Señor Barracks Rat & a sergeant's duty

Señor Barracks Rat

After a couple failed romances and some poor choices for roommates, I moved back into the barracks some time in 1983, it really wasn’t a bad move since as a Staff Sergeant I rated one of the more posh rooms on the first floor. So with the exception to a little noise around the CQ desk it was a fairly pleasant existence.  However, I discovered later that the CO didn’t care for this arrangement and in his definitively passive/aggressive manner let me know that I shouldn’t have to take care of the Privates in my off-duty hours. He made this comment a few days after I had to make a late night trip to the emergency room at Womack Army Hospital after the company CQ received a call from the very distraught wife of one of our soldiers. He had lost his temper and knocked her around a bit.

I ordered the truculent private back to the barracks and after she was discharged I arranged transportation for the young wife back to their trailer in one of the many nondescript trailer parks that were strewn throughout Fayetteville. Since the assault had happened off post and she hadn’t contacted the police there wasn't much else I could do and left it up to the CQ to do the proper documentation of the incident and I went back to bed. I assume they ended up divorced, many young marriages ended up that way. It was sad, but better apart than a busted lip – or worse.

(Barracks) life continued apace.

2200 hours, the night of the alert.

Since I was the senior man in the B Company barracks when the CQ knocked on my door at 2200 hours that chilly October night, the young sergeant told me that I was instructed to go immediately to battalion headquarters. Upon arrival I saw the Battalion Commander and received my orders to initiate the alert plan and prepare the company for deployment to augment the Division Ready Force into combat. Since the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut had recently occurred and the situation in Grenada was heating up I asked simply, “Are we going warm or cold?” “Warm,” was the reply. I knew what I had to do and hustled back to the barracks, the battalion area beginning to light up as the other companies began their deployment protocols.

Upon my return to the company area I gathered representatives from each of the platoons and HQs and briefed them on what I knew, which wasn’t very much. Since we were on Division support cycle there wasn’t a requirement to have your gear packed so the first order of business was to get packed. One thing I do remember distinctly was telling the platoon reps that we would be going south and that the soldiers should pack their sleeping bags in their B-bags, not their rucksacks.

As the Charge-of-Quarters finished calling the phone tree, I established an area guard plan and instructed the armorer to open the arms room and get ready to issue weapons on order. Everything seemed to be rolling in the right direction until I caught a young corporal from the mortar platoon leaning out of his window shouting at the top of his lungs, “We’re going to war!” Ripping him a new one, I noticed that the CO had arrived so I went to brief him on what little I knew and the preparations already completed or at least set in motion. He listened intently, taking notes as I talked. Finally, I summoned up the courage to ask about my status. Since I was still assigned to Bravo Company but working in the S3 shop I was at a loss for what I should do. His reply stunned me: He told me that he supposed that I would deploy with my platoon. With an uncharacteristic, “Hooah” I spun on my heels to get packing. I then realized that I had left my M-16 cleaning kit in my new desk at battalion and decided to retrieve it for the possible deployment. Upon arrival at the head shed Major Portant asked me what I was doing and I replied, “I guess I’m going to war,” and rushed back to Bravo Company.

Right about then I headed back to the platoon to make sure they were getting ready for whatever might come up, I had a few minutes to myself and wrote a quick letter to my family and went about ensuring everyone was gainfully employed. About that time I was called to the commander’s office where he said simply, “You aren’t going with us, you are to remain on the battalion staff,” when I stammered the question as to why, he said simply that I had a history of “erratic behavior.” Whaaaaa? I left his office and returned to my room. Fuck, fuck, fuck, my first chance to go to combat and this little fucker was going to leave me behind.

I swallowed my pride and turned in my rifle. Avoiding eye contact, I walked back out into the darkness. With nothing to do and nowhere to go I felt about as lost as a second lieutenant on the land navigation course. I kept trying to convince myself that they would never deploy, much less into a combat zone. It was shaping up just like the big alert during the Zaire dustup five years before. But this time we didn’t have a limp-dick president. There was a good chance that Ronald Reagan would commit troops.

Since our battalion was on Division support cycle at that time the callout caught everyone by surprise. During support cycle the most a unit could expect to accomplish was pulling interior guard. However, this was different. It turned out that the battalion on Division Ready Force #1 had one company of cherries who weren’t considered combat ready. Manned by a core of NCOs and officers, the rest of the unit consisted of Cherries and FNGs who had not completed a train-up to make them combat ready so it was decided to keep them home and send a qualified company in their stead. Therefore, this is where Cold Steel Bravo entered the picture.