Sergeant Bambi Killer: Nicknames Happen as Fast as Machine Gun Fire

From 1982 to 1984 I was a Staff Sergeant and tank section leader in Alpha Company, 6th Battalion, 68th Armor.  For the last few months I was in that unit, I was "Sergeant Bambi Killer."

In the 80s, Army Reserve tank units fired twice a year.  We had a full tank gunnery at Annual Training and a three-day weekend tank gunnery at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa., in the fall.

We fired both day and night on these ranges.  In 1983, I was the NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) of the range for night fire.  At dusk on that October evening, I was in the tower above the range.  Below the tower, our 17 tanks were lined up fender to fender waiting to test fire their machine guns before night fire.  The crews got to check their guns in the fading light before firing at night with searchlights, both white light and infrared.

Each of the 17 tanks had 50 rounds for the M-85, .50-caliber machine gun and 50 rounds for the M240 coaxial "coax" machine gun next to the main gun.

As the light faded I gave the command from the tower to lock and load one 50-round belt of ammo for each gun.  The targets were between 500 and 1200 meters away, clusters of olive-drab panels on stakes driven into the muddy ground.

I checked the range, picked up the loudspeaker microphone and said, "Ready on the right. Ready on the left. The range is ready. You may fire when ready."  As I said the last words, a white-tailed doe jumped out of the woods and hopped into the middle of the 500-meter targets.

It seemed that all of the 340 tracers in 1,700 rounds of ammo converged on the spot where the white-tailed deer hopped into the middle of the targets.

I called "Cease Fire" less than a minute later, but there was no need. Each of the machine guns on an M60A1 tank can fire 50 rounds in 5 seconds. Everyone had expended ammo.  The deer disappeared and I was Sergeant Bambi Killer for the rest of my time in 68th Armor.  In the Army, nicknames can happen as fast as machine gun fire.

Movie Review: "Prisoner of the Mountains" "Кавказский пленник"

Last night I watched the 1996 movie "Prisoner of the Mountains" loosely based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy called "Prisoner of the Caucuses." We read an abridged version of the story in Russian for the Russian class I am taking and watched the movie for the class.  

The movie is set during the bloody Chechen War of the mid 1990s shortly after the Soviet Union had collapsed. This is not an action movie in the American mold: no special effects, no big explosions.  But the relationship between the main characters is as good as I have seen in a war movie.  The captured career sergeant and draftee private are the center of the film.  Sasha, the sergeant, maintains his authority throughout their capture.  Even when they are chained together and facing death, Sasha lies to the young recruit Vanya in a way that made me laugh out loud.    

The movie also gets right the experience of an Army made up of draftee soldiers led by career soldiers.  The tension between those who love the Army and those who hate the Army never goes away, but both soldiers can be equally brave facing death.  Near the end of the movie, Sasha and Vanya escape.  Sasha kills a shepherd to get his gun.  Shortly after they are recaptured because of a mistake by Vanya.  Sasha admits killing the shepherd and walks to his death, allowing Vanya to live. Later Vanya has a chance to escape again, but refuses when it would risk the life of a Chechen girl.

The relationship between Sasha and Vanya makes this movie well worth watching.

This is My Shit: Why Army Language Makes Sense

While I was in Iraq, I wrote about the word Shit as a pronoun. The post is here. Earlier today I was reading a book called The Zone by Sergei Dovlatov about life in Russian prison camps. Dovlatov wrote about a prisoner correcting a new camp guard about the guard's improper use of the word fuck.

When I wrote in 2009, it was about the difference in how soldiers use shit and bitch as a pronoun.  In that post, I noted that anything that will fit on a bunk is shit.  Anything larger is a bitch.

But I neglected the reason for the use of these pronouns.  From the moment a young soldier begins the process of enlisting, he is showered with acronyms and awash in the Latin-derived words of government bureaucracy.  Normal human beings cannot hear and retain hundreds of opaque new words and terms, so each soldier remembers a few new terms and for the rest says, "The sergeant told me some shit I was supposed to remember."

Then the soldier actually goes to basic training.  On the first day, soldiers file through supply and receive uniforms, boots, underwear, belts, packs, duffel bags, insignia, name tags, a helmet, and hundreds more bits of gear, large and small. These items could be identified by the nouns in the last sentence, but they are not.  The camouflage uniform is ACU: Army Combat Uniform.  The helmet is ACH: Advanced Combat Helmet. The belt and pouches for ammo and other equipment is our LBE: Load Bearing Equipment.  Our dress uniform is the ASU: Army Service Uniform.

When we were training for Iraq, our first sergeant would yell, "Line up outside in five minutes! ACH, LBE and weapon! Move!" My sleep-fogged brain would rebel and I would think as I pulled on my ACU pants, 'Why not call it a fucking helmet!'

The 18-year-old I was when I first enlisted and the 56-year-old I was when I deployed to Iraq was hit with a blizzard of opaque terms. My response to this brain storm was to identify ownership first.  So I pointed to a pile of gear and said, "This is my shit." or  "That's your shit."

Later when the soldier is assigned a vehicle, a large-caliber weapon, or other piece of equipment that won't fit on a bunk or in a duffel bag, he will say, "That bitch is mine."

I said that of my first Jeep in the Cold War Army.  A Jeep in the army could not be just a Jeep. It was a Truck, 1/4th Ton, Cargo, M151A1, a number and nomenclature I can still recite from memory.  Four decades later the Jeep's replacement was a Humvee or High Mobility, Multipurpose, Wheeled Vehicle,  M998.

Either way, when I had a vehicle I could say, "That bitch is mine, I'm throwing my shit in it.