One morning at 3:30 or 4:00 AM, I was rudely awakened from a drunken stupor induced sleep by a gawd-awful racket at my barracks door. My roommate answered the door, only to find our platoon sergeant standing there in full field gear. He informed us that we had twenty minutes to get dressed and get into full field gear and get outside in formation. Yay. We get to play Army today! That’s just wonderful. We got outside to formation only to learn that CPT Perry, our commander had called an alert. What the hell for? It wasn’t raining, so the odds of going to the field or to a range were pretty low. You know. If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training, and all that rot. So, what was up with the alert? After recall formation, the commander told all platoon leaders to have their platoons draw weapons. Great. More pioneer gear. It was getting better and better. At 5:00 AM or 0500 hours for all military-types, we were told to grab chow at the mess hall and be back in formation by 0600 hours. We still had no clue what was up. At the 0600 formation, CPT Perry told us that we were all in for a real treat today. I was a bit skeptical. Excuse me if I don’t buy the bullshit when I’m up to my ears in it and you tell me that there is going to be fun and excitement. Then he broke the big news. “Company, I called this alert today to test our preparedness for war and to take you all on a 25-mile road march.” There we had it. The big surprise. Marvelous. Simply marvelous. I was going to have to give back part of my monthly pay check if the excitement got any better. A 25-mile road march? Are we riding in trucks? No? What the hell? You mean we actually gotta walk that far? Are you insane? The commander gave the order to move out and we started on our 25-mile road march from hell. We walked all the way up to the turn to leave Harmony Church to go to Kelly Hill. I’m not really sure how far that was, but I do know that there was a theater up there that I used to walk to before I got a car. Let me tell you. That damn stretch of road would take me at least an hour and a half to walk, so I’m guessing six miles give or take. We turned there and headed off into the boonies. We crossed over Highway 27, and then we started walking up and down hills past training areas. That was when the company started falling apart. There were a lot of sick, lame, and lazy people that got into the straggler vehicles for various different reasons like blisters, heat injury, and general malaise. When we got to the half-way point, we miraculously stopped for chow. How do I know it was the half-way point? There was a big sign that said it was the half-way point. I couldn’t tell you how far we had walked. I could only tell you how much fun we hadn’t been having. Anyway, I sat and ate with this perennial dirtbag private e-nothing by the name of Joe Kozier. He was absent without leave (AWOL) more than he was present for duty, which is why he had so much rank on his collar. But he was a nice enough guy and I liked him to shoot the shit and drink beer with. Kozier looked at me and said, “Are you having as much fun and excitement as I am?” I said, “Shit, I can’t stand the excitement. If it gets any wilder than this, I’m going to have to run the rest of the way back to the company.” “Do you know where we are?” “I think so. I’ve driven for the Post Confinement Facility people a few times, and once, we came out this way because they had to do something to one of the training areas.” “Well, when we take off again, let’s walk out ahead of the company and take off.” “What do you mean ‘take-off’?” “You know. Disappear and beat feet back to the company.” “Ok. Sounds good. I’m in.” Well, when we started up the road march again, Kozier and I started taking point on the formation. Then, we started widening the gap between us and the main body of the company formation, or what was left of it. It wasn’t long before CPT Perry caught wind of what we were trying to do. He jumped on the back of a straggler vehicle and caught up with us. When he jumped off the straggler vehicle, he started ripping into us. “Private Masters, I’m a little disappointed. The whole point of an exercise like this is to build unit esprit de corps and camaraderie.” “Well sir,” I said, “It’s like this, we sort of understand all of that, but we were cramping up walking so slow. We just thought we would speed up a little bit.” “You know, I can usually tell when somebody is blowing smoke up my ass, and the cloud is so damn thick, I can’t see through it right now. You and your buddy Kozier here can go on ahead and take off, but you better find every damn one of those other twelve miles. Are we clear?” “Yes, Sir,” we both shouted as we took off. I purposely made sure we stopped at every company check-point to sign in with them so that the commander would know we didn’t cheat or take a short-cut. When we got into the company area, Kozier and I cleaned our weapons and turned them in to the arms room. Then we cleaned and stored our pioneer gear just in case someone wanted to check it later. Then we hit the dayroom for some much-needed beer. Except… The damn dayroom was locked. What the hell?!? Neither Kozier or I had a beer to our name, so we just hung out in the shade and waited for the company to show up. About 45-minutes later, we were in luck. The company main party finally got back. A couple minutes later, Kozier and I were summoned to the orderly room. We reported as requested and learned that CPT Perry wanted to see us. Just dandy. What a splendid way to end a day. Walk 25 miles then get your ass chewed. Just dandy. We walked into CPT Perry’s office and reported. He told us to shut the door. This was going to be brutal. I waited for the axe to fall. Then he shocked the shit out of us. “Boys, do you drink beer?” “Excuse me, sir,” I managed to say. “It’s a simple question really. Do you drink beer?” “Absolutely, sir,” we both responded. “Well, there is some cold beer in that refrigerator right there. Help yourself and fetch one for me too.” “I’ll be damned,” I thought. “I never expected to be drinking beer with this company commander. Kozier and I later realized that the whole alert and road march were just another exercise in futility.
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