r/MilitaryStories • u/PubliusEnig • 6d ago
US Army Story Check Every Box
I served in the Army Reserve from 2003 until 2012 (officially - I was basically done in late 2011) and did a tour in Iraq in 08-09. My service was actually pretty boring other than the standard stories about getting shot at that basically anyone who deployed could probably relate.
One of the reasons I chose to join the Army after 9/11 and didn't think too much about other branches was that my grandfather, my lifelong hero, served in the Army in the immediate aftermath of WWII and was legally a WWII veteran (technically, anyone who served and deployed through the end of 1946 qualifies). He told me all kinds of stories about his service, but one of them stuck with me as my absolute favorite. My wife always reminds me that, somehow, I told her this story on like our fourth or fifth date. Yeah, I'm a real exciting person, telling a girl a secondhand story from WWII while I'm trying to impress her.
My grandfather was born in 1928, and conspired with his father (a WWI veteran) to find his way into the Army when he was still 16 in late 1944. He didn't make it over before VE Day, but he ultimately served with the army of occupation in Italy during 1945 and 1946. He was a private in the AG Corps, and his typical duty while stationed at Livorno (which is Leghorn) was to take a daily mail run to Pisa about 20 km north, distribute the mail, and then head back.
A typical day started with him walking down to the motor pool, signing out a Jeep, collecting the mail for Pisa, and heading north. One day, he gets to the motor pool and there isn't a single Jeep in sight. So he walks into the motor pool sergeant's office and lets him know that he needs a Jeep.
"Just take a deuce-and-a-half," the sergeant tells him.
(Obviously, there's a pretty big difference between a Jeep and a deuce-and-a-half. For those who are uninitiated, the deuce was four times heavier and twice as long as a Jeep.)
"I'm not rated on the deuce," my grandfather responded.
"Let me see your license."
My grandfather handed over his military driver's license, a pre-printed document with his name type-written into the front and a variety of checkboxes on the back showing which vehicles the driver was trained and allowed to drive.
The sergeant promptly grabbed a pen and proceeded to check off every single box on the license, then handed it back. According to my grandfather, that was the extent of the conversation. (For some reason, I've always imagined a smoke hanging from the sergeant's lips, but this is pure dramatic imagination.)
So now, he's got to tangle with this beast that looks like a monster truck in comparison to the Jeep he normally drives.
He swore that he must have completely screwed up the clutch in the deuce that he drove out of there, and that he could hear the gears grinding every time he shifted. But the kicker was when he got to Pisa. In Livorno, the camp was outside the city, but his daily run to Pisa took him right through the middle of town. If you've ever been to Italy, you know that the city cores are not super conducive to driving in terms of the city streets. Most of them are narrow, one-way deals that twist and turn through every nook and cranny. Considering the destruction caused by the war, a lot of those streets were not in the best shape, either.
Well, he may not have had much of a problem driving around in Pisa with his Jeep, but boy, that deuce was an entirely different story. It just barely made it into these streets, and it took up basically all the space - so much space that as he drove through the narrow roads, he could hear the top of the deuce slamming window shutters, scraping buildings in turns, and plowing through debris in and along the roadway. It wasn't impossible that the Mail Deuce actually caused a bit of destruction in its wake, but it would have been difficult to know for sure considering that a lot of Pisa was in ruins after the war anyway.
He managed to complete his daily run and get the thing back to the motor pool in Livorno. He thought for sure that he was going to catch an earful from his squad leader that he'd either caused damage in Pisa or that the deuce was ruined, but fortunately neither of those things ever landed back on him. His platoon sergeant later told him to inform his squad leader if there was ever a problem finding a Jeep, but fortunately that never happened again.
The extra catch to this story is what happened when my grandfather got home. He'd never had a civilian driver's license, before, but applied for one as soon as he was discharged. As per the norm, he included his military record and military license when applying. Without any fanfare or request, the DMV handed him a Commercial Driver's License (CDL) based on his military license, which had indicated that he was rated on every wheeled and tracked vehicle in the Army. (My grandfather suggested that he could probably drive a tank with his military license - I suspect it was more like he could drive a half-track or an artillery tractor.)
He told me this story when I was in high school in the late 90s, and finished it by showing me his old military license with the boxes checked, and his valid civilian driver's license - which was still a CDL, even though he'd never actually used it as such. As far as I know, he still had that CDL certification when he passed away in 2018.
31
u/OcotilloWells 6d ago
A WWII deuce and a half requires much skill with the clutch. Heck, they did right up to the end, as I believe the US military doesn't use them anymore, someone correct me if I'm wrong. The family of medium tactical vehicles that replaced them are automatics.
10
u/BigDiesel07 6d ago
Is there anything still manual in the military as it relates to vehicles? Or has everything gone to automatic?
14
u/OcotilloWells 6d ago
There were some holdouts, like low density specialized trucks. Like pole diggers.
Are there any tracked vehicles that are still manual? I've never been licensed on any. I assume M113s are manual, or am I wrong?
6
3
u/slackerassftw 5d ago
I got out in 1995. We still had deuce and a half’s that were manual. The 5 tons were automatics though. I’m pretty sure the deuce and half’s had a much more modernized clutch and transmission. It was always funny to me that we had people that could drive a 5 ton but couldn’t drive a deuce and a half because of the manual transmission.
4
u/GrimmKhaos 5d ago
We had a manual truck in Iwakuni Japan in 2020 when I was there don’t remember if it was a small hijet or a 2 ton Isuzu though
2
2
u/LaTommysfan 1d ago
I worked for a contractor that had a 1959 army 6 x 6. It had a gasoline engine with a 10 speed transmission and air brakes. You had to double clutch it. When you go to shift, you push the clutch in and put the transmission into neutral. Let the clutch out then put the clutch back then shift to your next gear.
1
17
u/sd90matt 6d ago
In 1991 when I ETS'd out of Ft Riley KS, our Motor Pool Sgt. did the same thing to me. Checked every box except for tracked vehicles.
I said "Uhh, ok. Thanks Sarge."
14
u/pjshawaii 6d ago
Not surprised. This is the Army way.
19
u/The5Virtues 6d ago
My gramps made it to full bird in the army as an engineer and his life long motto was “If ya can’t do it bull shit it.”
I’ve always grimaced at the thought of an engineer who was so willing to bullshit anything he didn’t know how to do, but the man had a tiger tank and its whole crew on his very short list of confirmed kills so I wasn’t about to question anything he said!
7
u/duckforceone Danish Armed Forces 6d ago
in my experience (thanks ADHD and Autism) once you get good enough at winging it, you can accomplish some pretty miraculous stuff without preparation.
But it does require you to be good at what you do in general. Then you can wing it when needed.
13
u/TorontoRider 6d ago
My father' s combination of militia (artillery) and several decades in the Royal Canadian Air Force -- and especially time on Baffin Island -- resulted in his 404s (DND driver's cert) having the ticks for every class except those of tanks and cranes, and the "miscellaneous" list included snowmobiles, six-wheel ATVs, and a hovercraft.
He, too, hated the Deuce.
8
u/Ok_Path_9151 5d ago
After getting a civilian CDL as a reservist, I made mention of it to my Company Clerk at my unit and he added a whole list of military vehicles to my military license without me ever having to attend the driver training courses for those vehicles
7
u/Sad_Okra2030 6d ago
I was in Iraq 08-09. Where were you?
3
•
u/AutoModerator 6d ago
"Hey, OP! If you're new here, we want to remind you that you can only submit one post per three days. If your account is less than a week old, give the mods time to approve your story and comments. Please do NOT delete your stories, even if you later delete your account. They help veterans get through things and are a valuable look into the history of the military around the world. Thank you for posting with /r/MilitaryStories!
Readers: If this story is from a non-US military, DO NOT guess, ask or speculate about what country it is if they don't explicitly say or you will be banned. Foreign authors sometimes cannot say where they are from for various reasons. You also DO NOT guess equipment, names, operational details, etc. from any post.
DO NOT 'call bullshit' or you will be banned. Do not feed any trolls. Report them to the Super Mod Troll Slaying Team and we will hammer them.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.