Click Click Boom

When we first arrived at Fort Sill, we got a very dull General Orders briefing. It was one of several PowerPoint presentations that were read aloud saying we can't drink, leave Fort Sill, fraternize, etc. But before that PowerPoint started our commander, who first served in artillery, played one of his favorite videos: Fire Mission. It is available on You Tube and uses the song "Click Click Boom" by the group Saliva (first I have heard of them). With artillery, as with the cannons in the tanks I was in, click click boom is the sound. The round slams into the breach of the gun (click). The breach closes (click). And the gunner pulls the trigger (BOOM).

Fort Sill is the Army's training base for artillery. A lot of the footage in this video was shot on Fort Sill. When we first arrived I saw a Fire Mission on the very same hillside as you will see in the video. I counted a dozen rounds hitting the hillside--Fire for Effect is the term they use. We were ten miles away and could see and hear very clearly. The road the bike race was on was midway between the guns and where the rounds land.