“Of course, that’s what I’m here for,” I replied.
We went over the ammunition, and I found that he was missing eighty 5.56 mm rounds and thirty .45 cal rounds. I immediately knew that someone had been shooting off rounds. I told him that he needed to report back the missing ammo and that I would be calling the first sergeant so that he could send a survey officer out. A survey officer’s job is to investigate how the ammo went missing and is usually a lieutenant.
It was a Sunday afternoon, so I called the duty officer to let him know to tell the first sergeant the next morning. I asked him if I should relieve Sergeant Taylor, and he recommended that I do because the lieutenant wouldn’t be there till the following day.
Sergeant Taylor looked at me and said, “So you think this is serious?”
“How serious is it? How many people could you kill with that much ammo?” I asked him. I later found out that the soldiers at the ammo dump had been hunting the local roe deer that were roaming around the site with that ammo.
Sergeant Taylor left, and later that night I changed my bedsheets and started to read through the standard operating procedures. I finished it that same night. The next morning I was surprised to be the only one up and walking around at 6:00 a.m. Everything was silent except the snoring echoing through the guardhouse.
I went and woke up one of the specialists. “Shouldn’t there be someone guarding the post right now?”
He told me, “We start roving patrol with the jeep after breakfast. There are only four of us, so we divided the duties into three guards and one cook. Every eight hours the guard on duty changes shifts and the other two remain off duty for the next sixteen hours. And by the way, the cook only makes bacon and scrambled egg sandwiches.”
I was surprised when he said this because I read in the SOP that each bunker was supposed to be checked on every two hours. There were thirty bunkers, and it seems highly improbable to check them properly when you’re driving by on a jeep or not driving by at all because you’re asleep in bed.
“Well, who’s supposed to be on guard right now?” I asked him.
He pointed to a bunk where another service member was sleeping. I told him to go over and wake him up and inform him that he was on duty. There was a brief exchange between the two, and the guard who was supposed to be on duty got up with his back toward me and put on his boots. As he walked around the corner of his bed, I noticed right away that he was wearing cowboy boots instead of the military issue. When he got to me, he saluted and said that he was ready to go out on patrol.
“What’s your name, soldier?” I said loudly.
“Specialist Nelson, sir!” the soldier replied.
“Well, Specialist Nelson, you’re not ready to go on duty,” I replied sternly. “Go put on your military boots, then you can go on patrol.” He reluctantly went and put on his military boots. Everything around here was way too damn lax.
Later that afternoon I was checking the kitchen for cleanliness, and I noticed it needed to be cleaned from the top to bottom. I went to the fridge and started to inspect the shelves, checking for spoiled food. While looking in the freezer, I took out a few frozen food packages and noticed there was a little package of foil hidden in the back. I opened it and saw a clump of what looked like purple plant material and some seeds.
When I saw it, I was reminded of the first time I heard the song “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. I knew Jimi Hendrix. He was an acid head, but his musical talent with the guitar made me respect him. I’d never been around the stuff personally, but I’m not an idiot, and I knew it didn’t belong on a military guard post. I immediately went and flushed it down the nearest toilet.
That night I saw the cook going through the freezer, frantically looking around.
“What are you looking for?” I asked him.
“My stuff!” he said with a puzzled look.
“You mean that purple seedy stuff that even goats wouldn’t eat?”
“Fuck, yeah,” he said, starting to furrow his brow.
“I flushed that shit down the toilet.”
As I said this, his eyes lit up and he said, “That’s my shit, man. That fuckin’ shit cost me three hundred dollars! You owe me!”
As I turned around to leave, I said, “Forget it.” I took a few steps toward the hallway and felt his arm wrap around my shoulder, and he immediately put a butcher knife up to my throat.
He shouted into my ear, “I’m gonna fuck you up if you don’t give me my money!”
“I don’t have any damn money on me, asshole, and if you get that fucking blade any closer you’re going to jail for a long time,” I replied, trying to stay calm and still so he wouldn’t cut me with the knife that was pressed up to my throat.
As I said that, the specialist that tried to wear cowboy boots on duty early rushed in and said, “Ned, put that fucking butcher knife down. We’re already in enough trouble here!”
Ned immediately took the blade away from my throat and said, “All right, Cowboy, everything’s cool here.” As he set the huge fourteen-inch knife down on a nearby table with his arms spread out and hands open, showing the specialist that he was unarmed. It was clear to me then that this Cowboy had some unspoken respect around here.
The next morning I learned why. I woke up to the sound of shots being fired from a pistol outside of the guardhouse. I went around back to check the source, and I found Cowboy shooting at a row of empty cans with his 1880 Colt .45 pistol. He fanned out his shots, making him look like a gunslinger in the Wild West.
“What the hell are you doing, Cowboy? You can’t be shooting here in the ammo dump,” I yelled.
“The sergeant before you were always partying in his room, he didn’t mind. We even went deer huntin’. What the hell is your problem?” he replied, holstering the pistol, whirling it like a gunslinger.
“It’s an ammo dump. You don’t fire a weapon in the ammo dump. Take those rounds out of your pistol immediately.”
He flipped the cylinder lever so that he could take out whatever ammo he had left in the pistol. He took out one shell at a time, and when he took out the last round, I noticed it was a live round and it was military-issued ammo.
“I’m going to have to take that pistol from you too, Cowboy.”
“This is my personally owned firearm. They allowed me to store it in my locker,” he replied in defense.
What the fuck, this isn’t the Wild West. Why would the army let Cowboy have his privately-owned pistol? Shit had to change around here, and fast.
“Only the sergeant in charge is supposed to wear his firearm when they aren’t on duty. I’ll let you put it away in your locker, but you’re not permitted to have any .45 rounds or wear it.”
“Those were the last of the rounds I had,” he told me.
This was too wacked out. I was up against a cook from hell’s kitchen and Jesse James. Unfortunately for them, they’re up against me.
When you look at everything that’s happened so far, the easiest thing to do would be to report all these fuck heads and replace them with some soldiers who can do their damned jobs. But when you’re faced with adversity, you don’t toss in your cards. You learn to play with the hand you’ve been dealt. I learned that in Vietnam.
Later that night I strapped my .45 to my side in a tactical shoulder holster. Instead of going to sleep in my own private quarters, I placed myself in an empty bunk at the corner of the room where the rest of the soldiers slept. The only other occupied beds were all concentrated to the other side of the room with a few empty bunks between me and them, so I stuck out like a sore thumb.
“What