Posted: 8/12/2012 7:14:51 PM EDT
"What is the spirit of the bayonet?"
|
|
Y'all haven't lived until you've had a Vietnam-era 11th ACR veteran give driver's training on the M113 with the same sort of mindlessly violent mentality that most Infantry bayonet instructors have...
We had guys literally going to see the chaplain after this guy got done with them. Seems he'd been away from mech units for a long, long time until our formerly wheeled Corps-level Engineer unit made the transition to mech back in the early 1980s. Seeing as he was the only senior guy who was licensed on the M113, they put him in charge of training. Biiiiiig mistake. I think it triggered some form of bizarre flashback, because the training he came up with for the M113 drivers included a whole lot of silhouettes, and extensive detailed and graphic instruction on precisely how you go about collapsing bunkers and fighting positions by pivot-steering a track on top of them... Basically, what he was doing was training the drivers how to use their vehicle as a weapon––In full, graphic detail, including his Vietnam-era pictures they'd taken after crushing (literally...) an NVA attack on his unit. The pictures were epic, and probably would have gotten people in trouble if they'd had widespread exposure. Seeing what a tracked vehicle can do to a human body is pretty disgusting. I got to watch one iteration of his training, and when he did the demonstration run, it was pretty fucking epic. Picture a small hollow filled with standard silhouette targets simulating a platoon-sized unit in an ambush position, and then hearing the whine of an approaching M113... Followed shortly thereafter by five minutes of the most insane driving you've ever seen, running over targets, grinding them into the mud, backing over them, pivot-steering on top of fighting positions, and just general mayhem. When the instructor got out of the track to start his lecture, he looked like he'd just gone twenty minutes with Mike Tyson, followed by the most intense sex ever. Simultaneously half-beaten to death, and post-orgasmic. Every one of the people observing that shit thought he was completely nuts, but it probably would have worked wonders if the balloon had ever gone up in Germany. I don't know what triggered this memory, but it was probably the comment that someone made about not being issued a bayonet because they were a tanker... Who needs a bayonet when you've got seventy tons of steel and a pair of tracks? 
|
|
Quoted:
Y'all haven't lived until you've had a Vietnam-era 11th ACR veteran give driver's training on the M113 with the same sort of mindlessly violent mentality that most Infantry bayonet instructors have... We had guys literally going to see the chaplain after this guy got done with them. Seems he'd been away from mech units for a long, long time until our formerly wheeled Corps-level Engineer unit made the transition to mech back in the early 1980s. Seeing as he was the only senior guy who was licensed on the M113, they put him in charge of training. Biiiiiig mistake. I think it triggered some form of bizarre flashback, because the training he came up with for the M113 drivers included a whole lot of silhouettes, and extensive detailed and graphic instruction on precisely how you go about collapsing bunkers and fighting positions by pivot-steering a track on top of them... Basically, what he was doing was training the drivers how to use their vehicle as a weapon––In full, graphic detail, including his Vietnam-era pictures they'd taken after crushing (literally...) an NVA attack on his unit. The pictures were epic, and probably would have gotten people in trouble if they'd had widespread exposure. Seeing what a tracked vehicle can do to a human body is pretty disgusting. I got to watch one iteration of his training, and when he did the demonstration run, it was pretty fucking epic. Picture a small hollow filled with standard silhouette targets simulating a platoon-sized unit in an ambush position, and then hearing the whine of an approaching M113... Followed shortly thereafter by five minutes of the most insane driving you've ever seen, running over targets, grinding them into the mud, backing over them, pivot-steering on top of fighting positions, and just general mayhem. When the instructor got out of the track to start his lecture, he looked like he'd just gone twenty minutes with Mike Tyson, followed by the most intense sex ever. Simultaneously half-beaten to death, and post-orgasmic. Every one of the people observing that shit thought he was completely nuts, but it probably would have worked wonders if the balloon had ever gone up in Germany. I don't know what triggered this memory, but it was probably the comment that someone made about not being issued a bayonet because they were a tanker... Who needs a bayonet when you've got seventy tons of steel and a pair of tracks? I once ran over a donkey in a stryker. Mother fuck stood back up and walked off. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Y'all haven't lived until you've had a Vietnam-era 11th ACR veteran give driver's training on the M113 with the same sort of mindlessly violent mentality that most Infantry bayonet instructors have... We had guys literally going to see the chaplain after this guy got done with them. Seems he'd been away from mech units for a long, long time until our formerly wheeled Corps-level Engineer unit made the transition to mech back in the early 1980s. Seeing as he was the only senior guy who was licensed on the M113, they put him in charge of training. Biiiiiig mistake. I think it triggered some form of bizarre flashback, because the training he came up with for the M113 drivers included a whole lot of silhouettes, and extensive detailed and graphic instruction on precisely how you go about collapsing bunkers and fighting positions by pivot-steering a track on top of them... Basically, what he was doing was training the drivers how to use their vehicle as a weapon––In full, graphic detail, including his Vietnam-era pictures they'd taken after crushing (literally...) an NVA attack on his unit. The pictures were epic, and probably would have gotten people in trouble if they'd had widespread exposure. Seeing what a tracked vehicle can do to a human body is pretty disgusting. I got to watch one iteration of his training, and when he did the demonstration run, it was pretty fucking epic. Picture a small hollow filled with standard silhouette targets simulating a platoon-sized unit in an ambush position, and then hearing the whine of an approaching M113... Followed shortly thereafter by five minutes of the most insane driving you've ever seen, running over targets, grinding them into the mud, backing over them, pivot-steering on top of fighting positions, and just general mayhem. When the instructor got out of the track to start his lecture, he looked like he'd just gone twenty minutes with Mike Tyson, followed by the most intense sex ever. Simultaneously half-beaten to death, and post-orgasmic. Every one of the people observing that shit thought he was completely nuts, but it probably would have worked wonders if the balloon had ever gone up in Germany. I don't know what triggered this memory, but it was probably the comment that someone made about not being issued a bayonet because they were a tanker... Who needs a bayonet when you've got seventy tons of steel and a pair of tracks? I once ran over a donkey in a stryker. Mother fuck stood back up and walked off. What gets run over by a tracked vehicle stays run over... Especially if the driver decides to grind whoever it is into the ground. |