Wall Help and Lieutenant Memories

The Panamanians in Maine

The Panamanians blew back into town yesterday full of complements about their time up in the great state of Maine. I think the Maine Musquetera has the hosting of my wife’s visiting family and friends down to a science. I returned from work to find my brother in law up on the hillside behind the house. He was inspecting the work I’d done in their absence and wanted to know if I planned on continuing. The ladies were conspicuously absent as my wife inducted her sister in law into the mysteries of the fabulous Luigi – her hairdresser.

Back on the Hill Working

I spent another of those harried lunch hours where I rush home, change clothes, run to Home Depot, buy/load forty more wall bocks, unload blocks at home while simultaneously cooking burgers, change back into work clothes, eat burgers while simultaneously getting burger grease on the brand new shirt my wife bought for me. So kind of busy. Since I had the blocks and my supervising authority was absent I immediately launched onto the hill. My brother in law was an immense help carrying the blocks up the hill and the work went so much faster because of that. We ran out of blocks well ahead of sunset which was a first. I figure at least two more forays to Home Depot and the third terrace will be done.

Progress After Brother in Law's Help

I finished off my latest Jack Noble novel with Noble Retribution by LT Ryan. Jack has been resurrected from certain death and now sets out on a complicated mission to redeem some of his former sins. Ryan takes coincidence to the n-th level by placing a confrontation with Russian terrorist in the middle of Iowa. It happens to be the same place his old friend has taken up residence and his former girlfriend shows up following another plot line, so a lot of kismet (maybe too much). Ryan does keep the action flowing and while it’s not always clean the relentless momentum is irresistible. I’m almost finished with my Noble adventures and am thinking about returning to re-read some older work by favorite authors.  

I recently ran across a blog post from a friend who I served with as a fellow lieutenant in Panama in the early 1980s. Anyone who served in the 193^rd Infantry Brigade during that time period will have similar memories. This was my first infantry assignment so I thought everybody trained as hard as we did. They didn’t but it did produce really dangerous infantrymen. My friend is an accomplished author nowadays so he does a much better job describing what it was like:

“The 193rd was an unusual organization. If you ever wondered what happened to the brown shoe Army of the 1930s, the answer is it changed to black shoes and black and green boots, but in every other respect packed its bags, moved to, and settled itself into Panama. The 193rd remains, to me, the beau ideal of what a regular combat force of Americans could and should be. A few interesting tidbits on the 193rd would include:

1.It was the farm team and (not really much of a) rest spot for the Ranger Battalions, to the extent that, when there were two such, at one time both were commanded by men who had been my former battalion commanders in Panama. Conversely, in the company I spent most of my lieutenancy in, three of the four platoon sergeants, something like seven of the nine rifle squad leaders, a bit over half of the fire team leaders, and a fair sprinkling of the rank and file came from one or another of the Rangers Batts.

2.The brigade commander, one K. C. Leuer, had been the first battalion commander of First Ranger Battalion.

3.Each of the three infantry battalions, one of which was mechanized, of the 193rd, at that time, fired more ammunition, 4.2” and below, than the entire 82nd Airborne Division.

4.It was, shall we say, an unusually “hands-on leadership” kind of place. I discovered that the rest of the Army was not like that when, after leaving Panama and finishing the Advanced Course at Benning, I went on my first run with a battalion. As usual, the redundant officers ran in the rear. One young troop started to fall out of the run a couple of miles into it. He wasn’t dying. He wasn’t injured. He was just lazy and undisciplined. I put my hand in the middle of his back and just shoved him back into the formation. Not only was he shocked, the other officers were shocked speechless. They didn’t realize you could get away with that kind of thing. It would have been perfectly normal in the 193rd; indeed, it would have been dereliction not to have helped the kid along, so to speak. Oh, and yes, the boy finished the run with the formation.

5.Safety? What was that? If somebody got shot on a maneuvering live fire range – and every rifle company live fired some thirteen times a month, so it did happen sometimes – we didn’t stop training; we called in a dustoff and FIDOd right on.

6.Discipline, much of which welled up from the ranks, themselves, was unusually fierce. Platoon sergeant doesn’t like a troop’s haircut? No problem; he sits the boy down on a stool and shaves his head. New troop on a miserable waterless movement to contact over extremely rough and hilly terrain, under a blazing sun, says he isn’t going a step further? No problem; the other riflemen beat him half senseless, then add thirty pounds to his load, and then ensure, with whatever painful coercion is needed, that he does not fall behind.

7.The Marines like to think that “every Marine is a rifleman.” Post boots, though, they really don’t do much to maintain with their support types a rifleman’s mindset and skill set. He can probably still shoot, but actual combat would be an iffier proposition. In the 193rd of the day, the headquarters companies of the infantry battalions, at least, conducted live fire training, albeit limited to the practical defense of their units while stationary or moving.”

This young Lady Joins Us Later Next Week!

This will be last blog entry until Monday because we’re taking the Panamanians south to Washington, DC for the weekend. The original plan was Niagara Falls but there’s a very Panamanian like monsoon pulling into the area for a weekend stay so we shifted plans south where it’s supposed to be nice. We have some of the best friends in the world who’re willing to put us up on Saturday night and a sisterly refuge for the Wonder Pooch.