I previously posted about going to the field in the rain in November at Fort Benning. In that post, I also talked about the seemingly endless supply of ammo we had to burn through. You know, the funny thing is, with money, the Army leadership always talks about ‘use it or lose it’ like the money is going to burn a hole in somebody’s pocket or something. But with training ammo, you never hear that. Oh hell no. It’s always use it or you’ll get another opportunity to use it because it all has to be used. Well, ‘Johnny Wisdom’ had ordered so damn much training ammo that there was no way in hell we could possibly use it all in the time allotted. Even if we were shooting our weapons 24/7 during the duration of the field training exercise. ‘Johnny Wisdom?’ Oh. Sorry. That’s another one of my nicknames for my illustrious ‘Ricky Ranger’ commander. Anyway, since we no-way-in-hell could burn through all of the training ammo, here we were preparing for another field training exercise in January. The only difference, now it would be even colder out in the goddamn woods than the last time we went. We had everything loaded according to the load plans, and we were prepared to go. All we needed was the alert order and movement order from Ricky Ranger. The only problem was, it never came. Instead, a new warning order came down. We thought the old boy had lost his goddamn mind when we read it. It basically said to prepare for deployment to Fort Drum, New York for winter weather training. I’m no stranger to extremely cold weather and snow, so I kind of knew what to expect. Or did I? It turns out I didn’t have a clue. Winter weather training to the soldiers meant some form of training. To ‘Johnny Wisdom,’ it had a completely different meaning. Of course, he decided not to share the deployment order with the rank and file soldiers. Apparently, that wouldn’t be prudent. Either that or it was an elaborate inside joke. We were soon to discover that it was the latter not the former. In other words, the joke was on us. We were going to Fort Drum for snow removal. Snow removal is a fancy way of saying shoveling your ass off moving tons upon tons of snow. And that’s exactly what we did. Let’s take stock. Who – and by who, I mean what unit or units – has the excavation and earth-moving equipment in the Army? HINT. It ain’t the infantry, the artillery, the armor, the maintenance, or supply units. Who does that leave? No. Not them. Generals and colonels and such don’t do shit other than tell other people what to do. Give up? The Engineers. Another hint coming. We weren’t them. So, we didn’t have the bulldozers, graders, bucket loaders, backhoes, and dump trucks. Nope. None of that shit. What did we have? Well, basically the spades that came with the pioneer gear for the deuce and a half trucks, some tanker bars, a pick-axe or two, and that’s about it. In other words, we didn’t have shit. Nope. Nada goddamn thing. With the canvas and bows removed, the deuce and a half trucks could haul snow. But that still meant somebody or many bodies had to shovel the white shit into the damn trucks. Then, when we got to wherever the shit was going to be dumped, somebody or many bodies would have to shovel the shit back out. Why? Because deuce and a half trucks don’t have dump beds with a hydraulic hoist like dump trucks. Dump trucks. What a novel concept. We didn’t have any. Snow shovels. We didn’t have that shit either. I guess a quick stop at ACE Hardware or some other suitable hardware store could solve that problem. But here’s another question for you? How many snow shovels do you think you’re going to find in Columbus, Georgia? Or Atlanta, or anywhere other than possibly up around Rome or Dalton, Georgia? Not very damn many, that’s for-goddamn-sure. Let me tell you like it T-I-tis. That’s because they get so damn much snow in Columbus. I remember it snowing once and putting a light dusting of white powder on the grass. But it didn’t last overnight. It was more of a novelty than a nuisance that people had to worry about clearing off of sidewalks or driveways. As a result, somebody’s chipmunk sized brain was working overtime on the little spinning wheel trying to figure that one out. Can you hear it? The spinning wheel, of course. What did you think I was talking about? That sucker was churning so fast, there was smoke coming off of the axle and rolling out of Ricky’s ears. Anyway, once again, we didn’t go out in the woods to shoot up training ammo. Oh no. What we did was even more fun. We got to go play in the snow and freeze our asses off because, of course, all kids dream of playing in the snow and freezing their asses off. Even if it does mean shoveling snow in somebody else’s backyard for free. We didn’t even get to build any snow-forts out of the mountains of snow we created from the snow we moved. You just gotta love it when a plan comes together, even if it’s a half-baked bullshit plan cooked up by some shit-for-brains ‘Johnny Wisdom’ commander hell-bent on getting his soldiers some premier training exercise in futility.
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