One way the paper said to honor Veterans this Memorial Day was to write down your own stories. Here we go.
October 1983. My Brigade at the 82nd is on 2-hour recall. Our shit is packed but back then, they had no where for the troops living off post to store all their gear. My stuff was packed but I was already on the way to the unit when the recall came. I arrived in PT uniform ready to run and sweat. My FIST Platoon Sergeant asked where my shit was and why I wasn’t in field uniform. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn’t gotten a recall notice. He had no choice but to send me home to get changed and get my shit back there. He gave me an hour.
Obviously when I got home I turned on the news. There was plenty of talk about a little island about 90 miles north of Venezuela called Grenada. I’d never heard of it. Jeff, the guy who was renting me a room had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. (Probably the only time these books were opened.) I looked it up paying very close attention to weather patterns. We were packed for winter. Grenada was always warm. I dumped all my heavy weight BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms) and packed my lightweight cammies. I also dumped a lot of other shit that wouldn’t be needed in a Caribbean climate.
SFC Preston took one look at my lightweights and knew I’d done some digging but also knew I wouldn’t admit to it. I was one of a very few who had the lightweights with me. Several guys offered to trade me uniforms along with cash but I wasn’t selling.
I remember being at the Green Ramp and my rucksack being God awful heavy. After packing extra batteries for the radio which I wasn’t carrying, batteries for the laser range finder (which I was), my binos, a silly useless encryption piece called a Vinson, ammunition and food, I was carrying 120 pounds. And my rucksack was lighter than most.
When we got to Grenada (airland–only the Rangers jumped in–well they had two guys from the 82nd with them–and for one of them it was his cherry blast) I downloaded even more shit. Oh, a cherry blast is a paratrooper’s 6th jump. We do 5 at jump school. So his cherry blast was a combat jump. What a way to initiate.
Anyway, I decided if I couldn’t eat it or shoot it, I pretty much said fuck it. I have no idea how some of those guys made it while we were there. I mean, I was in excellent shape then. I was 23 and could run like the wind. Some of the guys in my Infantry platoon were toting nearly my weight on their backs. But the rocks alongside Salinas air field was littered with discarded gear like some strange exhaust.