Military Experience

By Daniel Taverne

As noted in my 'about me' section on the left, I am a veteran. I have spent 7 years in the regular army, and another 4 or 5 in the national guard. If you're wondering which service I liked more, I'll tell you that the regular army was much better.

I was stationed at Ft. Polk Louisiana for the majority of my active service, but did train and conduct operations in other parts of the country and world.

I was a combat communicator and was in HHB 5th Divarty and 5th Signal Bn.

Ft. Polk was great. They had a new hospital, swimming facilities, relatively new barraks, and plenty of places to have fun off post.

I used to go into Leesville and eat my breakfasts at BJ's Diner, and I'd get my oriental cooking at the Starlite Diner... they had the best egg rolls which weren't rolls at all, they were little cabbage filled triangles and they were the best.

I was a nucleur/ bio/chem nco and went to chemical defense school on north fort, and I participated in my primary leadership development school there as well. I also went to army maintenance and management (TAMMS) school as well as a highly classified communications school on north fort as well.

One story I can tell about happened when I was in the field on a training exercise and got lost with 2 of my friends.

We wandered away taking some 'action' photo's then couldn't find our way back untill about 12 hours later... we were cold/hungry and in a lot of trouble.

The first Sergeant asked us, "Does this look like the damn boy scouts?! Do I look like a boy scout leader?!" We were shaking in our boots when we found out the batallion commander was out looking for us as well as the batallion sergeant major.

My two buddies got article 15's, I got a verbal reprimand because I was never in trouble before and was on good terms with everyone.

I was once sent after some squelch grease, a product which I soon discovered does not exist... I looked for hours.

Boot shining was a joy. Some NCO's at my medic school at ft. Sam houston showed us how to make quick work of it with a soldering torch, or a lighter. I explain how to do this in my archives which tell you how to spit shine a pair of boots or shoes.

Fox hole digging was also a blast... once it was almost a real blast.

Our Platoon leader, 1st lt. Beck was stomping on a spot telling my buddies to dig their fighting position in a particular spot. About 10 minutes later, the ordinance disposal unit had to be called because about 1 foot below the surface of the ground, a big old crate of TNT was discovered with the nitrous leaking out all ov er the place.

You can find further military stuff in my archives.