JUNE

FORT CARTOON

Fort Carson, Colorado was hot but not like the sticky hot humidity I’d left behind in Alabama. Southern Colorado was hot and dry in the middle of June. As I rode through town in a plain white US Government "duty-van" from the airport to the Fort, the driver pointed out places to go and things to do. I found myself breathing deep to test the altitude that everyone kept warning me about. The elevation was listed as 6,020 feet on the “Welcome to Colorado Springs” sign, but I really couldn’t tell much of a difference.
As we drove into the populated area of Carson (described by the van driver as “Fort Cartoon”), we rode along clusters of boring brick buildings separated by rock gardens and parking lots filled mostly with little economy cars and small pick-ups. The Fort Carson Reception Station was intermingled with the barracks of administrative type units such as Finance and Post Headquarters. The mammoth Cheyenne Mountain, which was where N.O.R.A.D was located, overshadowed the entire post.
As I slowly wandered across the parking lot towards the reception station, stumbling slowly, shuffling my feet and balancing my stuffed duffel-bag on one shoulder as I starred up at the clusters of antenna array’s and satellite dishes placed around the mountain. I felt unusual comfort knowing that I was being stationed at probably the safest U.S. Army Post in the entire world. Later on, I'd observe that my comfort level was shared among most of the troops I encountered at “Carson,” and it was later apparent by the general mood and flow of the post’s activities once I began my patrols.
As I wandered into the building, the smell of floor wax, and the sound of a buffer in the distance snapped me back into my new "Army-green" reality. My stomach tightened slightly as I reported in to the Staff Sergeant behind the long, chest-high counter near the entrance. I wasn’t standing there more than ten seconds before I saw a couple of my fellow Privates from MP training. Jay and Steve came strolling out of an echoey stairwell, dressed in civilian clothes. Back in Alabama, Jay Heinz had wall locker was next to mine throughout BASIC and MP School. At 26 years old, he was much older than most of the troops in our platoon, and quickly gained the nickname of “Grandpa.” He had driven his car to Colorado from his home in Wisconsin during his leave time. I respected his discipline for carrying out such a task with such limited time given to us after our seventeen weeks of training in Alabama. I had spent my previous eight days of leave-time partying hard and hanging out with my old high school buddies, trying to soak up as much of home as possible before falling back into formation.
PFC Heinz was an overall cool, calm and collected guy. Nothing seemed to get him over-exited. He was tall with blond hair and bushy eyebrows. He was a guy who loved to crank up the Frampton and Nugent. In Basic Training, we’d always tease him about being stuck in the “old days” and he’d talk about his big blond “fro” in the 70's and how cool it was to grow up in the days of Disco and Guitar Rock.


Private Link was a true good ole’ boy from my rival platoon during Basic and MP school. Link was from West Virginia. This guy would soon look most fulfilled when you’d see him hanging around outside of any miscellaneous doorway, hat slightly kicked up, foot resting on a high stoop, a big fresh dip in-between cheek & gum, Marlboro in his right hand, and an empty Mountain Dew (or Budweiser) can in the other. The coolest thing to me about Link was, he loved to talk about anything, anytime, for as long as you could stand it.
Link and Heinz had buddied-up at the Reception station the evening before I arrived. They would eventually become long-term roommates once we settled in our unit.
As they approached me, I noticed that they were both sporting 8-day-old mustaches.
“Dump yur gear and come on, Moore. We’re gonna go check out the town,” Link twanged as he walked up and purposely scuffed his sneaker over my freshly shined low quarters.
Jay laughed and pointed as I yanked my foot away, “Ha! Yeah, come on E, I got my car.”

“Cool, gimme a minute” I said as they continued to head for the door.
“We’ll be out here,” said Link.
“Hey Link, you got pubic hair on your lip,” I hollered as they headed towards the door.
Link turned back and gave me a wink, “Sure do... leave-time was good ta me.”

I chuckled and turned back to face the Staff Sergeant at the counter, who was not smiling, “You an MP too?”

“Yes-sergeant,” I replied.
“Sign in here,” he said as he slapped a clipboard in front of me. He said nothing more as I signed in.
I thought to myself, "Welcome to Fort Carson."

Colorado Springs was a nice change from Alabama. The culture was closer to my native Seattle than the high hills of Anniston Alabama. Seeing retail chains and fast food restaurants that I was familiar with allowed me to exhale a bit since my arrival earlier that afternoon. Jay drove us around like he was on a mission. He was noting everything from ski shops to strip bars. I was noting car dealerships and malls. Link kept going on about hunting big game up in the Rockies which by early evening, had led to Jay navigating his 85 Ford Thunderbird closer and closer to the wall of mountains that flanked the city. Our shouting over the music to each other became hushed as Jay clicked off the blaring Guns & Roses on his stereo while he curiously rolled through the streets of the exclusive Broadmoor neighborhood. We worked our way closer and closer to the hillside until the pavement became gravel. We soon found ourselves tearing up a winding gravel road with the city lights behind us. We rolled down the windows, and turned the music back on.. louder. We had a full view of the entire city as the ridge widened to twice its width.

“Pull over here Jay.” Link pointed to the a wide spot as he shook a cigarette out of his pack and threw it over his shoulder at me. We climbed out of the car and leaned up against it.
“Rocket Queen” ended and the ominous silence prompted us to take long drags from our cigarettes as the tape the cassette player clicked over to, “Welcome to the Jungle.” Jay jolted off of the car at the opening riff and reached into his car, cranking the volume all the way up. The opening of the song echoed off the side of the mountain and flooded the entire hillside.
We all smiled to each other as Link played a little air guitar.

Jay situated himself in front of us..
“So I ran into a couple of MP’s at the chow hall during lunch today,” he hollered over the rock music.

“I found out, there’s two MP companies on Carson! One is primarily a field unit, spending weeks at a time in the field, and the other’s called, “Worldwide Deployable,” and those fuckers are packing for Panama!”
Link stopped playing his air guitar. I just stopped. Jay continued..
“Word was, from these two MP’s, that we’re all going to the 984th, Worldwide Deployable MP company, and that we were given orders specifically to Carson to build up for this deployment to Panama.”
“Holy shit, my mother’s gonna shit!” I said.
Link flicked his glowing cigarette butt onto a huge boulder next to the car and watched it explode off of the rock.
“That’s bullshit Jay; those MP’s were just playin’ the rookie.”
Jay did the same with his cigarette. “Maybe so Steve, lets go talk to some guys at the gates.”

As we drove towards Post, we tried to milk Jay’s memory for exactly what he was told by the MP’s to see if we could diagnose it as a prank, but Jay kept repeating the same thing, “They were pretty blunt, fellas... they just said- We’re all goin’ and we’re getting all the new MP’s between now and the time we leave.”

Once we reached the busy “B Street” we found the MP’s there to be pretty straightforward with the same information. One of the MP’s chatted with us near the visitor’s booth while the other waved traffic on what was a busy Saturday night. After a while, they swapped, and we got the same second opinion from the next MP, “Yep, you guys are headin’ out... They’re even takin’ volunteers from the 4th MP’s.”
Link and Heinz were discouraged by the news, but I was completely distraught, and it showed. Gone were my naive hopes of earning my next stripe by shaking doorknobs and writing traffic tickets. Most of all, I was stressed about how I was going to explain this to my mother back home. I was the son of a codependent, manic-depressive, super-left, ex-anti-war activist. I had just won her over with the Army by earning awards and recognition in training. After months of arguing about joining serving, she was finally seeing the payoff on my face. She even made the trip down to Alabama for my graduation. I felt vindicated when as she was sitting in the covered General’s section of the bleachers during the ceremony.
Well, that gain of support would pretty much be “out the window” with this news. For a few months, the media broadcasting out of Panama consisted of Noriega’s indictment, troop build-up, and increased political tension in the region. While I was in Basic, our Drill Sergeant advised us about a Marine that was killed in Panama. It was described as a “friendly-fire” incident, but from all of our points of view, if there’s enough tension to accidentally fire on your own troops, there’s enough tension for much more.
As the MP headed back to join his partner at the gate shack, he held traffic for us as we filed back onto the main road. I slunk down in the backseat even lower as Link and Heinz stared silently at the darkness in front of us. After about a minute or so, Heinz reached toward his stereo knob and let out a little sigh, “Well those guys seemed pretty cool…” ..Welcome to the Jungle..

STRIKE!

In-processing at the reception station went by way too slowly. I expected that by after training for seventeen weeks I’d be used to the “hurry up and wait” methods of the Army, but the difference was that outside of a training unit, the people controlling the flow are in no hurry at all. They were just doing their daily grind.
Every morning we would fall into formation based on what day of in-processing schedule we were taking part in; Day One, Day Two, Day Three platoon, etc. During my several days assigned to reception, the remainder of the soldiers I was with in Alabama slowly trickled in. I was surprised not to find everyone as fast as I found Link and Heinz, but the rest of the guys had excuses from requesting extended leave, to logistical family issues, to just plain signing-in late.
There were eight troops sent to Fort Carson from my training company. One of them, a female, “flipped-out” when she heard we were deploying to Panama. Private Juliann Lefevre joined the Army because her husband was a solider and stationed at Fort Carson. Before we even packed our bags at the reception station, she started talking about taking the “ladies way” out of the Army to avoid the deployment. This meant she was planning to get pregnant.
Despite the talk of the deployment, I was glad to be finished with the reception station. I was looking forward to getting settled into my unit. Link, Heinz, Foster, James and I all completed reception on the same day and were loaded onto a van to take us to our new unit. As we traveled to the other side of post, we noted that we had not all been together in a vehicle since we were stuffed into the troop moving cattle cars of Fort McClellan. Now we were established soldiers. Our uniforms were a little faded, our boot tread was a little worn down, and Heinz and Link’s mustaches were filling-in. We were comfortable.
We stretched out in the van as the Private behind the wheel gave us a guided tour of our new surroundings.
“You all are gonna be stayin all the way down at the end of the Banana Belt,” he said, as he looked up at us through the rearview mirror, with his oversized-teardrop sunglasses. “That’s where the MP’s stay.”
“The what?” Link said.
“The Banana Belt!” He said louder, with a slight Texas accent. “That’s what we call all these buildings off-here to our left. They go all the way down around this bend, and from the air, they look like a big banana.”
We all leaned to our left and watched the pattern of barracks go by, followed by smaller unit offices, followed by more barracks, and so on.
“Th-th-these look pretty good to me.. pretty.. pretty good.. huh, E?” Foster said, as he nodded in my direction for my opinion.
Foster was from the Highland Park area of Detroit and spoke with a bit of a stutter over his thick urban accent. He was a good pal from training, and had a strong interest in the ladies, which always made him fun company when hanging out during those coveted 24 hour passes. Foster was a character to watch at the nightclubs.
I nodded back, “Yeah, it doesn’t look too bad... Nicer than where we came from, that’s for sure.”
“Don’t get used to it fellas,” James said as he pushed himself down behind the rear seat and propped up one knee.
Harold James was a huge man. In training, we tried to nickname him “Tyson” because of his strong physical resemblance to the then undefeated boxer, Mike Tyson; but the name just didn’t stick. James was just too mellow and too deep to be regarded as a stereotypical brute.
After what seemed like a few miles, the van slowed and pulled into a parking lot that hosted offices, which were a carbon copy of the ones we’d been passing for the past few minutes. Looking ahead as we piled out of the van we could see that there were only two more large orange barracks buildings left, followed by pretty much nothing. We were truly at the butt-end of the Banana Belt.
“That’s us guys,” Heinz pointed up at a huge emblem on the side of the nearest barracks building. It was a large crest and banner which had a sword with a snake wrapped around it. Across the banner it said, “984th Military Police Company” “STRIKE!”
“Cool… Hey, is that a dragon, or a snake?” Link said as he dug the tobacco out of his cheek and flicked it into an adjacent rock garden.
“Looks like a snake,” I said as we all started up the stairs in front of the office doors.
“I know, but why does he got ears then?” Link said as he kept squinting at the sign.
James pushed him gently up the stairs to the front door of the battalion. Stenciled on the door was, “Welcome to the 759th Military Police Battalion.”