Quote:
Originally posted by RHClarke
Honest navigation mistake...I think not. The boys were probably having a little fun at your expense...not an uncommon event.
|
Worst mistake I had them do to me was in Bosnia. I got a recovery call for a AVGP. The grid referance was down in a valley, where the guys routinely did there patrol. I had not been there before. I took an HLVW flatrack truck (no rack, so it made for a nice short tractor with a winch to boot) and the 30,000 lb beaver tail trailer.
To get in to the valley, I had to go down the tightest mountain trail I had ever gone on. There were soviet bloc equipment blown up over the edges of the trail, and to get around the switchbacks, at one point I had to disconnect the trailer to get a tight enough jacknife to make it around. The outer two wheels were actually over the edge of the cliff going around it.
There were lots of minefields marked, and as we got in to the valley, you could see the various trench placements, along with, of course, more minefields. I could see AVGP tracks on the ground, so I thought we were getting close.
Got to within 10 meters of where they were supposed to be, and of course, no-one there. Searched around a bit, and finally decided to leave, but by the long (and flat) way out of the valley. Just as we are reaching the end, up pulls the BKs Iltis. He gets out to explain that the M-Bdr made a mistake on his GPS coordinates, and that they were in fact up on the highway, about 3 miles from where we had first turned off. Apparently they had also called back to give sh*t to my 2i/c, and accused me of going to dinner while they were waiting at the side of the road. My 2i/c actually hung up on the Captain, because the Captain was so mad. That was about the time when they decided to look at the map, and realised they sent me to the wrong place.
Turns out that when you turn on the GPS, it reads the last place at which you took a reading, which was where they were the day before.
They were actually quite amazed that I made it down that mountain. Apparently they had to do 3 point turns with the AVGPs to make it through there.
Needless to say, I was not too impressed.
Did I ever tell you guys about how I used to make the combat arms guys hold the spark plug wires with the engine running while I looked for the engine miss?