How to Sham/Skate Like a Champ on an FG-AR-15 PART TWO

Soooo since I’d been busted for various ‘felonious but not quite’ activities in the Battalion, I was known as a troublemaker, but a needed one. Specifically I was the Battalion Thief. The Dog Robber. The CSM’s Bitch… call it what you will, but it was a great place to be as a Corporal/Specialist 4 who at that point realized he wasn’t going any further career-wise in the DotMil

I might have if they were smart enough to have ranks like other countries DotMil had, like the Brits have a “Career Corporal” where a dude signs up, can do his 20+ years, and never have to perform beyond a Corporal’s operational area. TBH, I had no interest (outside of pay bumps) to be the HMFIC (head motherfucker in charge). I lack(ed) and currently still do, a certain confidence… it’s hard to define, but I didn’t want the responsibility of command? It’s not being afraid per se.. and yeah, a personal weakness, but I had zero interest in being “Large and In Charge”

Especially if I had to take responsibility for my bros lives. Not my bag baby…
Soooo because I was approaching my RRT (Rank Retention point, 10 years at that time) as an E-4 and I was ALSO working on getting my medical retirement (in line of duty, I ended up with 80%… not bad for a peacetime injury) I really had, in my mind fuck all to lose.

So when Field Grade #3 showed up… I knew the extra duty was going to be special.
On this one I only got hit with 7 days… seems that they knew that to have me do anything over that would ONLY encourage others to ‘game the system’. So in this case, the CSM came up with a pretty good bit of Extra Duty for the weekend. It was one I really had to put some skull sweat into to beat him, but in the end, I managed it.

As I mentioned before, one of the Unit next to us was 2/8 CAV. That’s where I had ‘rented/borrowed’ their new-ish death mower mentioned in my earlier poast. The issue here was that THAT tool for the particular job wouldn’t be useful… oh no… our mission for the weekend was to clear out the 40 foot wide by about 200 yard long “grass” strip BETWEEN the 2/8 Motorpool and OUR 1/12 Motorpool.

There was a slight issue however.

That area?
Due to the design and layout of the flood control draining ‘stuff’ on Fort Hood, that area between out Motorpool(s) was a fucking swamp. It was a MAJOR runoff “Catch all” for the massive occasional seasonal rain Da Hood got… we’re talking 1-2 foot deep muddy holes, nothing too dramatic. Lots of mud, and what the CSM wanted was all the “clumps” of long ass out-of-control grass growing on about 40 “Islands” in this “swamp” cut down/eliminated by Sunday night.

We got this assignment at 15:30.

It took me a few minutes to come up with an idea… My boyos on this particular Extra Duty consisted of a couple of dope-smokers, one DUI case, and another thief (who in this case got caught). I was the Ranking Penitent, so My Word was it. I jokingly called them my ‘convicts’ just to be a dick… they were all cool, and my rep sort of preceded me, so that meant that they knew things on this extra duty was going to be iiiiiiinteresting to say the least.

Once I had The IDEA, The IDEA quickly coalesced into a PLAN. Once the Plan was solid, it was good, and I sent my Merry Men/Convicts off to do my (evil) bidding, whilst I went and made a fuckton of phone calls before the duty day ended.

Now, since we had only gotten started on this endeavor at around 15:30+/-, I knew there wasn’t shit to be done that particular night, and I told the NCOIC of the staff duty as such. He agreed, and I told him we’d be back early on Saturday before he got off duty… Then I had my guys ‘gather the gear’ that we’d need for the 0700 mission I had planned. Mind you, once they knew what I had set up, EVERYBODY was all in. One of them said “THIS is the Magic that is the SPEC-4 Mafia… it’s truly better to ask for forgiveness, than to ask for permission!” I of course Blessed them all, as the High Priest of the E-4 Mafia, and bid them to be there early early the next morning.

Saturday Morning rolled around, and TBH, we’d ALL gotten there early in anticipation of what was going to be a FUN Article-15 Extra Duty Day. My boys were enthusiastic, as they knew what we were doing was “coloring outside of the lines but not-so-much” They did everything I asked of them, and at around 10:00am, the Fort Hood Fire Department showed up.

Yep.
This’s your clue.

Once they were on scene, and we made sure EVERYONE was clear for the entire length of the strip between the two Motorpools, and the senior NCO of the Fire Department said we were clear, I yelled “FIRE IN THE HOLE” and lit off a flare right into the middle of the strip.

WHHHHHHOOOOSH!!!!

The combustion of what was about 40 gallons of ‘acquired’ MOGAS that I had my boys spray over every. fucking. inch. of that shit-assed nasty fucking unmowable swamp was nigh-impressive. It looked like something out of an action movie… I really wish cell phone cameras and the like were more prevalent back then as WOW!!!

Just as the flames started dying down, and as my ‘convicts’/boys as well as the Fire Department started cleaning up (making sure nothing was still fully burning nor could spread) who should roll up on us but The CSM himself!
CSM: “GABBLE!GABBLE!OOOK!WHO!!!WHAT!!! Burn!!!GABBLE!GABBLE!EEK!!“

Me: “Calm down Sergeant Major… we did a ‘controlled burn’… you see? There’s two fire trucks, an MP directing traffic, and even an ambulance! It’s cool man… I got everything under control!”

CSM: “MOTORPOOL!EXTRADUTY!!!BURNGABBLEBURNINGGABBLE>SHRIEK<GABBLE!GABBLE!”

Fire Chief (my homie): “Hey Sergeant Major, you seem a bit ‘off’… let’s walk you over to the Ambulance and have you checked out! You look like you’re about to stroke out!:” >grasps the CSM’s elbow, walks him to the Ambulance<

Needless to say, questions were asked.
Questions also were answered
I did everything by the book.
They had jack shit on me, and Jack as you are aware of, left town a while ago.

What I gained however was absolute “bulletproofness” at that point. They realized that IF they wanted to fuck with me and put me on “extra duty” then unless give exacting parameters as to what I could and could not do then they were ultimately doomed.

To the point I was pretty much AWOL for the last six months of Active Duty, but that’s a story for another time. Hope you enjoyed!

So More Later
Big Country