We are cleaning out the attic this summer. It is a full 1200 square foot room with a high ceiling that over the years has just begged for things to be placed up there rather then hauled to the dump. We have thrown out a great deal over the years but some things like an old mattress, or TV or air conditioning unit or rug that the garbage men won't haul away have found their niche somewhere upstairs. Couple that with boxes of stuff that we don't even remember owning and the cleanup is going to take some time.
I came upon a box that had my old Military Police helmet in it. It is hard to believe I wore that thing almost four decades ago but I did. The old helmet brings back a million memories of those days when I was just a young pup and the United States Army told me to keep an eye on 500 or so nuclear weapons. Yeh that was my job back in 1970; keeping an eye on a bunch of nukes. I am proud to say that when I was discharged every one of them was still where they were supposed to be, except for a couple I seemed to have misplaced and a few more that I "broke" by accident.
I remember as a twenty-one-year-old being surprised just how "Unhollywood" the whole secretive system was when it came to making sure the weapons didn't fall into the hands of those dastardly Commies.
There were triple fences of course and electric currents and passwords, and vehicle searchers and huge safes to be locked into but all that high tech stuff that we see in all the movies sure wasn't where I was stationed.
There were so many crazy protocols back then for guarding the big stuff but I will never forget a few of the sillier strategies the Army Material Command had in place.
Once in a while something would be moved from one base to another. We would use the open roads but would try to look just like tourists. We drove common station wagons in front of and behind a loaded truck but the license plates always said military on them so I doubt we fooled anyone. We also had to tell every police district that we were going through their area and more often then not, we would get a police escort with lights flashing as we went down a stretch of highway. Now that kept things clandestine didn't it?
We always wore our trusty Colt 45s of course and each of us had a Remington pump shotgun on hand. But all the good stuff; the boxes of ammo, grenades, and all the things we would need if someone really attacked us was loaded into the back of the station wagons in sealed crates. As I held the old helmet in my hand I recall getting in trouble by saying that if we were attacked we would have to call a "time out" so that we could unload all our stuff from the back of the wagons before resuming the battle. Maybe we could all do lunch and then have it out on the highway after that.
The Army loved those Remington's back then. I remember once when a huge transport plane landed on a secret runway to pick up an entire truck with a weapon back then. I don't know how anyone could consider the airstrip a secret since a huge C4 is visible going up or down from probably 50 miles away. I recall sitting in a foxhole with my shotgun looking at a tree line some half mile away. A lieutenant walking by asked me how it was going and I got in trouble again. I told the LT. that I was trying to figure out what elevation I would have to use to get shotgun pellets from my gun to rain down on a sniper with a real rifle who was trying to pick me off over in the trees. At least I never was given that job again.
Probably the craziest thing I recall was once going on a mission and only the LT. in charge knew where we were going. All he would tell us was that it was to a silo where we would pick up a "neighborhood knocker" for standard maintenance back at our base.
As night fell, the LT kept telling me to turn left or right on a need to know basis until I told him I was fine and didn't need any more directions. When he asked why, I told him I could now follow the signs to the base, especially the one that had a Nike Missile as a pointer for direction.
As I toyed with the helmet, I knew it was telling me it had a book on those days just waiting to be told. I wonder if it would be a humor book or one that would scare the crap out of everyone. Maybe we will find out someday but I doubt it.
Freelance writer, columnist, author and writing coach, ex-Chicagoan Mike Fak presently resides in Central Illinois. More information about Mike's services are available at his home website www.mikefak.com
Mike currently writes humor columns for searchwarp bi-weekly and is the managing editor of www.lincolndailynews.com
» left by Susan Thom(8,150) Susan Thom (82 days 11 hours ago.)
hi mike, first, thanks for doing that job for US, and second, good article. i enjoyed it,
best regards,
sue
» left by Mike Fak(3,517) Mike Fak (80 days 22 hours ago.)
Thanks Sue. I didn't have a choice. president Nixon said "come on down" so I went.
Thanks Mike
» left by Mike Fak(3,517) Mike Fak (80 days 22 hours ago.)
Yes Jean. it does still fit. Of course it would be the only thing from those days that still would....except maybe the boots.
Thanks for reading Mike
» left by Mike Fak(3,517) Mike Fak (80 days 12 hours ago.)
Sorry anon. I and everyone else who wasn't old enough to buy a beer had 21 rounds on our hip. Mike
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