Burn It Down - Part 2

 

When I was assigned to Fort Bragg back in the 80’s my battalion was out in the field.  After one of the E6's from my new platoon finally rescued us from the transient battalion one of my first jobs was to rewire all of the shop trailers and replace any bad ballasts in the lights as they came back to base.  They were 440, had 2 50K BTU HVAC systems and a 28 volt inverter. 

Every.One.Was.Wired.DIFFERENTLY!?

So of course, they blew out all the ballasts while they were in the field because of course they connected them all to the generates the same way. The Big Green Machine is ALL about standardization, right?

The E6 that was supervising all of us noobs pulls us into a van and explains the job.  He throws the arm on the circuit box to turn off the power and opens the door.  I interrupt him to tell him the power to the box is NOT off, we were still connected to shore power and I get smacked down.  Now, the dude is something like 6’4” and a beanpole.  There are at least 5 of us standing in the aisle of the van watching as he shoves the Allen wrench into one of the hot lugs. A fireball the size of a basketball shoots out and he is thrown the length of the trailer, knocking us all down.  Thankfully he wasn’t killed. He gets up, shaking like a crack fiend and is now so white he’s translucent which is not a good look for anyone let alone a black dude. He looks at me, says “You obviously know what to do. You’re n charge” and he left.

He was knocked from the yellow door on the left of this picture all the way to the back door.

 The lugs in the shore power breaker box were wired different and connector on the cables coming from the shore power box had been cut off and were all wired differently and the trailer was then rewired to match the screwed up cable.  We had to pull the shop manual for schematics and pin out the 440 cables.  We turned off power to the shore power box and rewired it correctly. Next the trailer breaker boxes were wired correctly, and the cables reattached.  Everything was then pinned out to verify they were right and reapplied shore power. After that the ballasts were easy. They were just a standard light fixture and were color coded correctly. 

Truckin

 

We towed those shop trailers with M-52A2 5-ton tractors.  These were 6X6 with power steering and very little else.   They had canvas tops that we later replaced with fiberglass. Multi fuel engines made it easy to keep them fueled.

 

The entire platoon had to be licensed to drive these for unit readiness. After the classroom work the road test was driven around Simmons Army Airfield.  Naturally, we started a bet on who could complete the circuit the fastest.  I’d be pulling trailers since I was twelve and was confident that I was gonna win.  The back side of the fence road zigged in a multiple S shape.  I was grabbing gears as I hit the first turn. The second S had a telephone pole in the corner. I grabbed another gear and finished the quickest. The E6 conducting the test jumped out of the cab white as a sheet, yelling, “You fail. You almost took out that pole!”  I replied that I missed that pole by a good 5 feet and that we should walk back and look for tracks in the grass/gravel.  There were none and so he grudgingly passed me.

I loved that truck and preferred it over deuce-and-a-half’s or jeeps.  That truck also got me my second challenge coin.  I was ordered last minute to be a driver for the annual ROTC gathering. My platoon’s deuce was red-lined and everything else in the motor pool was signed out. So I just took my 5-ton and showed up at battalion. (failure is was not an option) The Battalion CSM that I was supposed to drive chewed me a new one.  After taking my verbal beating, I explained the situation and he climbed into the cab.  That day we followed tanks, pulled out stuck 10-ton tractors with their load attached and a recovered bottomed out hummers. We went everywhere without a hitch.  That evening the CSM said to forget the jeep and make sure I came back in the tractor. The last day I also managed to man the radio during the live fire demo and called in artillery and air. At the end of the week I got a handshake and the coin.

Burn It Down

 

Writing about slim-Jim, roll-up antennas made me think about my time in the Army. I worked on aircraft radios as an avionics tech. I once set the woods on fire after deploying a long wire antenna for my HR radio bench.  Sometimes we’d wrap the antenna wire around a florescent light tube so it would light up while we were transmitting. 

When back on base the semi-trailer shops that we worked out of we backed into a roofed, enclosed walkway that had maybe 6 inches of clearance on either side.  The flight line side was easy; nothing in the way.  The grass side had fences, concrete drainage culverts, fire hydrants and telephone/power poles to dodge. You get good at backing up when you grow up on a farm, so it was my job was to back them all in.  The long-wire antenna for my trailer ran down the peak of the roof for the walkway. My “new” platoon sergeant was all about improving our work conditions. He found the materials to enclose the walkway. One of his projects was to install intercoms in all the trailers.  Of course, the shortest distance to run the wires was the underside of the peak of the roof.  Two or three weeks went by before the stars aligned and I was transmitting, and he tried to use the intercom. Thankfully we didn’t burn out the intercom, but he did get some burns on his lips. 

This is the M373A2 Mobile Electronic Shop. (or what's left of one)

 

 

A similar story happened while we were undergoing an inspection.  I had a very large caution sign on the door stating to remove jewelry, dog tags, and metal rank and insignia.  The inspection team we announced as they came in the door and told us to continue working.  I stopped them and pointed out the caution sign.  I had zero fucks to give after they finished chewing me out and so I silently went back to work.  Once I keyed the mic they learned why I had that sign on the door.  I was like I hit them all with a taser.  The Spec-4 mafia always has the last word.