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Subject: Out Of Washington
Time: 10:38:00 AM PST
Author: majorsamuel
This may seem long. If it is…it was a looong day.
My journey from Washington made for an exceedingly long day. The day, technically, lasted the better part of about 36 hours as far as I can tell. The evening before the flight I was informed, joy of joys, that I would be the movement commander for one plane load of soldiers (in military parlance a “chalk”). This is normally a pretty easy gig. You just have to make sure that everyone on a roster gets onto a plane and take care of any emergencies that crop up along the way.
I realized this would be a little abnormal when at one AM of the day of the flight I was woken up with a new manifest of soldiers. Since I wasn’t planning on rising until 5 AM (our flight scheduled to least at 12:15 PM) this was a bit of a surprise. I looked over the manifest and compared it to the one I had been given earlier…there were significant changes. I looked up at the weary planner with a quizzical look.
It seems that there was a glitch in the system. No soldier travels without orders to do so. The orders in this case were produced by the Fifth US Army, the organization responsible for our training and “kicking us out the door” to the theater (theater of operations…not the movies). For a variety of administrative reasons I shan’t go into, orders on a couple of dozen soldiers weren’t forthcoming and a General had decreed that every seat on every plane needed to be filled for economy. Since we didn’t have two dozen orders, we had to “draft” two dozen others that did have orders to take their places.
I asked if the soldiers had been informed and was told they had not. Since we were due to depart at 0730 for the airfield, we didn’t have much time. I recommended that each and every one of them be woken up and told they were going so they would have more than an hour to pack all their worldly possessions. I later regretted not making myself clearer when, about 2 AM, a soldier dutifully woke me up and told me that I was going on today’s flight. I thanked him.
The movement commander’s gig turned out to be a bigger headache than I thought. I’m quite used to moving people in, say, my immediate unit where there is an existing chain of command and a feudalistic hierarchy that Julius Caeser or Ghengis Khan would feel right at home with. However my movement was of 101 soldiers from disparate elements and adding to the confusion, people were showing up with their baggage that weren’t supposed to travel (the word hadn’t gotten out) and others running up at the last minute. Chaos ensued, but it was the orderly and disciplined chaos of an Army on the move. Despite forming at 0615 I was much chagrined that we didn’t cross the LD (line of Departure) until 0739…nine minutes late. Somewhere, my old instructors are screaming at me.
From there we went to McChord Air Force Base and waited for about four hours. Everything according to schedule, because we had to load our own baggage onto pallets and weigh each individual and his or her carry-on baggage. Then as we trooped out to the waiting cargo plane (a huge C17) I counted each man and was satisfied with a count of 101.
The flight over was long, naturally, but not bad at all. No in-flight movie, no meal service (other than tasty MREs) and a couple of igloo coolers full of water for beverages. Still, it wasn’t bad at all. I have to compare it with the transit of my father who, just after WWII, probably took two weeks on a troop ship.
We landed in Rhein-Main airport and things began to go a tad bit wrong. First, there were no buses to carry us to the terminal so we had to wait a half hour for transport. While we waited one of the pilots pointed out a curious sight…a C17 next to us was missing one of its four wheel assemblies.
“In for repairs?” I asked.
“Fell off,” he replied. “When it took off. They’re still not sure why.”
Yeah. Fill me with confidence in your airplane.
In the terminal my life got interesting as everyone scrambled for their bags. 101 soldiers each with two identical duffel bags makes for a chaotic situation to say the least, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was a rather panic-stricken sergeant from the terminal. “Sir…we didn’t know you were coming.”
“No problem,” I replied. “We didn’t call ahead, now if you’ll excuse me…”
It developed quickly that the sergeant had good reason to be a little panicky. We literally were not expected, so no transportation had been arranged to take us from the airport to our final destination at Hohenfels, some four hours drive away. I had him take me to the Army liaison and we had a pleasant conversation in which he said it was our fault & I said it was their fault and eventually we checked the computer that showed it was the Air Force’s fault…they were supposed to fly us to Nuremburg.
That taken care of, the transportation office started to rustle up some buses which naturally enough was going to take several hours. I found places for our guys to rest & eat, and we waited for a noon arrival of our buses.
The buses arrived on time with typical German punctuality (they were civilian contract buses) and in a thrice we were loaded up. The transportation officer came out and looked a little glum. “You packed too fast. I thought it would take you an hour. The ammo hasn’t arrived yet.” We didn’t fly with any ammunition, although we had our weapons. However once arrived, we needed ammunition before we could move. Carrying fully automatic weapons without ammo would be to invite the bad guys to hijack our bus with, say, a big knife and a threatening look and take our guns. Not good.
So we waited for our security ammo…and waited…and waited…and after an hour I grabbed the transportation officer and asked him to call. He came back saying that they were on their way…they’d been delayed. How long until they get here? He shrugged…it was a two hour journey normally and with traffic…
I groaned. I was tired. I wanted to go to bed. I suppose it was for the best, though. Staying awake should keep jet lag at bay.
Another hour passed. Then more time. Still nothing. Since they had been called at 9 AM they were now about 3 hours overdue. Even owing to problems they were taking way too much time. “Call ‘em again,” I said to the TO.
“Why? It won’t get them here any faster.”
“Has it occurred to you that they may have crashed? Or been hijacked?”
He thought about that. “Well, I don’t think its likely that they got hijacked,” he noted judiciously.
“Then we can go?”
“Oh, no…wait….ummm….”
“Call them,” I insisted.
He came back a few minutes later. “They’ll be here soon.”
Half an hour later we stood in the falling light rain that was just little to warm for snow, a little too cold for comfort. I turned to him, rain dripping from my nose. “Is it time yet,” I said with what I hoped was admirable calm. “For me to throw my hat on the ground and have a screaming hissy fit?”
The TO beat a hasty retreat to his office and come back a moment later. “I called the unit again,” he said. “They are calling the Feldjagers who will escort your buses. Feldjagers will be here in 15 minutes.” The Feldjagers are a cross between military police for the German Army and a Federal Police force.
“Okay,” I asked a little irritated. “If they’re saying call the Felds…is that a tacit admission that the ammo is not, in fact, on its way here and someone has been feeding you a line?”
“Bingo.”
The Felds showed up with typical German punctuality although the sergeant begged for 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette which I granted while like a zombie I counted my soldiers one last time in case one had wandered off. Having not slept on the flight, I’d now been up well over 24 hours after a very short sleep the night before. I was beginning to feel it. All 101 were there, though, and we were soon on our way. I was beginning to feel like I was actually earning my money. I’d led my little flock through a few troubles and gotten them on the final leg safely. I asked the lead bus driver to stop somewhere for dinner leaving it to his discretion, and settled down in my chair fighting fatigue. Even now I felt I shouldn’t sleep. Did Moses ever get a good night’s sleep as he wandered about the desert?
At about 6 PM local we pulled off the autobahn. This should teach me for leaving it to the discretion of the driver. Some Moses I am…I led my people not to the promised land, but to McDonalds.
A couple of short hours later we came to Hohenfels, which is where I will be until early February. On the map we are in Southern Germany, near the Austrian & Czech borders. Look for Regensberg and go north a bit from that, although I suspect your atlas must be good to spot it.
Best regards;
Sam
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