Both the captain, Stinson, and I grabbed a chair and brought it to the desk, and then sat down. The captain spoke first, “Lieutenant Buckman is reporting in, sir.”
Lieutenant Colonel Marchlight grunted, and said, “Welcome to the 1st of the 319th. Just finished at Sill, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir, just over two weeks ago, sir.”
“You his sponsor, Stinson?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Stinson. That was the only time Stinson was asked anything or responded in the meeting.
Marchlight nodded again. He looked over at the captain, named Hudson by the nametag on his uniform. “What’s the plan for Lieutenant Buckman?”
Captain Hudson replied, “Bravo Battery, sir.”
Marchlight grunted and gave a touch of a distasteful look, and said, “Well, they need you, that’s for sure. Battery B is Captain Harris’ outfit. What was your ranking at Sill?”
“Top of my class, sir.” The colonel glanced over at Hudson, who shuffled through some papers in a file and just nodded.
“Well, you’ll do well, then. Captain Hudson will sort you out and take you over there. Just learn your job and do it well, and we’ll never have a problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Now, I know they teach you that after checking in, at some point you’re supposed to visit my home and be social. You may consider that done.”
“Yes, sir. Airborne!”
He nodded at Hudson again, who stood up and signaled for me to do the same. Stinson popped up as well. We put our chairs back where they were, and the colonel shook my hand before dismissing us.
Once we were back out in the hallway, Captain Hudson said, “Okay, that’s done. I’m the S-1, by the way. What’s going to happen next is that I will introduce you to your new boss.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come along.”
We left the building and walked two buildings back, to another building. I followed Hudson inside and into an office. He immediately said, “As you were,” and nobody got up. “Captain Harris available?” he asked, to nobody in particular.
A Spec 4 answered, “Let me check, sir.” He went to an office and knocked, and then opened the door without waiting for an answer. He mumbled something, and then stepped back. “Go on in, Captain.”
“Thank you.” He motioned me after him and I repeated my reporting-in salute with Captain Harris. We went through the same rigmarole, in which Harris welcomed me to the battery. After the last week I was looking forward to actually being in my battery. So far I had simply been shuffling paper.
If I thought I was going to start working in Battery B immediately, I was promptly disabused of this notion. It was back to school for me! I was to go to Jumpmaster School almost immediately, which I had never even heard of until now. Jumpmaster School was supposed to teach me everything I needed to know to be an expert in jumping out of an airplane. I thought that was what Jump School was supposed to do, but what did I know; I was a just a dumbass second john. It seemed that all officers and noncoms (at least at the sergeant on up levels) must qualify as a jumpmaster to be considered qualified. Captain Harris turned me over to Lieutenant Brimley, who in turn dumped me onto the battalion’s S-3. I did five jumps by the end of the week, and that qualified me for the two week Jumpmaster School.
In order to be current as a paratrooper, you need to make at least one jump every three months. What surprised the hell out of me was how they did it — by chopper! The first time it happened I was trucked out to a drop zone, where I was handed a chute and loaded into a Chinook. The CH-47 is a heavy lift helicopter powerful enough to carry howitzers in a belly sling, and large enough to carry several dozen fully equipped paratroopers. This was my first jump from a chopper, and the first time I did it, I asked why. I was told that it was quite common. For one thing, when the Air Force dropped Army paratroopers, the Army had to pay the Air Force for the privilege, and the accounting was a nightmare. If the Army drops the guys, it’s a whole lot simpler. Furthermore, since the chopper is moving at a much slower speed, and can pick and hover over good drop zones, it’s a whole lot safer for the troops. Operationally, it’s a lot like jumping from a Herky-Bird — they drop the back ramp and you take a short walk with a really big last step.
Jumpmaster School teaches you how to send other people out the door. You learn to give jump commands and run a jump. The big thing is to be able to inspect a jumper visually in about a minute and make sure they can jump safely, without killing themselves and everybody else in the process. I passed, which most don’t, at least not on the first go, and was sent back to the battery the third week in January.
That next Monday morning I returned to Battery B. Once there, the same Spec 4 who had showed Hudson and me into Captain Harris’ office, greeted me and told me to take a seat. Captain Harris was in a meeting and would be out in a few minutes. He pointed at a sidebar and said, “Coffee, sir?”
The curse of the modern military is coffee. It runs on it even more than fuel! If we ever invade Colombia, it won’t be because of drugs, it will because Juan Valdez decided to fuck with the coffee! Unfortunately, I can’t stand coffee! Tea is fine, but rather rare on an army base. Coffee is everything! “No thank you, Specialist.” I sat down on an empty plastic office chair and picked up a week old copy of the Paraglide, the base newspaper, and started reading.
About forty minutes later the door to the office at the side opened up, and a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant, and a couple of sergeants came out, none of whom looked overly happy. Needless to say, I immediately rose to my feet. Captain Harris looked out his door and saw me, and then glanced over at the clerk, Specialist 4 Jones by the name sewn on his fatigues. He said, “The Lieutenant is back with us, sir.”
“Yeah? Well, about time. Come on in.” He yelled out, “Lieutenant Brimley, come on back in here!” The first lieutenant I had seen leave Captain Harris’ office came out of his office and followed me into the battery commander’s office.
Originally, artillery regiments were made up of three artillery battalions and a headquarters ‘battalion’, except that the Army had pretty much abandoned formal regimental structure in the Fifties. Now we had an artillery brigade made up of battalions from three different regiments, none of which actually existed anymore. Furthermore, each of those battalions was actually assigned directly to a parachute infantry brigade. Why they change these things every few years is beyond me.
Likewise, every artillery battalion is made up of three artillery batteries and a headquarters and support ‘battery’. Each Airborne artillery battery is made up of a firing element of six guns, depending on usage and caliber, and a support element of everything else. In our case, Battery B, we had the requisition number of six M102 105 mm towed howitzers as the firing element. The support element is actually larger, manpower wise, than the firing element. You had the fire direction control center (who shoots what, and when, and at whom) as well as the motor pool and ammo supplies.
Equipment wise, Battery B pretty much had the regulation gear, although some of it was old. In fact, a lot of it had seen service in Vietnam. Also, according to the book we had about 125 enlisted personnel to fire the guns, drive the trucks, hump the ammo around, and tell us where and when to fire. Again, personnel wise, we had pretty much what we were supposed to have.
Again, according to the book, we had a proper command structure. DivArty was commanded by a full colonel, with a lieutenant colonel as his exec. His staff officers were all majors, although the S-3 was a light bird, too. This pattern continued down a layer, where the battalion was commanded by a light bird and had a major as an exec, with captains as the staff.