DARK CLOUD PINE CONE II

It seemed that the army rented all of North Carolina for the "Dark Cloud Pine Cone II" maneuvers.  Our company had teams out all over the state.  We spent some time at Bragg, NC, Camp Mackall, NC, and Monroe, NC during the maneuvers.  As well as I can remember, The maneuvers lasted a couple of weeks and we were neutral between the two armies that were fighting (?).  The 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne were having war games.  We had umpire flags on our vehicles and we would drive down a dirt road on the back of post and they would stop shooting while we passed.  They were polite to say the least.

We were camped out at an emergency air strip somewhere on the back end of Fort Bragg in the boonies of Camp Mackall.  (Emergency airstrip means a fairly straight section of a dirt road with a few trees cleared out on both sides.)  We had our power unit running, lights on in the van, and we were running our air compressor to pump up our air mattresses for the nights sleep.  Sgt Classcock had brought his TV along and it was on fairly loud.  Well, it was hard to hear over the air compressor. 

One guy stuck his head in the van door and said that there were guys crawling around out in the woods near us.  We went out to see and the airborne guys were all over the woods with sticks and branches on their helmets and charcoal on their faces.  A 2nd Lieutenant stormed up and someone called "ATTENTION".   The LT barked "Who is in charge here?  Sgt. Classcock saluted and said that he was, sir.  The Lt chewed him out and explained that this was suppose to be a war zone, blah, blah, and demanded to see our orders.  The Sarge showed him our orders and the LT said, "Carry On" , can you turn down the TV?  Sarge said that he would and the LT left.    I never understood why, but our orders directly from 3rd Army seemed to impress folks whenever we went anywhere TDY.

Later, we went to Monroe, NC to a small private strip that had a grass runway.  The strip was used as a base for crop dusters and had a few private planes.  The airport manager/ crop duster pilot was a nice guy.  He had been a P-38 fighter pilot during the War.  WW II, that is.  We were there a few days and he kept us entertained with tales of his war stories when he wasn't busy .

He stuck his head in the van one afternoon and told me that he had to go to Asheville, NC that evening and asked me to turn on the runway lights for him when he came back.  He showed me the switch for the lights and I asked him how I would know when to turn the lights on.  He said that we would hear him and I said we may be asleep and he said not to worry, we would hear him come back.

A few of us were sleeping between the bows on the top of of the deuce and a half.  (The top will support 3 guys but not 4.  Don't ask how I know.)  I was sacked out good when there was this loud racket and I opened my eyes and saw this bright light that seemed like the sun coming right at us.  We jumped down before it dawned on me that it was the manager coming back.  He flew very low right over us, I turned the lights on for him, and he landed okay and thanked me.  He said, "I told you that you would know when I was back".  

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Ronald Reagan 
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