The First Sergeants Revenge
Fort Hood, Texas 1976

        We were in the field on Fort Hood conducting an Operational Readiness Test & Training (ORTT) exercise. In other words a small scale war game. We set up our base camp and camouflaged everything according to the standard operating procedure. Somewhere out there was the aggressor force planning their operation to locate and attack us. These ORTT exercises were routine, a refresher course to keep us sharp. Regardless, Battalion took the exercises very seriously and everything had to be by the numbers or hell would be paid.

        Attached to our force for this exercise was a medical unit with two medics who drove a "Gamma-Goat," M561, 6 wheel truck marked with a big red cross. This particular medical twosome appeared to have an attitude problem. They were treating the exercise like a party weekend away from their wives. They parked their big truck in the open and refused to camouflage it. Headquarters conducted an over flight of the exercise and spotted the truck sticking out like a sore thumb.When the shit stopped flowing down hill it landed right on top of 1SG Bobby "Claymore" Brown. 1SG Brown picked up his nickname from his war time service in Vietnam. Everyone that was a member of the 411th knew you didn’t want to mess with the First Sergeant. Not that he was a bastard, just the opposite, he was a very fair man and was well liked. It was just that he didn’t appreciate being dumped on by headquarters because you didn’t pull your weight on a team mission. The day before the exercise was to culminate in the standard attack from the aggressor forces on our base, the 1SG brown showed up at camp with a surprise. He brought along a case of CS (Tear Gas) Grenades. During the exercise he happened to notice that the unprepared medics didn’t bother to bring their gas masks with them. Just before the attack 1SG Brown provided each of us with three CS Grenades to take to our fighting positions. We were instructed to throw the first CS Grenade towards the attacking aggressor force and the other two CS Grenades into the center of our camp. It just happened to be where the medics truck was parked.As scheduled the aggressors started their attack after darkness fell, we donned our gas masks and followed the First Sergeants instructions to the letter. The two medics were last seen stumbling from their truck gasping for breath with the tell tale stream of tears and snot running down their faces as they ran off into the woods.

        The exercise was finished and we were told to pack up and move out. The only thing left behind in our camp site was the large Gamma-Goat with the big red cross. That was the last we ever saw of the truck or the two medics.

SP/4 (SSG Retired) Ralph E. Jeffries, 411th MP Company, 720th MP Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas, 1975-1976 and 1990-1993.