***I wrote this story about two years ago and was going to post it when I started this blog but the recent earthquake in Haiti prompted me to hold off. I think enough time has elapsed to post it now.***

This post may not be appropriate for young, squeamish or Haitian Readers 

Back story:

In the summer of 1994 the United States Army deployed air and ground forces to the small island nation of Haiti to remove the military dictator, Raul Cedras, from power and relieve the stranglehold he held on his people. For years Cedras had committed some of the worst human rights violations in the history of his already bloody country. The 82nd Airborne division, along with support assets, were immediately sent to the island nation to restore its government to a democracy. As the C-5A and C-141 transport ships were in the air, former president Jimmie Carter brokered a deal with Cedras to leave the country, thus saving the Haitian Army from certain annihilation and in the meantime saving American lives. In hours, an invasion became a "humanitarian" mission. The Military Police who had planned to conduct raids and urban combat operations found themselves in a more conventional police role as Martial Law was initiated.............

Our C-5A landed in Haiti shortly after Cedras fled his country. The nose cone raised and we drove our Humvees out into the poorest, dirtiest third world country I have ever seen. I believe Haiti is actually a "Fourth World" country and probably strives to be third world. It spends it days lounging around contemptuously griping to the Dominican Republic about how Sierra Leone and Bangladesh get all the breaks.

As we drove from the airfield to our new command post in an abandoned warehouse (that's warehouse) we were completely inundated by the sights, sounds and smells of Port Au Prince. My squad had three Humvees with three people in each truck and we snaked through the streets, alleys and crowds as quickly as we could. The squad radios we each carried squawked continuously as my squad chattered away.

"This place stinks like foot and ass!"

"Oh my god, they have open freakin' sewers!"

"Jesus people, you never seen a white guy before?"

I quietly told my guys to keep the frequency clear:

"Shut the F#$% up and keep the channel clear!!"

The immediate silence was pretty satisfying. I was, and still am, known as a non-commissioned officer who is "firm but fair". The most important thing to me is that my troops get taken care of but I tend to yell and sometimes threaten to get the results I need. My guys call it "Sergeant West going Bi-polar."

Soon we were stopped waiting for about a million Haitians to get out of our way. I happened to look over and see a young Haitian woman carrying a pot on her head. She was thin and pretty and smiled at me so I smiled back. As I watched her walk away, she stopped and put her pot on the ground. As I watched she squatted, peed in the street, picked her pot up and walked on.

As the teenage girls say nowadays: EEEEWWWW!

The radios erupted.

"Holy shit, that chick just pissed in the street!"

"Dude, that is nasty!"

"What the F@#* kind of country is this?!?!"

I let it go.

The first few weeks of our mission in Haiti were pretty gruesome. Cedras' "death squads" didn't have the luxury of fleeing the country and ended up being disarmed and losing their authority. Men that for years had been the punishing arm of a military dictator now found themselves unarmed, unprotected and the victims of the same crimes they committed. For weeks we simply responded to the murders of many former soldiers and secret policemen. We worked in three-man teams in a Humvee. There was a driver who, you guessed it, drove the Humvee.  There was also a gunner who manned the M60 machine gun in the turret. The cast was rounded out by the team leader. My gunner was a kid from Kissamee, Florida named Rohn and my Driver was a kid named Brant. They were both great at their jobs and I always considered myself lucky to have them in my team.

We would usually get a call for "dead body" and go see what we could do. We would roll up on a bunch of Haitians gathered around a dead guy. The guy usually was a victim of "cement poisoning" (which meant somebody hit him on the head real hard with a chunk of concrete) or "Morning Wood" (which meant somebody hit him on the head real hard with a stick or club) or any number of other ways to meet your maker. Once we even found a guy who got done in by "De-acceleration Trauma" (which meant somebody threw him off a building). Of course, nobody ever knew what happened and we would wait for the meat wagon to pick the guy up and go back to patrol until the next one.

One morning we were cruising the business district of Port Au Prince when we got a "dead body" call. We made our way to the location and found an old man standing next to severed head and poking it with a stick. The head didn't seem to mind but I told the old guy to quit just the same. I called in to our Command Post (CP) to let them know this was pretty much the exact opposite of a dead body. It was just a head and I didn't need to be Columbo to figure out separating his head from his body was probably a big factor in cause of death.

My request: Please advise.

While waiting for word from the CP I further investigated the crime scene. He was a black guy (big freakin' surprise there) and looked like he had just finished sparkin' a big bowl of reefer, what with his eyes half open. No blood and no body led me to believe he probably died somewhere else, probably right there in the country of Haiti. After that I was pretty much stumped. My utter perplexity was rivaled only by my complete apathy for the situation. It was pretty gross to look at but after weeks of seeing dead guys, nobody heaved or even looked ill. Rhino kind of yawned.

Finally, the radio gave us our direction.

"Roger, take the remains to the International Red Cross, maybe they can identify him and let his family know what happened to him."

Balls.

It was then that I realized the state of our Humvee. We had gear stacked from top to bottom in the back of the Humvee and had even put the back seats down to make room for more stuff. Ammo cans, rations, sleeping bags, weapons cleaning kits and all other kinds of crap were jammed into every nook and cranny. Where to put a head?

I tabled that thought and decided to tackle one problem at a time.

"Brant, grab a trash bag and collect up that head." Brant was the lowest ranking soldier in the team and therefore was the first guy I thought of to pick up a decapitated, week-old head in the tropics. Sorry there Brant, you should have gotten some college credits before you decided to serve your country.

What he said next caused quite a conundrum.

"Sergeant West, you can yell at me.  You can court martial me.  Hell, you can even beat the shit out of me right here, but there is no way I am going to pick that thing up."

Just like that. What the hell do you do to a guy who says he will take whatever you throw at him but Hell, No, he won't pick that thing up? They didn't prepare me for that one at the Primary Leadership Development Course.

I made a passing comment about his resemblance to female genitalia and told Rohn,

"Rohn, grab a bag and throw that in the truck."

"That's not fair, Sergeant! If Brant doesn't have to do it, why do I have to do it?!?"

What the hell had become of my Army?

I yelled and screamed about how they were insubordinate as I went to the truck and got a garbage bag. I told them they would both be getting an ass-kicking when we got back to the CP as I approached the "remains". I threatened that they would be seeing the commander for reductions in rank as I slipped the bag over the head. But when I got to the truck and discovered the only place for my special little cargo was between my legs on the floorboard I decided to just go ahead and give them a pass, realized that they were just kids, and threw up.

I calmly told Brant to drive to the International Red Cross as fast as he possible could.

The only bags we had in our truck were small, clear, plastic garbage bags. This meant that as we made our way through the tight turns of the busy city I first had the treat of seeing a saggy, dead face looking at me, followed by something that bared a striking resemblance to a pot roast. That was the longest five miles I have ever driven.

Ever.

Ever, ever.

As we pulled into the International Red Cross parking lot I did a perfect combat roll out of the Humvee and rushed into the Hospital with my bag-o-head.

The French doctor on duty took one look at me, the bag, the head and said:

"Get zat f$#!&ing ting out of heere!!!"

I succinctly tried to plead my case.

"But..."

"No, no, no!!! Get zat ting out of zis hospital!!"

Reason number 4,987 why I hate the goddamn French.

When I got back to the truck I tossed the head onto the floorboards with a THUD and got on the radio.

"Charlie 1, this is Charlie three-zero, the frog doctor at the Red Cross said to get the f#$%^ing head out of his hospital, over".

For 10 minutes I waited for my CP to decide what to do. Finally, they told me to go back on patrol, with the head, and they would let me know as soon as possible what to do. I swear I heard laughing in the background. Even Brant and Rohn seemed about to bust out laughing. Looking back on it 16 years later I can almost laugh about it myself.

Almost.

I asked them to repeat their transmission twice but it didn't change either time. I asked them if they wanted me to terminate the French Doctor. No, they did not. Not even with extreme prejudice? Especially not with extreme prejudice.

Crap.

For the next 45 minutes I drove around Port Au Prince Haiti, in 100 degree weather, with a week-old severed head between my feet in a cramped Humvee. If you want to live this experience yourself, put roadkill in your microwave for about six minutes on "high" and then have somebody repeatedly smash you in the face with the microwave.

Finally, I had too much.

"Brant, drive to the ocean!!"

We drove to the docks and I got out at the longest pier in all of Haiti. I found a nice sized stone, untied the bag, inserted the rock and tied it back up. I then proceeded to walk to the end of the pier and do my rendition of an Olympic hammer-tosser guy. I spun in three circles and threw the head as far as I could and the splash it made was the loveliest sound I ever heard. I rendered a rather snappy hand salute and returned to my humvee and my two newest bitches. Throwing the nastiest head I had ever seen into the nastiest stretch of ocean I had ever seen in the nastiest country I had ever seen was very cleansing and I felt pretty darn good. As we drove off we were all in very good spirits that the ordeal was finally over.

"Man, that was pretty bad" I laughed. "But it is over and we can get on with our day".

"No hard feelings, Sergeant?" they both looked at me with sheepish expressions, wanting to know that I wasn't too mad at them.

"Guys, this was a pretty unusual situation and a lot of kids your age would have done the same thing. That thing stunk bad and looked worse. Nothing in your training really prepared you for that.

Of course, you are both pretty much screwed when we get back.  Yeah, there’s hard feelings."

An hour later as we were nearing the end of our patrol I got a call from my CP. It turns out they had found a body across town without a head and they wanted me to take my prize over to the scene to see if they matched up.

As the great American orator Scooby Doo once said:

Rut-row.

I had to drive back to my CP and get my butt chewed by my Operations Sergeant. He accused me of dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming an NCO and insubordination. Nobody was laughing then. Only by having him stick his head in my Humvee window and get a good lungful of the stench that still lingered there did I avoid trouble. He was too busy depositing his morning MRE into the road to really bitch anymore.

In the end, I went easy on Brant and Rohn, the French still suck and we all got to eventually leave Haiti and come home. So I guess it all turned out to be OK.

Except for the guy who got his head cut off.

It kinda sucked for him.

See Ya.

Everybody knows “that guy.”

He’s the guy who knows everything.  He’s the dude who has done everything you have done….better.  As you tell a story about what happened last weekend (or last month, or last year) he’ll practically hop from one foot to the other waiting for his chance to break in and tell whoever will listen about his story that one-ups you.

Don’t get me wrong; everybody does it a little bit.  It’s human nature to want people to think you are worldly and wise.  But “that guy” takes it to a whole new level and, like I said, everybody knows “that guy.”

Ironically, my “that guy” may be the best one ever.  I have known a lot of them in the past and this guy definitely takes the cake. 

His name was Bill and he was the best one-upper I had ever seen.  I met Bill in the National Guard and immediately knew I had a gem on my hands.  Soon after being introduced, Bill asked me where I had been stationed on active duty.  When I told him I had been stationed in Alaska his eyebrow rose.

“Did it get pretty cold up there?” He asked, still keeping that eyebrow raised.

“Yeah.  We averaged about -20 Fahrenheit in the winter.” I casually replied.

“That’s nothin’.” Bill shot back, that eyebrow still up there.  “When I lived in up-state New York we averaged -40.”    

And that was Bill.  I knew that it never got that cold in up-state New York.  Bill knew it never got that cold in up-state New York.  I couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting 50 people that knew it doesn’t get that cold in up-state New York.  Hell, my 13-month old nephew knows it doesn’t get that cold in up-state New York.  But Bill would throw it out there and if anybody questioned it, he would act hurt, then pissed, and then finally storm off.

It never ended with Bill.  A soldier who mentioned that he had just purchased a horse would hear about the herd of horses Bill owned and that he had lived his entire life in the country.  A soldier that told a story about riding on the subway in New York City would have Bill break in and talk about the public transit system he had worked for and that he had lived his whole life in a big city.  If a female soldier mentioned quietly to her friend that she was really hurting from period cramps, Bill would pop up out of nowhere and explain why his period cramps were so much worse.  You get the picture.

Most people would kind of roll their eyes and humor him with a quick “sure, Bill.”  Some would try to call him out and an argument would ensue, followed by Bill storming off with hurt feelings. 

Either way, a little bit of Bill went a long way.

I didn’t mind Bill too much.  I had a trick.  My sister (who is a lot smarter than me) gave me a hint for dealing with people like Bill.  Act like they are a cartoon character.  And I have to tell you, it works.  When Bill would start ramping up with one of his tall tales, I would picture him as a cartoon.  I would imagine him as Foghorn Leghorn, and as he went on and on, it would actually keep me from going all UFC and throwing him into a choke hold until he went to sleep.  It got to the point where I would sometimes seek out Bill and bait him, just for the entertainment value.

“Hey Bill, how’s it going?  Man, I almost got a ticket today.  I got stopped for going 35 mph in a 25 zone.”

I would sew the seed, sit back and enjoy a giant southern rooster as he told me about the time he got his 1989 Chevy Cavalier up to about 180 on Interstate 96.  The cops were on him but he had tweaked his engine and put in some nitrous and ……..blah, blah blah.

And so it went with Bill.  We all tolerated him in the same way you tolerate that 3^rd cousin that shows up at the reunion at the exact same time every smile on the family tree dries up and everyone thinks “who sent that A-hole an invitation?”

But there were times…….Oh, there were times.

For a while I enjoyed a brief stint as the armory manager of our local National Guard armory.  The armory manager had to do all of the paperwork regarding rentals for wedding receptions, family reunions (with A-hole 3^rd cousins) and any other event in which the general public needed a large gathering hall.  The job did not come with extra pay and nobody really wanted it.  I had spent a lot of time avoiding the job myself until one day I looked at the giant armory drill floor with its painted concrete floor and spacious dimensions and realized that it would be the perfect place to play roller hockey.  It was heated.  It was large.  There were bathrooms and drinking fountains.  Perfect.

The current armory manager was a cantankerous old curmudgeon (how’s that for droppin’ some vocab on ya’) who was undoubtedly someone’s A-hole 3^rd cousin.  He was never happy and spent his entire life trying to suck happiness out of everyone else’s life as if he had some giant Dyson Happiness Vacuum.  My inquiries about playing hockey always met with negative results.

“Not as long as I’m the armory manager.”  He told me all 2,300 times I asked.  Then he would go back to scowling and being pissed off that somewhere a kid had just gotten a puppy or a dandelion seed had just landed on a child's forehead and brought him some joy. 

Finally, I offered to take over as the armory manager.  In the footrace between the lure of heated, indoor roller hockey and my desire to avoid extra paperwork, hockey won.  By a nose.

20 minutes after my appointment as armory manager I had my rollerblades on and was skating around the pristine cement confines of the drill floor, a hard plastic ball deftly maneuvered with my well-worn Easton hockey stick.  A garbage can set on its side made a perfect goal.  I did notice that my wheels left large black marks everywhere I skated but that, my friends, is why God made janitors.

Life was good.

For months, 10 or so friends would show up on an appointed night and we would play hockey.  Some were very good, some were very bad and some (like me) were right in the middle.

One night, after we had finished a couple of hours of full contact hockey we were standing around shooting the breeze.  We drank our sports drinks and peeled off our sweaty pads and skates, happy to have gotten in a good game and loving our new-found rink.

As we poked fun at each other’s talent (or lack thereof) the front doors opened and in walked Bill.  He had seen the light on as he drove by after work and decided to saunter in and say hello.

“You guys playing hockey?” Bill asked as we packed hockey pads, hockey sticks, hockey gloves, hockey helmets and hockey rollerblades into our gear bags.

“Nothing gets by you Billy-boy.” One of the guys retorted.

Now, I don’t know why Bill said what he said next.  Maybe he figured that we had enough gear stowed in our bags to get away with it.  Maybe the fact that we looked beat-down tired and sweaty had him thinking we wouldn’t call his bluff.  Maybe, just maybe, Bill had evolved to the point where he believed his own hype.  I may never know why, but Bill looked at us and said:

“Did you guys know I used to be a semi-pro goalie?”

I kid you not.  A semi-pro goalie.

Not high school.

Not men’s league.

Not pick-up.

Semi-pro.

Groans erupted from my buddies, punctuated by mumbles of “bullshit”.  Everyone was rolling their eyes hard enough to cause vertigo and some were openly laughing.  I looked at Bill standing there nonchalantly nodding his head as if it were true and for the first time, I couldn’t picture him as a giant cartoon rooster.  I concentrated real hard but couldn't pull it off.  All I could think about was how stupid he must think we were to try to pull off that statement.  Bill was about 5’8 and around 200 pounds.  He carried most of his weight in his belly and ass and smoked about two packs of unfiltered Camels every day.  Claiming to have won Desert Storm on his own, or declaring that his uncle invented Velcro was one thing, but expecting educated, grown men to believe he had been a paid athlete pushed me too far.

Enough was enough and, as my brother says, I decided to bring him to Front Street.                      

“Really, Bill?  Semi-pro?  Where did you play?” I asked him, pretending to buy the giant turd sandwich he was trying to sell.

He went on and on about how he played goalie for a semi-pro Duluth team when he lived in Iowa.  He explained how he had been in the IHL or the CHL or the AHL or some obscure league.  He told us about riding the bus from city to city and almost making the all-star team.  He concluded that he had decided to quit so he could focus on family.

I let him kind of burn out and then called his bluff.

“Why don’t you suit up and let us take some shots, Bill?” I asked with all the malice and cruelty I could muster.  “I mean, we’re just a bunch of pick-up guys.  It would be a real treat to try to score on an actual pro goalie.”

The look that appeared on Bill’s face was one I had seen before.  About three years ago I was doing around 65 miles per hour down highway 35 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  It was about 0400 hrs (4:00 a.m. for all of you soft, undisciplined civilians) and I was tired and trying to make good time on my way home.  As I rocketed down the dark road a whitetail deer flashed in my headlights as she tried to cross the road in front of me.  I veered to my right as she veered to her left and just before my bumper met with her ribs and spine – just before I sent that poor deer to the great alfalfa field in the sky – our eyes locked.

That was the look I saw in Bill.

“Well guys, I would love to suit up and show you how it’s done but I don’t have my gear, It’s been a while since I played, I left my car running, my wife is expecting me for dinner, I have to work early tomorrow, I have to work late tomorrow, I think I smell gas, The doctor thinks there may be a lump on my breast, blah, blah, blah..”

Bill was digging deep into his bag of excuses but I wasn’t having any of that crap tonight.

“C’mon, man!  It’ll only take a minute.” 

And just to make sure I closed the deal…….

“Unless you were lying about being a semi pro goalie….”

The look of fear on Bill’s face was replaced by irritation.  He hated being called a liar, even though he was pretty much the biggest liar since Bill Clinton claimed not to have had sex (with that woman) or smoked the leaf. 

“O.K.”  He fired back.  “Let’s go!”

One of the shorter, tubbier guys offered to loan him their gear and Bill started suiting up.  It was immediately evident that he had no idea how to put on the gear.  As guys volunteered to help him put on the shin, elbow and shoulder pads, Bill kept interjecting that he was having problems only because these were not regulation goalie pads.  Finally, one of the guys handed him some gloves.

“These will not work.”  Bill plainly stated.

“Why the hell not?!” Somebody asked.

“I can’t use regular hockey gloves.”  Bill exclaimed indignantly.  “What about the square pad thingee and the glove thing?” 

Square pad thingee.  Glove thing. These were not the terms used by a semi-pro, almost all-star, hockey goalie.

“You mean the blocker and the trapper, you lunk head!  Jesus, Bill!  It’s a plastic ball, not a six ounce vulcanized rubber puck.”  I was starting to get mad and I didn’t really know why.

Bill finally realized he was going to have to go through with this and put his money where his mouth was.  He walked clumsily out to the fallen garbage can and took up a position in front of its gaping mouth.  He assumed a very uncomfortable stance.  As a look of resignation crossed his face he declared he was ready.

In the next ten minutes I scored more than the captain of the football team on prom night.  Every shot I wristed at the garbage can made a distinctive “thud” as it hit the bottom.  My hockey skills can be described as mediocre, at best, but as Bill lurched and jerked his uncoordinated body from side to side, I felt like the love child of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemiuex. 

After a short while I didn’t know whether to taunt Bill or get him some seizure medication.  He was just so….ungainly.  He would jerk.  He would shudder.  He would twitch.  He would launch his whole body where he thought the ball was going to be, only to find open air as the ball sailed past and into the can.  It was like shooting fish in a bucket.

At last I thought he had enough and gave him a “good job” and started to skate toward my gear bag, a grin painted across my ugly mug.  I guess getting schooled in front of everybody bothered Bill and pride got the best of him.  As they say, "pride goeth before the fall" or something, something.  

“Hey, West!”  He yelled in a tone I didn’t quite care for. 

“I notice you didn’t take any slap shots!  What’s up with that?  Are you too much of a bitch to take a decent shot?!”

To quote every 13-year old kid with text capabilities:

WTF!?!?!?!

I could have pointed out that Bill couldn’t stop traffic if he was standing under a red light.  I could have pointed out that I had scored as if I were in a whorehouse with a fistful of fifties.  I could have pointed out that Bill was about as coordinated on skates as Terry Schivo.  I could have loudly proclaimed that a guy who couldn’t keep me from putting a plastic ball into a garbage can DAMN sure couldn’t play semi-pro hockey, even in Iowa. 

Or I could ramp one up and really try to hurt ol’ Bill.

Don’t you dare judge me.

I stopped halfway to my gear bag and dropped the orange plastic ball to the ground.  I turned slowly around and locked eyes with Bill.  As I started to slowly skate toward him, I got madder and madder.  At about 25 feet I stopped and collected the ball in front of me.  I took up position with my left hand high on the shaft of the stick while my right nimbly gripped about two thirds of the way down.  With my feet just a little more than shoulder-width apart I wound up my shot and brought the blade of my trusty Easton far over my right ear.  My cannon was cocked and ready to fire.

I brought that stick around with everything I could muster from my 6’4”, 225 pound frame.  To this day I don’t know how I did it.  Somehow, my mind calculated the exact amount of force necessary to obliterate my rotator cuff and used a tenth of a hundredth of a percent less force to take that shot.  I was sore for two weeks and I can still tell you when the barometer is about to fall.

I was concentrating on Bill and as the blade launched the hard rubber ball toward him he slowly…ever so slowly…seemed to transform into a giant white rooster with a bright red comb and tail.  I was filled with warmth and happiness.

The ball rocketed at Bill and to his credit he didn’t jump out of the way or hide behind the can.  Perhaps it was his pride.  Maybe he really did believe his own stories.  Maybe it was an accident.  Whatever the reason, Bill lifted his left arm up awkwardly to block the ball and with a sound that was half thud and half splat (and still makes me throw up a little) the ball connected solidly with Bill’s arm and fell harmlessly to the floor, nowhere near the goal.

I had given Bill my absolute best.  And he had stopped it.

It is true that the ball was not a six-ounce vulcanized hockey puck.  It was a five-ounce rock hard plastic orb and it landed squarely on Bill’s left bicep.  It landed squarely on the portion of Bill’s left bicep that was neither covered by elbow pad nor shoulder pad.  It landed squarely on the portion of Bill’s left bicep that is protected only by approximately 1.5 mm of dermis.  That’s right, nothing but skin.

Ouch.

As Bill’s bicep turned from red to yellow to black, I skated up and told Bill he had done a hell of a job stopping my hardest shot.  I stuck my hand out to shake.

My left hand.

Bill looked at me with triumph in his eyes and exclaimed to everyone that my shot was weak and loudly compared me to female genitalia.  He declared that was the way he did it when he was a semi-pro goalie. 

It didn’t bother me.  I figured living life as Bill was pretty lousy and was happy to give him an escape from his dead-end job, ugly wife and dim-witted kids.  A little hot air from Bill wouldn’t kill me and my friends knew what Bill was all about.  Besides, I had noticed two things that my buddies had not seen from across the floor.

The first thing I noticed was that he hadn’t lifted his lifeless, slack arm to return my handshake.

The second thing I noticed was the single, large tear that ran down his cheek. 

Nice save, Bill.

So there I was…..

It was the year of our lord nineteen hundred and eighty seven and I was working as a military police gate guard on Fort Wainwright in the land of the midnight sun; Alaska.  I was a recent graduate of the Military Police School and proudly wore the rank of Private First Class on the giant collar of my battle dress uniform. 

When I had arrived at Fort Wainwright a few months earlier I had been told I would spend time as a gate guard until I showed I could handle a patrolman job.  My squad leader had informed me that the gate guard had quite possibly the most important job in all of the military police corps.  He explained that gate guards were responsible for the well-being and safety of every man, woman and child on the entire installation.  I was warned that if the gate guard made one lapse in judgment, had one moment of complacency, or made the tiniest mistake the entire Soviet Army would pour across the bearing straights and enter the installation through my poorly manned gate.  Once through the iron-clad perimeter, the savage Ruskies would rape, murder and enslave my fellow soldiers and their families.  With the Soviets in control our freedoms would disappear, our economy would crash and our post hockey team would win many more games.  It would be anarchy.

For a teen-aged PFC, this was a sobering revelation.

Of course it took about three days of working the back gate at Fort Wainwright to figure out that the story of the courageous gate guard was something that squad leaders tell stupid, young soldiers.  They tell this tale of courage and importance to make the soldier feel better about the fact that they were sitting in a wooden gate shack (the size of an out-house) 10 miles away from anywhere, checking the I.D cards of the few people that drove through the back gate in an eight hour period.  

It was long, boring duty that could have been conducted by a trained monkey.  Unfortunately, the Army doesn’t have trained monkeys.  Fortunately, the do have trained Privates that are almost as smart as a monkey.  So I was working the back gate, watching for Soviet Special Forces to sneak in and make a mockery of our constitution with their crazy communist ideas.

The secondary mission of the gate guard was law enforcement.  The M.P.’s that worked the main gate of the post always enjoyed lots of action.  There was always a drunk driver or an AWOL soldier trying to slip by.  We would get radio calls to be on the lookout for lawbreakers that the Fairbanks Police Department were looking for.  These scofflaws would always try to enter post through the main gate and the experienced soldiers working that area would make a bust and get all the credit.  Meanwhile, all the newbie soldiers (like me) would sit out in the middle of nowhere watching the snow fall and dreaming of sliding across the hoods of patrol cars, T.J. Hooker style.

T.J. Hooker.  Anyone born after 1990, take a second to Google it.  If you are fan of tight cop uniforms, borderline police brutality and feathered hair, it’ll change your life.

That morning we went through our inspection and sat in our daily briefing listening to everything our desk sergeant had to tell us about the evening’s events and what to expect from the upcoming day.  At the end of all the briefings, the Sergeant would put out the B.O.L.O.s.  A B.O.L.O. simply meant “be on the lookout” and included a brief description of what we were supposed to be looking for and why.  When the sergeant started speaking everyone was expected to get out their patrol notebook and write down all the B.O.L.O.s.  Being a new guy, I always had my little notebook ready, pen in hand. 

On this morning there was only one B.O.L.O.  It turned out that the night before, a lime-green Ford Festiva had been stolen at gun point in downtown Fairbanks.  Eyebrows rose all over the briefing room.  Questions were immediately asked of the sergeant.

 

“There was a car-jacking in Fairbanks?!”

“Was anyone injured!?”

“Is there a description of the car-jacker?”

“Who the #$%^ steals a Ford Festiva?!”

The desk sergeant called for silence and got it....mainly because he was a desk sergeant.  He informed us that the suspect had a handgun and had been wearing a hooded coat so the victim was unable to get a description.  We were told the suspect was armed and dangerous and warned to proceed with caution if we encountered the vehicle.  We were all reminded to call for back up.  With a quick “be careful out there” reminiscent of Hill Street Blues, the desk sergeant released us to go forth and perform our duties.

 

For about six hours I sat at the gate shack and daydreamed of busting drug lords, catching killers and chasing down bad guys.  I pictured myself sitting in front of a gruff captain, my leather jacket open to show my shoulder holster and the badge of an undercover narcotics officer.

“You’re out of control, West!!” I dreamed he would yell.

“No Chief!  Crime is out of control.  I’m just an honest cop trying to make a difference,” dream Bryan would respond.

As I sat in a nearly catatonic state of daydream, my reverie was broken by motion in the distance.  The gate shack had a long view of the road leading into post so cars could be spotted from quite a ways away.  I slowly got off my stool to prepare for the I.D. check that would follow.  As the vehicle got closer I noticed it was a rather conspicuous lime-green in color.  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I squinted to tell what kind of vehicle was approaching.  The lime green blur slowly cleared and, as the car neared my shack, I could easily make out the distinct body style and classic lines of the vanguard of American engineering.

 

As clear as the light of day it was a lime-green Ford Festiva.

In times of sudden, mind-numbing stress the mind does funny things.  My mind chose that exact second to cause my butt cheeks and jaws to simultaneously clench shut.  After completing the task of slamming shut the orifices of my body, my mind immediately calculated the distance of the nearest patrol car as it related to my current location.  In the span of one second I deftly assessed the speed in which a radio transmission would reach the desk sergeant asking for help and how long it would take him to put out the call to assist me.  I adroitly calculated the speed a normal patrol car travels while responding to an officer in distress call.  I factored in headwinds that may slow a car and icy road conditions.  For a kid who took four years to pass Algebra 1B it was a magnificent feat of calculation.  Unfortunately, the calculation revealed that it would take waaaaaaay to long for anybody to come help me in the three seconds it would take the Festiva to reach my gate.

Car-Jacking. 

A deadly weapon.

 

Grand theft auto.

These were serious issues and with the desk sergeant’s remarks about “armed and dangerous” bouncing around in my head, I decided a felony traffic stop was warranted.  Felony traffic stops are conducted only when there is a reasonable chance that an officer or civilian may be placed in grave danger.  Felony traffic stops are usually only carried out if there is a weapon involved and not to be taken lightly.  Every felony traffic stop results in the suspect being placed on the ground and handcuffed.  Oh yeah, one last thing: with a felony traffic stop you have to draw your weapon.

And that my friends and family is a big deal.  Especially for a teen-aged private first class.

 

At the M.P. school we had been warned that even the slightest mistake could result in a violation of someone’s civil rights and the end of our career.  We had even been told that if we messed up bad enough we could end up going to jail.  This was always followed by an instructor looking sternly out at the class with one eyebrow raised and asking;

“…and you know what happens to cops in jail, right?”

At the time I didn’t exactly know what happened to cops in jail but I could figure out what happened to skinny, white, teen-agers in jail and nothing that came to mind seemed pleasant or fun.  If being a cop made it even worse, I didn’t want any part of it.

Time was running out as I tried to decide between drawing my weapon in error and my personal safety.  As I reached the point in which I would have to act, the clouds of doubt parted, and like a ray of sunshine, a single, lucid thought shone through:

How many lime-green Ford Festivas could there be in Fairbanks, Alaska?

Right.

 

Time to shine.

At this point I have to give credit (or as the kids say; “Props”) to the instructors at the Military Police Center and School.  The training they beat into my malleable little brain came back in a flash and my terror and panic subsided a little bit as I remembered what to do for a Felony Traffic Stop.  My right hand seemed to have a mind of its own as it reached down and wrapped securely around the handgrip of my Colt M1911 pistol.  It glided out of its holster and I raised it to eye level and placed the shape behind the steering wheel squarely in the sights.  At the same time my left hand came up and assumed the universal, palm-outward position of “STOP.”

I must have been quite a sight to the driver of that vehicle.  I am a full-sized man in body, if not in mind, and looking at the .45 caliber hole in the end of that pistol had the desired effect.  The Festiva screeched to a halt and sat idling 15 feet away.  Time seemed to stand still as I stood with my weapon pointed at what had to be a dangerous car-jacker.

 

I thought about how heavy the gun felt.

 

I thought about the power that lay at my fingertips.

I thought about the responsibility of protection that had been placed at my feet.

I think I might have peed.  Just a little.

I deftly shuffled to my right and put a telephone pole between us.  It wasn’t the best cover but it was all I had and it allowed me a better look inside the driver’s window.  The window was tinted and it was hard to see in, which didn’t fill me with an overwhelming sense of joy.

I stammered into the radio that I had the lime-green Festiva at my gate and needed backup.  The desk sergeant replied calmly that he would send a patrol out.  He then put out the word to all of the patrols that I had a situation.

 

Calmly.

 

Like he did it every day. 

Desk sergeants are weird like that.  He sent the patrols out to my location without a second thought.  It made sense.  I mean, how many lime-green Ford Festivas could there be in Fairbanks, Alaska?

With help on the way, I turned my attention back to the car.  I figured I had come this far so I might as well go all in and finish this thing off.  The steps of the felony traffic stop came back clearly in my mind and I started issuing directions to the driver in my “Big Boy Voice.”

 

I yelled for the driver to roll down the window and the window slowly lowered.

 

O.K.

I hollered for the driver to place both hands palm up on the windshield and saw two palms push themselves against the windshield.

So far, so good.

I bellowed for the driver to reach over with his left hand and turn the engine off and toss the key out the window.  In a moment, a set of keys sailed into the snow.

I was pretty good at this. 

My training had me on auto-pilot as I told the driver to put both hands out of the window.  Two small hands poked tentatively out of the car’s window.  I instructed the driver to open the car door from the outside and step out.  The door slowly opened and the driver stepped out and faced me, hands in the air.

The confidence that had been building in me started to crack just a little.  I tried not to let confusion show on my face as I looked at the 46 year old woman standing before me.  Had I made a grievous error?  Middle-aged women could car jack, couldn’t they?  I was torn with conflicting choices.

I could put her face-down on the ground and cuff her before she could pull out a handgun and give me an additional orifice that I couldn’t clench.

    

     Or…..    


I could just stand there and keep her at gunpoint until a patrol that knew what the hell they were doing got there. 

I had just about made up my mind that I would just stand there when a thought clawed its way from the dark, empty depths of my mind.

How many lime-green Ford Festivas could there be in Fairbanks, Alaska? 

I am now 41 years old.  I have many felony traffic stops under my belt and I’ve been a desk sergeant and a patrol supervisor.  I have the knowledge that only years of experience can give.  If I had a time machine I would go back to that cold day at the rear gate of Fort Wainwright and make a different decision.  (Actually, the first thing I would do would be to find 20 year-old Bryan and tell him not to start wearing a cheesy porno stash and then keep wearing it for 15 years.  Then I would head to the rear gate of Fort Wainwright.)

Unfortunately, there was no time machine that appeared in a shower of sparks that day.  No 41 year old experienced man to tell the boy not to be too anxious.  Nobody to keep the kid from showing the world he could do it all by himself.

So I followed the rest of the steps of the felony traffic stop.  I told the driver to turn around.  I told her to get on her knees (on frozen, icy asphalt).  I told her to clasp her hands behind her head.  And then, in accordance with the standard operating procedures of the felony traffic stop, I told her to go face down on the street with her arms stretched out to the sides.

The frozen, icy, hard, dirty street.

 

My pistol was in its holster and I was placing handcuffs on her wrists when the patrolmen came racing in, sirens screaming and tires squealing.  My squad leader sauntered up as I helped her to her feet and I presented her to him like a cat giving its owner a mouse.  He patted her down and asked her for her name.  She told him and indicated that her purse was in her car with her I.D.

My squad leader passed off the woman to another patrolman and headed for her car.  He didn’t ask me why I had cuffed her.  He was in the same briefing I was in and he knew about the B.O.L.O.  He knew that some people who didn’t look dangerous could be unstable.  He knew that many rational people do irrational things.  He knew that a 46 year old woman was capable of stealing a car.  And most importantly…….

How many lime-green Ford Festivas could there be in Fairbanks, Alaska?

The shock of having a Colt .45 pointed at her face was starting to wear off and the woman was getting very agitated.  That’s what we wrote in the paperwork….. “very agitated.”  In reality the best way to describe her condition was pissed off.  And I mean really pissed off.

As my squad leader rifled through her purse for her I.D. she demanded to know why she had been stopped and why someone had pointed a gun at her.  She threatened a lawsuit and wanted badge numbers.  She especially wanted my badge number.  I started to explain that we really didn’t have badge numbers but then thought better of it.  At this point I wanted nothing more than to be very anonymous.

 

My squad leader called into the base and told him we had found the stolen vehicle.  The desk sergeant told him to wait a second and he would let Fairbanks P.D. know where it was.  We waited in silence as the woman threatened to end our careers and the desk sergeant called the local police.  Nobody was particularly worried.

I mean, really, how many lime-green Ford Festivas could there be in Fairbanks, Alaska?

Well…… as it turns out there were at least two.

As the radio broke squelch and the desk sergeant talked, the only face that showed triumph belonged to a 46-year old woman who had actually spent her hard earned money on a lime-green Ford Festiva.

“Yeah…..umm……that, uh, stolen vehicle was recovered in downtown Fairbanks about an hour ago.”  The desk sergeant explained to a bunch of very embarrassed military policemen.

  

Two hours and approximately 10,000 apologies later and the woman was on her way.  My squad leader slapped me on the back and told me it happened to everybody.  He said it sounded like I did a decent felony traffic stop.  We went back to work and I hoped and prayed that everybody would forget the incident.

Of course nobody forgot, and for years I had to endure the stories about how PFC West had put some grandmother on her face in the street.  I laughed them off while wondering what would possess a person to buy a lime-green Ford Festiva.  

  

Lime-green.  No kidding