Damaging Personal Vehicles: The Deuce that ran over my Ventura and Terry Read's pickup claim.
It had to be the year, 1988 or 1989, because I still owned the 1972 Pontiac Ventura with the honeycomb grill. I bought it for $500 bucks from Weird Wally in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was blue, but had several locations where rust was coming through. I liked the faded appearance of the car, and often thought it would be cool to try out the color-restoring claims of the commercial polishes. It started out running great, but it wasn't two months before I started hearing a grinding noise in the transmission.
I've since read Matilda by Roald Dahl, and I began wondering if I was the victim of some crookedness. For $500 bucks, I wasn't going to get anything fixed on it, I was just going to continue to drive it until it left me stranded somewhere. It never did. One day that transmission must have chewed off the offending tooth, and it ran just as smooth as silk until the day I traded it for the 'Hond' (a later story). Long before the trade however, I was parked out by Craig Bradley's supply shop, North side of the Det 2 hangar on the Air Guard base in Lincoln, Nebraska.
I had just gotten into my Ventura and for the zillionth time, the song by America, Ventura Highway, entered my mind. I sat there waiting while some knucklehead tried to back and turn a deuce and a half into a parking spot on the passenger side of my car.
The military's favorite form of transportation. The Deuce and a half.
I noticed that he was coming pretty close to my bumper, but I figured he had me in his mirror and would adjust, or from his angle, he saw he'd miss me. It was a fairly rutted parking lot, so even at his slow backing speed, he wasn't having the smoothest of rides. Maybe that's why he didn't notice that he was about to win this game of 'bumper tag'. Due to his altitude, he never actually used his bumper. His left rear tire caught the right corner of my chrome bumper, and instead of stopping, he kept going. Then, instead of being pushed back, like I anticipated my car would react, the front end began going downf I started having flashes of movie scenes where the guy gets crushed in a car in the middle of some vehicle-recycling yard. Again, I expected the driver to stop and try a better angle, but he kept going. He must have thought it was a pretty big rut. The weight of the deuce shoved my car down until rubber met the wheel well, and I felt the back end come off the ground as I watched the Deuce's left rear tire completely roll over my bumperf I sat there in disbelief as the Ventura settled back to a static state and the driver parked the deuce next to me. He got out and began to walk into the hangar as if nothing happened, so I'm sure that he had no idea what just did.
I jumped out of my car to check out the damage, and to get his attention so I could make him aware of what he'd done. I shut my door and started hollering before I turned the corner to look at the bumper. I was expecting to see it laying on the ground, but there it was, right where it was supposed to be. In fact, it looked perfectly normal with the exception of the black rubber and parking lot grime left by the deuce's tire.
The driver of the deuce had returned and was looking where I was looking, and wondering what I was looking for, because he had no idea what I was looking at. I told him, "You just ran me over." He looked at me like I'd just smoked a pound of crack. "Huh?" was the only response I got from him. He started walking away, and I just watched him go. I don't know why I didn't ask his name or follow him or kick his ass.
I went into Craig Bradley's office and told him what had just happened. Craig was an AGR, and had been talking about retiring for the entire ten years we drilled together. His dream was to start another career as a teacher and coach. Craig came out to look at the car. The deuce was still there, as was my car, but the rubber and grime markings left on the bumper were gone. "He must have felt bad, and come back to clean it, I guess", I told Craig. He just laughed and started walking back to his office, not believing a word of my tale. I never saw that guy again, and I didn't see that deuce move from that spot for a year.
I'm not sure yet why this story is included in the book. Possibly because it's representative of the weird shit that happens and the way people try to blame it on the government in the hopes of getting some form of compensation. Most probably won't find it funny, but if you were there, and saw the looks on our faces, it was a moment to remember.
A handful of us avionics mechanics were pulling yet another 'home station' annual training for Det 2. The 'Dirtbag' Dennis Groshans, acting First Shirt, had'created' work for us, so we wouldn't just sit around and play cards.
Prior to joining the Army National Guard, 'Bag' was a corpsman in the Navy and did two tours in Vietnam with a Marine grunt unit. He claims to be a Marine, and if you don't like it, that's too bad. In my opinion, the only way to claim the title other than Paris Island and San Diego's MCRD, is the way 'Bag' and Jack Bradley did it. Patching up grunts while taking heavy fire. Doing the same shit they were doing, day in and day out.
The task 'Bag' had come up with for us involved moving a bunch of stuff up and down lots of stairs, loading pickups, driving across base, and unloading. Sweat hog work. I didn't bitch, I was rehabbing a knee from surgery about six months previous and wanted to get a good work out. Hefting loads up stairs would do it good.
Before even getting started, we realized that we didn't have a government vehicle to move stuff in. We needed a pickup, and all I had at the time was the'Hond'. You'll hear about that car in the next chapter.
Terry Read, another former squid, had a pickup, and he readily volunteered it for brownie points with the shirt. Terry had done 11 years with the Navy. Why he didn't finish his 20 on active duty, I'll never know. Maybe it was because he didn't fit in the Navy. He was the most redneck look ingest fuck you ever saw and was proud of it. Anyway, we loaded that pickup half a dozen times, and rode it back and forth half a day before it happened.
Ben Leduc and I were unloading a very heavy file cabinet. My end slipped which forced Ben to drop his end. My end caught the corner of the bed up by the passenger door and left a large dent in exchange for a good deal of paint. I said a naughty word and Terry said something worse, but then blew it off when he learned that it wouldn't affect the way the truck drove.
I wouldn't say that it improved the appearance of the truck, but it sure as hell didn't hurt it any. Ben and I never heard another word about the incident until a few drills later when Terry wanted us to sign on as witnesses to something regarding his truck damage. Terry wanted to collect a few bucks out of the deal. Ben and I both said we had no idea what the heck he was talking about, until there were a few beers in it for us. Terry ensured us that there was, and our memories conveniently returned.
"When I die on this road, do I become Santa Claus?"
Brett Crossley