The Journey Continues

It occurred to me recently that it has been almost 30 years since the United States invaded the Caribbean island nation of Grenada. Has it been that long? Am I really THAT old?

It wasn’t much as wars go, but it was all we had.

Many of the names have faded into nothingness, but through the wonders of the Internet and especially Facebook, I have reconnected with some very special people that I never expected to hear from again. I am honored to have served with all of you and even more humbled that so many of you have sought me out in the netherworld of the Worldwide Web.

With this reunion of sorts, some have asked for the real story behind my ignominious departure from the battalion and the war so I have been writing down memories from Task Force and our sojourn to the tropical paradise that is. Grenada.

I was left behind when Bravo Company went to round out the DRF (Division Ready Force) point battalion – apparently the 325 had a cohort company that hadn’t met the requirements to deploy. Crushed and with a case of the ass I threw myself into doing whatever I could to support the line companies from my niche in the S3 (operations) at Battalion Headquarters. Shortly after the alert Task Force was notified that the entire unit would deploy to Grenada and we deployed a few days later.

As a member of the S3 I got to see the battalion’s command structure up close and personal, and it wasn't always a pretty picture, especially after we deployed to Grenada where failings of character could very well get someone killed. LTC Nightengale was sharp and whenever he talked about the mission I listened. I remember one time listening in as he dressed down the Scout Platoon’s Lieutenant on the radio for taking unnecessary risks with the Scout Platoon by doing a ground reconnaissance of an area that had suspected enemy movement. The colonel didn’t raise his voice, used few words but they were burned into the LT’s (and my) memory. The Night Hawk told him that he should have called in a recon helicopter to scout out the site first to avoid the chance of an ambush. Reflecting on the event now, he obviously knew the mission was winding down and he didn’t want casualties so close to the end. One other time one of us in the TOC spotted a few columns of dense smoke on a nearby ridge line and as we were speculating if it could be Cubans the colonel wandered over and with a quick glance at the hillside told us not to worry because the islanders used charcoal for cooking and that it was probably just a civilian making charcoal to sell at the market.

Others that seemed squared away were the XO Major “Iron” Mike Canavan and the Operations Officer Major Portant. Other members of the cast included the battalion’s senior NCO CSM Sirois (who, years later tried to sell me life insurance). MSG George Alexander was the battalion operations sergeant – a no-nonsense kinda guy, he had been my First Sergeant in the 509^th and during my first assignment to Task Force I had seen him punch out a Staff Sergeant in the back of a battalion formation – shocking to then-Private Woods.

That’s just about where the professionalism petered out. The S2 (intel) NCO was a long-time SFC who constantly bitched about just about everything, but mostly he carped about not getting promoted to MSG.

 Time to read the (not so) funnies.

The first one was known as “The Big Ragoo,” A goofy-looking guy who if he wasn’t eating was usually seen with a huge wad of tobacco in his cheek and a can of coke in his hand – how you could chew and drink soda pop at the same time is beyond me. He was a cartoonish buffoon who had ended up in the S3 or Operations office of the 2/505. I don’t remember his real first name – to me it was “Captain.” He also had what was known as a “duffle-butt,” with a very matronly shaped third point of contact.

For those uninitiated (as in non-airborne) readers, he had a really big ass. So much so that being behind him during a PT run was a gut-churning experience – that is IF he actually ran PT. Anyway, he wasn’t the brightest or sharpest crayon in the box, which oddly explained his assignment to the S3 shop. As is the way of the Army – and as a method of damage control, sometimes people get assigned to a job where they can’t hurt too much with their ineptitude. More on the Big Ragoo later.

That methodology might explain my arrival to the “Ops Shop” as the new schools NCO, but I’d like to think it was more so because I volunteered. 

Anyway, back to the path that I took to get to to get kicked out of the war. 

I knew I had to get out of Cold Steel Bravo before it was too late – as in too late to save my career. My outgoing platoon sergeant John Smythe, (a couple years later, John and I would work together again in 1st Special Forces Group for many years) warned me as I was signing my Change-of-Rater NCOER evaluation report before he left for the Q-Course: “You need to get out of here, they (the CO and 1SG) are out to get you.” As proof of this sentiment First Sergeant Watts had taken it upon himself to rate my performance as a squad leader. Since we were without a platoon leader at the time that section could have been left blank with no ill effect on my evaluation. However, Terry, in all his Senior NCO-ness wouldn’t allow that to happen.  To say his assessment of me was less than stellar would be a gross understatement – especially since John had given me exemplary ratings. Anyway, that event provided me with the incentive to “go to battalion” as quickly as possible

It took a while, but eventually I was able to get out from under their glaring, eyes – at least for the time being. But first,  I got to experience Vinnie.

Vinnie

SFC Vincent Rondinone, a former black hat (airborne instructor).   I really don’t have much to say about him other than the time he turned to me glaring and said, “Don’t even think about hitting me Sergeant Woods.” Well, to tell you the truth I hadn’t thought about it until he brought it up.  But to actually sacrifice myself on the altar of stupidity for him was almost laughable.

Then there was the time that I couldn’t help but giggle when he wrote me up for my lack of TACK. I insisted on signing the document but I don’t think he ever caught on to what was so funny. I immediately went to the PX and bought a box of TACTs.

There was one thing Vinnie did that really torqued me.  As anyone who lived in Bravo Company’s barracks knows, there was one washer and one drier in each latrine, so there were a grand total of three each in the barracks. At any one time it was quite possible that one or more was broken, therefore for an infantry company it left few assets for a number of soldiers to wash clothes. However, this didn’t seem to concern him, because on a routine basis Vinnie brought his family’s clothes into the barracks to launder! Never could understand that logic that would make this okay.  

Now, I don’t want people to think that I was (or claimed to be) a stellar soldier all the time – I made more than my fair share of mistakes in garrison and in the field. Once, while out in the field we were basically admin and had a West Point cadet with us. Vinnie decided that us three would pull guard so the rest of the platoon could get max sleep that night. When I was awakened for my shift I promptly fell back to sleep and the platoon started out behind the power curve for the next day’s training. I failed to fully wake my ass up and rightly got chewed out for it. A contentious relationship was made worse for my screw up.

I do remember – vaguely, there was a platoon party at Vinnie’s house where – I think it was Dave Potts and I trashed some furniture, something about red wine, shoving match (all in good fun) and white upholstery. If I did, I am truly sorry. Alcohol had a pretty firm grip on me in those days.

Anyway, time marched on and an opportunity arose for me to move to Battalion.

“What we’ve got here ….”

Thus my life as an ops poge began.

In the beginning of my assignment, I spent most of my time trying to figure out what my job really was, the task being especially difficult since the former schools “NCO” was actually a SP4. It was kind of tough as an SSG to take over from an E-4, but at least I was out from under Mark D’s and “Baldi-lock’s” thumbs. The learning curve was especially high since the arrogant little prick had created an arcane method of record keeping, had a serious attitude problem and fully embraced the “knowledge is power” mentality.

Ordinarily I would have jacked him up with a good ass-chewing because I knew him from his short time in B Company, but he was one of the “protected species” in the S3 shop.  Therefore, in addition to learning the intricacies of the army paperwork system, I was required to ride herd on a handful of “clerks and jerks.” However, I was told to essentially leave the clerks alone as they had special skills that the officers were afraid they would lose if the clerks got upset. Keep in mind this was before the wide use of computers, so just about everything was handwritten or typed. Paperwork was completed – in triplicate, signed, sealed and put in distribution while fingers were crossed and follow-up phone calls were made to ensure the desired outcome occurred.

Seemingly the chosen one of the 3-shop; (I forgot his name) was a pretty boy and muscle head that had somehow built himself quite a safe haven and essentially was out of reach by anyone except the officers of S3 with whom he kissed ass at every opportunity while enjoying the protection of officers within the operations shop.

A short digression is in order here. I’m pretty sure this kid was gay. Don’t know for sure but it seemed like he was light in the loafers. To tell you the truth I didn’t really care then and I REALLY don’t care now, but there was something. Not. Quite. Right. About. Him.

I knew of at least one other homosexual in the battalion – at least for a short while. Turned out that one of our company's platoon leaders (West Pointer no less) was either outed by someone or came out of the closet himself at some point in time. It seemed like a real waste because he seemed to have his stuff together and was even pretty cool after he discovered that I was building a rifle in the barracks. It was just a black powder .50 caliber Hawkins, but apparently making weapons in the barracks is frowned.J 

Anyway, one day he was there and the next day he was gone, now, back to the funnies.

Rumor had it that the schools "NCO,"had secured for himself certain school slots that should have gone elsewhere within battalion. The muscle-head was also standing by for Ranger School and for some reason this had garnered the praise and adoration of just about every officer in the battalion – at the time very few NCOs and ZERO enlisted soldiers were ranger qualified, the black and gold tab was seemingly only worn by the commissioned officers. Therefore, this somehow excluded him from most fatigue details that are necessary for a military unit to function – police call, CQ runner, cleaning the latrine, mopping the floor, etc.  In addition to this prima donna, I quickly discovered that most of the enlisted soldiers at the battalion S3 shop had attitudes and had also enjoyed the protection from the powers that be.

This was when computers were first showing up in units below Brigade level and they were temperamental creatures that required the operator know exactly what he was doing. Somehow the officers of the head shed decided that since these young soldiers knew how to make the magic boxes work and keep them running that it created a legion of lower-enlisted soldiers who pretty much could do whatever they pleased as long as the paperwork kept churning out. Being a young, hard-charging Staff Sergeant I would soon learn life, as I knew it, was over. I was no longer in charge of much of anything and I was little more than a very small cog in the machine that was “Task Force 2/505.”

I joke about it now, but at the time it was a terrible blow to my ego.

It was interesting to note that the battalion spent a lot of time in the field, that’s good considering it was an infantry battalion – sort of a no-brainer. But I got to experience the joys of packing and unpacking a Gamma-Goat, assembling tents and erecting an ungodly contraption not so affectionately called “The Worm,” it was a portable tunnel – imagine a vacuum cleaner hose only man-sized. The rationale behind this confounded contraption was to connect TOC tents together, something to do with continuous ops and noise and light discipline – a pain in the ass that’s for sure. Funny thing though, it never deployed to a combat zone. Go figure.

To tell you the truth, I really enjoyed going to the field with the S3 section because it was like a giant campout - only with camouflage face paint and guns. Speaking of guns, it was interesting to note that the S3 officers never deployed to field exercises with M-16s, they always seemed to get away with signing out a holster from supply and pretend they had a pistol rather than actually tote a real weapon around. Keep this little factoid filed away for one of my Grenada stories.

As I said, going to the field with the S3 was like a giant campout, I could take as much Pogey bait as I wanted and all the comfort items that had sat in my wall locker unused because I only had to carry it to and from the Gamma Goat!  After setting up the TOC I would string up my poncho hooch and tried to stay as far away from what had all the makings of a VERY dysfunctional family. Dysfunctional is the kindest word I can come up with for now.