Lost in the Fog – An Ode to Military Humor

When I served as the chief of the Matériel Readiness Branch in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19^th Support Command, Camp Henry, Korea, I served with my guy Friday, Master Sergeant Milton Peterson, who was my NCOIC.  During our off-duty time, we did a quite a bit of hiking together in the local mountains around Taegu.  One fateful Saturday, we headed up into the mountains, knowing full well that we had to be back at the Sue Song Heights Apartments in time to make it to the monthly hail and farewell dinner at the Camp Henry officers club.  That meant we essentially needed to be headed back toward the house by about 4 o’clock.  We knew the amount of time that we had allotted to our agenda as we set out.  The skies were clear and there was not a cloud in the sky.  I was thinking to myself, “Self, what could possibly go wrong?”  Hindsight is 20/20.  However, my powers of predictive reasoning, prognostication, and foretelling the future were not quite up to speed that day.  As a result, I didn’t get any premonitions of doom, despair, or Armageddon.  But I probably should have.  Why, you ask?  Well, if I told you that now, that would ruin the story, wouldn’t it?  And we couldn’t have that.  Perish the thought.  Friday and I headed off up into the mountains, knowing full well, when we needed to be back.  We should have probably chosen a conservative agenda.  But that just wasn’t our style.  We chose to explore a trail that we had never been on before.  I’ll call that smart move number two.  Wait.  What was that question?  If that was smart move number two, what was smart move number one?  Ah, good question.  Smart move number one was failing to listen to the local weather report prior to setting off on the hiking trip.  Usually, I dialed up the local military weather channel to get the recorded weather data that pilots usually listened to prior to scheduling flights.  I had found that the weather from that channel was the most accurate and reliable weather data around.  However, that morning I had neglected to call in for the weather data.  Like I said, smart move number one.  Smart move number two was taking a trail we had never been on before.  Both proved to be pivotal to what was about to transpire.  If you ever watched that old TV comedy about the seven passengers that set out for a three-hour voyage aboard a tiny ship, you can sort of get an idea where this is going.  Except, we didn’t have a tiny ship, we weren’t out on the ocean, and we didn’t get shipwrecked on a tiny island.  Dammit all.  Anyway, there we were up in the mountains hiking on a new trail and having a blast.  By about 12 o’clock noon, we had climbed up above the tree line in the mountains.  At that level, there were no more places to put trail marks to mark the trail.  That was another portend of events to come.  We came to a hidden notch in a cliff face that we were exploring for possible future attempts at rock climbing and rappelling.  In that notch, we found a makeshift shelter.  That shelter belonged to yet another Buddhist monk who seemed to be living away from everybody else.  Unlike the first monk who was very friendly toward us, this guy would have nothing to do with us.  We took that as a hint.  We left him the hell alone.  As we were exploring the cliff face, a freak afternoon storm blew in over the mountains and it started to rain.  Well, I reckon it wasn’t that much of a freak storm since the rain started coming down pretty hard.  I reckon it was more a case of really bad judgment that I hadn’t checked the weather before we set out on our hiking trip.  I said to Milton, “Milton, I think we need to get the hell out of Dodge.  And we need to get the hell out like right now.  You know.  We need to shit and get.”  Milton looked at me with a look of utter disdain and replied, “No shit, Sherlock?  What in the hell was your first clue?  I’m pretty damn sure that it can’t be the torrential downpour that’s practically drowning us right now.  Did you check the weather report before we left?”  “No.  I forgot.  So, sue me.  And if you’re getting too wet, why don’t you try drinking some of that rain.”  “Right.  Do you happen to have a straw?”  “A straw?  What in the hell do you need a straw for?”  “You told me to drink some of the rain water.  I don’t like to drink it straight up.  Drinking it straight up could be unsanitary.  That’s why I like to drink out of a straw.”  “Did you just listen to yourself?  How in the hell are you going to catch raindrops in a goddamn straw?  That sounds like total bullshit to me.”  Well, after we were finished bantering, we headed off back down the mountain.  As we were hiking down the mountain, it got really foggy.  It got so foggy that Milton and I got separated in the fog.  It took us 45 minutes to locate each other using our voices and calling out to each other in the fog.  By that time, the rain had stopped, but it was so foggy that we could not see the trail anymore.  It became too treacherous to walk.  Then, nightfall set in.  When nightfall set in, the temperature started to drop.  I told Milton, “Milton, it is obvious to me that we are going to have to stop for the evening and build a shelter underneath these evergreen trees and get out of these wet clothes.  We can bury ourselves in pine boughs and pine needles to stay warm.”  Milton replied, Shit!  My wife is going to have a cow.  She’s going to be worried sick.”  “I’m in the same boat.  My wife is going to be worried about me too.  But what can we do? We cannot see to get down off this damn mountain without killing ourselves.  As soon as the fog lifts, we will take off.  But I just don’t know when that will be.  In the meantime, we have to stay warm and dry.”  We had food, if you can call the energy snacks that we carried food, and we had plenty of water to drink.  All we really had to do was to stay warm and wait out the fog.  Milton and I talked about missing the hail and farewell.  Milton said, “I really don’t give a shit about that stupid hail and farewell.  At least I don’t have to dress up for that dumbass event this month.  But the Chief of Staff kinda likes you.  He might miss your sorry ass.”  I replied, “Well, golly gee Milton.  Maybe I ought to just call and tell him that I won’t be able to make it tonight.  Let me borrow your phone.  Oh wait.  You don’t have a goddamn phone.  Yeah.  And my shoe phone is all soaking wet.  That shit ain’t gonna work.  And oops, I don’t have two tin cans tied together with a long piece of string, so that shit’s out too.  Screw the damn Chief of Staff.  But you know what I’m really pissed off about?  I had to pay 20 goddamn dollars for a meal that I ain’t going to be able to eat.  Well, actually for three or four meals that I ain’t going to be able to eat.  That’s what really pisses me off.”  As the sun rose early the next morning, I realized that we were no longer lost in the fog because there was no fog.  Our fateful trip down the mountainside the day before where we became lost in the fog now seemed like just another exercise in futility.

by

by