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Famous 511th Quotations from Hohenfels 1990

29 January 2011 • by Bob • Military

In the 6th part of my series on the 511th MI Company, I have a short list of quotes that the ESM guys collected at Hohenfels, 1990.

Ah, CPT Quinn - everyone tried to explain to him that "break" was the proper proword to use when you had more to send over the radio, but he steadfastly refused to use anything other than "more follows." Obviously CPT Quinn was trained incorrectly when he went through MI Officer Basic. In one of those weird full circle coincidences, when I transferred to Fort Huachuca the following year, I wound up being the NCO that was in charge of training and grading the officers that were going through MI Officer Basic. I had no qualms whatsoever about telling any officer that they were a "NOGO" at my station, because I knew that these officers were going to wind up in charge of some poor MI platoon, and I couldn't put my fellow MI brethren through the embarrassment of having an officer that didn't know how to use the darn radio correctly.

1LT Innocenti and I did not get along on this field problem - although I don't think that he got along with anyone else in the EW platoons. Since 1LT Innocenti moved to GSR immediately after we returned to garrison, we only had him as a platoon leader for the combined duration of Hohenfels and Grafenwoehr, or about six weeks total, making that one of the shortest durations for a platoon leader that I saw in my eight years of military service. D.A. Morris saved my career while we were out in the field at Hohenfels when I stepped towards 1LT Innocenti with the full intention of decking him after he refused to let D.A. and I take everyone's guard duty and radio watch shifts to make up for all their hard work over the past several weeks. 1LT Innocenti claimed that he had done more work than anyone else, while in reality the only duty that he performed was running chow for us when he wasn't sleeping. What was even worse, his poor choices for words were accusing all of my subordinates of being lazy, while in reality they had been working nearly round-the-clock for several days. This was too much for me to take, so my right arm clenched into a fist and it would have been travelling in the direction of 1LT Innocenti's face when D.A. caught my arm and pulled me aside. I found out later that 1LT Innocenti had a black belt in Karate - so I probably wouldn't have been able to land a single punch before being hauled away to prison for assaulting an officer. (Thanks D.A. for saving my life!)

I bumped into CPT Innocenti several years later when he was going through the MI Officer Advanced Course in Ft. Huachuca, where I was helping to teach MI Operations. By that time we were able to have a few laughs about our shared history with no hard feelings. (CPT Innocenti - if you ever read this, my apologies once again; I was pretty young at the time.)

Another funny story about Hohenfels in 1990 was that I was one of only a handful of people that were chosen from the 11th ACR to brief LTG Joulwan, (who was the commanding general for all of the US Army forces in Europe), about regimental operations in Hohenfels. When the general arrived, I gave him a tour of the ESM gear, showed him how it worked, explained how we conducted operations, etc. After fifteen minutes or so, LTG Joulwan asked me what I thought of his field problem. I looked him right in the eye and said, "Frankly sir, I think it sucks." At that moment, 1LT Innocenti was standing behind the general, and I watched as he put his face in his hands - probably feeling that his career had just ended. The general was momentarily taken aback, and then he asked, "Why?" So I took the next five to ten minutes or so explaining how his deployment of US forces didn't match actual enemy tactics, how their radio communications were completely dissimilar, how we were able to wreak havoc simply by ICD'ing everyone on the planet, etc. The general and I had a pretty good conversation that lasted for several minutes, and eventually we agreed to disagree on several points. Before his departure, LTG Joulwan gave me one of his custom-made USAEUR coins "in recognition of my outstanding achievements," then he got in his humvee and drove off. CPT Quinn dropped by later and informed me that out of the hundreds of people that LTG Joulwan had met that day, I was one of only two people to which the general had given a coin. (CPT Quinn also asked me never to do that again.) So I like to remember that I received a medal (more or less) for being one of the few people who was willing to tell a three-star general to his face that I thought his training sucked.

More Famous Moments in the 511th History

27 January 2011 • by Bob • Military

My 5th installment of this series about the 511th MI Company is pretty much a sequel to the 4th installment. I'm fairly certain that I had two lists in my notes because they were more than likely created during different field problems a year or so apart.

It was also a great day for the 511th when...

I should like to point out that the mistake that I made on the TRQ-32 was not opening the ventilation flap on the side of the generator. I pointed that out myself, but that didn't stop the rest of the squad from holding me down and giving me a pink belly. I believe D.A. was the overall ringleader for my punishment, but I'm sure that I had it coming. ;-]

Famous Moments in the 511th History

26 January 2011 • by Bob • Military

In the 4th installment of this series about the 511th MI Company, I have a list of what we thought were great moments in 511th history. I don't know if anyone else recalls, but whenever morale was hitting a low point during a field problem - I'd pull out a pad of paper and have everyone make an obnoxious list of some sort. These lists were usually laced with a great deal of cynicism - and more often than not a great deal of profanity. So I'll have to clean these up a little before posting. ;-]

It was a great day for the 511th when...

Bryant - I'd like to apologize on behalf of Smith, Martin, and myself for stealing your clothes at Mt. Meissner. :-S

I'd also like to state - both emphatically and for the record - that I was a member of EW2 when EW1 was thrown out of the Turkish brothel. :-O

And it would be a great disservice if I didn't point out that there's no way that Cyr would have been lost in Turkey if it had not been for 2LT Gibson - the age old adage that the only thing more dangerous than a 2LT with a gun is a 2LT with a map certainly applies to that situation.

Famous Quotations of the Fighting 511th

24 January 2011 • by Bob • Military

In part 3 of this series about the 511th MI Company, we'll take a look at some common quotes that were said by several members of the 511th, although this list is obviously not exhaustive. These particular phrases were compiled by members of the EW platoons during one of our field problems, although it's been so many years I don't recall which one. ;-]

For the future, I have some great lists of famous moments in 511th history, and famous quotations from Hohenfels 1990.

Famous Nicknames of the Fighting 511th

23 January 2011 • by Bob • Military

In part 2 of my series on the 511th MI Company, we'll take a look at some of the nicknames from the 511th that I managed to write down; although I need to stick to my disclaimer that I did not come up with these nicknames - I just took the time to write them down. ;-]

And my personal favorite:

There is one nickname that I wrote down that I didn't post here, and that was for Bill McCollum. I didn't add his nickname to this list because it might not be fit for the public. If you remember his nickname, you can smile about it now. If you don't, that'll remain a secret between the rest of us.

Who did I miss?

10/21/2014 Update - Bullseye Babbs was a 1LT who took over one of the EW platoons. He earned his nickname on one of the M-60 ranges when he failed to understand how his weapon's scopes worked, so instead of throwing rounds 1km downrange like everyone else, he was thoroughly pulverizing the ground about 5-10 feet in front of us; huge amounts of debris were being thrown into the air as everyone was screaming at him to cease fire. (It probably would have been funny if it hadn't been so dangerous.)

03/14/2018 Update - Terry Knaul dropped me a line to let me know that I had his name listed incorrectly; my apologies, and that has been fixed.

Famous Callsigns of the Fighting 511th

22 January 2011 • by Bob • Military

Over the 3.5 years that I spent in the Fulda Gap with the 511th MI Company, I collected and saved a lot of the stories and lists that the EW and TCAE teams put together. All of this nostalgic trivia is twenty years old now, but it still makes me laugh when I think about the people and times that it represents. Of course, this is mostly a collection of inside jokes with the people that were there.

So this will be part one of a series, and I should point out that I did not create this information - I just took the time to write it down. ;-]

UPDATE: While these were not entirely unique, we often used the following color-coded generic callsigns when we were on recon assignments where only one radio entity was present from each of the different platoons:

Replacing a Military Radio - The Hard Way

04 January 2011 • by Bob • Humor, Military

Many years ago - more years than I would care to admit - I spent eight years in the Army as a 98G Voice Intercept Operator, which is a long title for someone that spends a lot of time listening to what other people are saying, taking notes, and then telling someone else what was being said. I won't go into any more details about what I did for a living, but for several years I was stationed in Fulda, Germany, where I was a member of the 511th Military Intelligence Company, which was attached to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

My fellow soldiers and I spent a lot of time hiding in the forests along what was then the border between East and West Germany, which is where the conditions were generally the best for our line of work. During the day we used an AN/TRQ-32(V) Radio Receiving Set, which we affectionately called the "Turkey 32."

The Turkey 32 was my favorite piece of equipment, and it's primarily used for direction finding operations. (Which means "locating the bad guys.") The only trouble with the Turkey 32 was - it used a great deal of fuel, and its generator was horribly loud, so at night we would shut down the Turkey 32 and use our AN/TRQ-30 Manpack Radio Receiving Set to continue our listening activities... which we called the "Turkey 30."

These radios were left over from a bygone era in the distant past - like the Korean War, or maybe the Civil War - so they were really starting to show their age. One of our radios was falling apart - literally. The knobs on the face panel kept falling off, the reception was terrible, the tuner barely moved, etc. I knew that my Turkey 30 was on its last legs and was in dire need of some kind of emergency maintenance, so one day I hauled my Turkey 30 to our Circuits & Electronics (C&E) office to see what my options were. (I was secretly hoping that C&E would replace the radio, but I was almost certain that it would simply spend a few weeks in the shop for repairs.) I had a good friend who was working in C&E that day, SP4 Villarreal, and he replied that as long as the radio was working, there was nothing that he could do about it.

So I started to pack up the radio, and I was probably muttering something about the fact that I had no idea how long it would take for the radio to eventually die, when Villarreal stopped me and said, "Perhaps you weren't paying attention, so listen to me very closely this time - we can't fix it, but if it doesn't work then we can replace it."

And suddenly - the light bulb turned on.

I blissfully carried the Turkey 30 back to our platoon office in the 511th building and announced to everyone, "Gentlemen, this radio has to die - today." So we spent the next hour or so having a contest to see who could throw the Turkey 30 the furthest from the 2nd-story window where our platoon office was located. After everyone had made their share of attempts at breaking the previous distance record, we declared the contest winners with the usual pomp and circumstance that is called for in such occasions - which means that several people were undoubtedly punched a few times before heading back to work.

Once that was taken care of, I packed up the Turkey 30 and strolled back to the C&E office, where I announced to Villarreal that, "For some reason my Turkey 30 has stopped working." Villarreal didn't blink as he overlooked the massive dents and broken glass and replied, "Well, we'll just have to order you a replacement."

It's times like that when it's great to have friends in the right places. Smile

In Honor of Veteran's Day

11 November 2010 • by Bob • Military

The Soldier

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag,
who serves under the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag. 

--By Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

Misadventures with Foreign Languages

21 October 2010 • by Bob • Humor, Military

I served in the Army for 8 years as a Russian translator. When I was still in Russian school, we were required to attend "conversation" class, where a group of students would sit down and discuss various topics with one of the instructors.

One day the instructor asked me what I had been doing the previous evening, and I said that I had played soccer. She asked what position I played, and since I didn't know the Russian noun for a goal keeper, I took a chance and replied in Russian that "I played goalie." She looked surprised, and asked if I was often goalie when playing soccer, and I replied yes - I usually play goalie. After that we chatted back and forth about how I preferred to play goalie, why I preferred to play goalie, etc. This conversation continued for about a minute, when she switched to English and informed me that in Russian "goalie" (голый) is the adjective for "naked".

So I had spent the last part of the conversation waxing poetic about my preference for playing soccer... well... you know. ;-)

And the walls came tumbling down...

09 November 2009 • by Bob • Military

Today is November 9th - which marks the 20-year anniversary of the re-opening of the borders in Germany, which ultimately resulted in the fall of Soviet Communism. While most of us remember where we were on 9/11/2001, I also remember where I was on 11/9/1989 - I was on the East German border, helping to keep the Russian 8th Guards Army at bay...

For all the hype about the Cold War, Nuclear Proliferation, and Mutually-Assured Destruction that we had way back when, at least we knew who they bad guys were and where they were hiding. I have often said that I loved what I did back then, and that’s still a true statement. That being said, I must admit that I have enough memories to last a dozen lifetimes of sleepless nights in sub-zero temperatures chasing signals through the RF spectrum or standing guard duty in some dark corner of the world where even the evil empire had the good sense to avoid. But the simple fact is - business was good during the Cold War, right up to the time when peace broke out and ruined my life and I had to get a real job. ;-)

In any case, I tip my hat to my fellow members of the Fulda Fighting 511th and the Bat Cave Dwellers of Fort Huachuca. Even though it’s grammatically incorrect to express it this way, it seems appropriate for me to say: "We did good."

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