On 01-11-09, BOB ACKLEY said to TIM RICHARDSON:

TR> Well........this guy was about 5'8" (I don't know how big the NCO
TR> was), but he was a small version of Hulk Hogan! He'd been a varsity
TR> wrestler, had been on an amateur boxing team and finished pretty
TR> high-ranked in the state amateur boxing matches back then. Not the
TR> sort of person you'd just casually offer to `go behind the barracks'
TR> with. And he had a hair trigger temper to go with it!


BA>After I finished basic training I had to hang around Lackland for about a
BA>*month* waiting for my school to start.  One of the tasks I was assigned
BA>was to escort a troop from the stockade to the AG's office and back.
BA>Seems on day-1 of basic training he decked the TI (who probably deserved
BA>it).  This fellow and his twin brother had enlisted together and had taken
BA>bunks on opposite sides of the bay's aisle; the TI (about 5'6", maybe 140
BA>pounds, and with a really mean mouth and attitude) started giving his
BA>brother some sh*t.  Kid took one step across the aisle, grabbed the TI by
BA>the shoulder and spun him around, and one good punch to the jaw, TI
BA>backpedalled the length of the bunk plus about 3 feet and put a dent in the
BA>sheetrock wall before he hit the floor.  Kid was court-martialled, got 30
BA>days in the stockade and a DD.


I was going to be TDY at Ft. Dix for a couple of months, and got assigned to
the Post Stockade as a cell block guard. You had to wear Class A's every day,
and the formation and inspection took place at 5:30 AM, six days a week. It
was like an enhanced basic training inspection, everything had to be perfect:
haircut, spit-shined low-quarters, the whole works. It was during the months
of `winter green' class A's, and I had two uniforms for that.


The stockade commander, a Major, was a real nice person. His deputy commander,
a Captain, was a real dick! He was almost always sitting in the office of the
stockade HQ during morning formation, and typically came out and `walked the
ranks' while the Sergeant of the Guard read off post escort assignments for
the day, or gave us info on cell block security changes or upgrades (the post
stockade was operated by an MP company).


My fourth week there, the Sergeant of the Guard asked the whole formation if
anyone knew anything about building maintainence, one of the training
battalions needed a maintainence man. I raised my hand, and was transfered
immediately out of the stockade personnel barracks, to (of all places!) the
same battalion I had taken basic training in. It was dream-duty! I had my own
room in a `hold-over barracks in the Battalion area (it was actually a two man
room, but nobody else was assigned to it all the time I was there), I got up
around 6:30 or so.....meandered over to the mess hall and got breakfast, went
back and laid around for an hour or so, then went over to Bat HQ around 9:am,
had a small office right off the main room of HQ.


The BatCQ's desk was right in the main entrance room as you walked in the
front door, and the BatCO and Sgt Major's offices nearby. The maintainence
office was just chock full of tools of all kinds, plumbing tools, carpenter
tools, all over the place! Took me almost a week just to organize all the
tools and hang them up on the walls, build tool boxes for most of them, or
just store them down in the cellar.


Each morning the BatCQ would hand me a list of things needing done around the
Battalion (broken or cracked windows, stuffed toilets, leaky pipes, whatever),
I'd usually have most of them taken care of by noon, spend the rest of the day
working on tools or tool boxes at BatHQ in the cellar, and leave right after
the Sgt Major left in the afternoon (around 3:PM or so). It was a real cool
job. I was my own boss. I had hopes of spending my whole time in service right
there. But.......



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*Durango b301 #PE*