up trails in between the rice paddies to leave the field site and cross over to a Korean ‘happy mountain’ (cemetery) to drink Soju and tell ghost stories. One night, the ghost stories got a little too scary and one PVT Owens decided he was seeing ghosts. He said, “Stop it, guys. I’m scared.” “Stop what?” we asked. “I know you’re deliberately trying to scare me.” “No, we’re not.” “It ain’t right, being out here with these dead people.” “They don’t seem to be bitching about it. What the hell is your problem?” “I’m going to go back to camp.” “Go ahead, man. Just make sure to stay on the trail between the rice paddies.” Owens took off and got about 200 yards before we heard a splash. Then we heard another splash and a loud, “Son of a bitch! This shit stinks. Goddamn it.” We all started laughing our asses off. Owens had fallen into the shit; I mean a rice paddy not once but twice. The next day, Captain Bradley held an impromptu formation at the field site. He said, “It has come to my attention that someone fell into a rice paddy last night. I am not sure how that happened since nobody was supposed to leave the field site, but it did. I was also told that there were other individuals involved. Would those individuals care to come forward?” I didn’t see anyone move, which meant Owens was caught but had not snitched. I thought to myself, ‘Damn, I owe that lad at least one beer when we get back to garrison and the others do too.’ When we got ready to move back to Seoul after the field training exercise, Captain Bradley let vehicles leave as they were loaded and ready to roll. My deuce-and-a-half was the last vehicle to leave. The Katusa (Korean Augmentation to the US Army) soldier riding with me said, “We will get back really late.” I replied, “Nah. Watch this.” I started running through the gears, and I made that baby sing. As soon as we got on the expressway, I opened it up and used the combination of the engine and the transmission to keep the engine speed at or above 45 miles per hour constantly. Usually, I was going much faster. I would downshift to overtake and pass slower traffic, then I would upshift to pass them by. Soon I was overtaking other vehicles from the 5th PMU. When they saw me blowing them off of the road, they were shocked. A deuce-and-a-half simply cannot overtake and pass a jeep. Wrong. I was doing it again and again. Even my Katusa was surprised. He said, “You drive pretty good. Nobody drives a deuce-and-a-half like that.” “I know,” I replied. As it was, my vehicle was the third vehicle to arrive back at the company. Everybody was thoroughly shocked. Not necessarily an exercise in futility, but a memorable interlude nonetheless.
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