Sgt. Stump and the fast track to heaven

DAVID SILVA

The second of two parts.

After my squad leader, Sgt. Stump, told me he was going to “get

me” for throwing out his peppermint schnapps, I realized I had a

serious problem on my hands. It was pretty clear that by “get me,”

Stump meant that he was going to “kill me.” Worse, Stump’s rank in

the National Guard and our being out in the boonies on summer drill

afforded him a thousand ways to follow through on his euphemism.

As I nervously ticked off in my head the many ways Stump could do

me in, my imagination ran wild. If he so desired, my squad leader

could: a) bayonet me; b) shoot me with his M-16, M-50 or Colt .45

sidearm; c) “accidentally” drop a mortar round on my position; d) run

over me with an armored personnel carrier; and on down the alphabet

to “z,” which I worried might involve some chemical or biological

agent. I considered my options and concluded that the only way to

deal with the problem was by courageously tackling it head on.

“Please, you gotta help me,” I begged my platoon sergeant the next

morning. “If Stump catches me alone, I’m dead meat!”

My sergeant rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll help you, Silva,” he said. “Stump! Get over

here.”

Stump sauntered over, a fat cigar in his mouth, glaring at me all

the while.

“Silva’s riding with you for the rest of the drill,” the sergeant

pronounced, and walked away.

My eyes popped and my jaw dropped. What the sergeant meant was

that for the next two weeks, I’d have to ride in the back of Stump’s

armored personnel carrier, or APC. Just me and him. Alone. For two

weeks. Stump laughed out loud.

I’ve often wondered why the sergeant would give an order like

that, an order that could only result in my untimely end. The only

answer I’ve been able to come up with was my sergeant was hoping that

if Stump was going to kill me, it was better for him to do it quickly

and be done with it.

“Saddle up!” the sergeant roared, and we all started moving toward

our waiting convoy.

Our company was part of a mechanized division, which meant every

movement we made was by way of a long caravan of tanks, APCs and

deuce-and-a-halfs -- 2 1/2-ton trucks. As I climbed into the back of

Stump’s APC and he took his position in the driver’s seat, Stump

commented on how much fun he and I were about to have. “Silva and me

are gonna be getting AWFUL close! LORD! Silva’s gonna have a GOOD

time!”

I suddenly had enough of this third-person nonsense. “Stump, WHO

are you talking to?” I asked. “There’s no one here but you and me!”

Stump turned around, popped his cigar in his mouth and arched one

eyebrow sinisterly. “That’s right,” he said.

Then he sent the APC lurching forward, causing me to fall

painfully to the grated steel floor.

I could never figure out why a vehicle whose sole purpose was to

carry troops over long distances was designed as if no human being

was ever meant to be inside it. Except for the comfortably padded

driver’s seat, everything else in the APC was a torture chamber of

pointy-edged bolts, bars and serrated grills. Of course, Stump was

perfectly aware of this, and as our convoy rolled across the dusty

hills and valleys of Ft. Hunter Liggett, he made it a point to hit

every rock, dip and fallen log along the way. Inside, I howled and

bellowed and cursed as I collided and ricocheted and careened like a

leg of lamb in a clothes dryer.

Our convoy returned to base camp for evening mess. I stumbled out

of the back of the APC, bruised and scraped, my head bleeding from a

small cut above my right eye. As I grimly patted myself down to check

for broken bones or signs of internal bleeding, Stump stood in front

of me and laughed. Our sergeant walked over.

“How you doing, Silva?”

In answer, I said: “Hey, sergeant, how about letting me drive one

of the APCs?”

It wasn’t the first time I had made that request. I’d been

pestering the sergeant to let me operate an APC since the first day I

had had to ride in the back of one, and each time, he had said no.

But now that I was riding with Stump, my desire to be in the driver’s

seat had a renewed sense of urgency.

“I already said no, Silva,” the sergeant answered. “The way your

luck’s been going, you’d probably just run over the captain. Then

where would I be?”

And with that, he and Stump walked off to the ammunition tent,

where my platoon usually ate meals. As I watched them go,

contemplating whether the time had come for me to go AWOL, a radical

thought occurred to me.

Stump’s APC was parked about 100 feet from the ammo tent, facing

away from it. If I got into it and drove it around the tent a couple

of times, the sergeant would see that I knew how to operate one and

would let me have my own. The more I thought about the idea, the more

sensible it seemed.

I climbed into the APC and did a quick review. From what I had

been able to figure out from observing others, the right joystick

turned the vehicle right, the left turned it left, one pedal was for

“go” so the other had to be for “stop.” What could be simpler? I

turned the key, which Stump had conveniently left in the ignition,

and the APC roared to life. I shifted into reverse and the APC began

backing up in a hurry.

OK, I thought. Time to slow down and turn around. I depressed the

“stop” pedal with my foot, and it was then that I learned that the

pedal that I thought meant “stop” actually meant “go faster,” which

is what the APC did. My mind began to race. OK, OK, where’s the

brake? I frantically looked around. No brake. OK, OK, turn off the

engine. I turned the key. The diesel engine kept roaring away. “Not

good!” I shouted aloud, displaying the kind of keen observational

skills that would later serve me well in journalism.

OK, OK, let’s review: I knew that the ammo tent had to be coming

up fast behind me, meaning that I was on a fast track to heaven. I

instantly decided that if my next move didn’t work, I’d jump out of

the APC and just take the ensuing court-martial. It would be tough,

but at least I’d be alive. I grabbed hold of the two joysticks,

pulled back with all my might and -- the APC stopped.

Gasping and sweaty, I climbed out the top of the vehicle and

immediately saw that all the men who had been in the ammo tent

seconds earlier were now huddled together about 50 yards down the

road, staring at me. I turned around and found myself staring at

canvas.

The APC had stopped about 6 inches from the ammo tent.

I looked back over at the men and saw that the sergeant was

wobbling back and forth on his heels. I didn’t know what else to do,

so I waved to him. This had the effect of causing 50 men to roar with

laughter.

The APC incident brought about two significant changes in my life,

both for the better. One was that my sergeant ordered me to ride with

him for the rest of the summer drill just so he could keep an eye on

me, meaning that I had traded the back of an APC for the comfy front

of a deuce-and-a-half.

And the second change was that Stump never bothered me again. It

turned out that when he looked out the flap of the ammo tent and saw

that APC coming, he fully believed that I was aiming the vehicle

right at him. Stump instantly decided that anyone that crazy should

probably be left alone.

My career in the National Guard was looking up.

* DAVID SILVA is a Times Community News editor. Reach him at (909)

484-7019, or by e-mail at david.silva@latimes.com.