Raymond L. Jones's Blog

My latest work has just been published.
Ever wonder what the story of a soldier is all about? Well, this soldier has a story to tell. In fact, this is His-story, not history. The life and times of a soldier who enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard at the young age of seventeen and ended up retiring twenty-five years later from active duty after five deployments - fifty-fours months - between Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the first half of my-story.

I had a great time and I wanted to thank Major Andrew White of Kilroy’s Conversations KXTV 1160 AM for inviting me out to the Hire Hero’s 5K Saturday morning. I had the opportunity of a lifetime when I met football legend and one of my boyhood hero’s…Drew Pearson of the Dallas Cowboys, the original 88! Drew Pearson was kind enough to sign a copy of one of my books for me! A memento I will cherish.

Check out my webpage at:
www.armyknucklehead.com

Thanks!

Ray Jones

I submitted my edits to the manuscript to Bob Babcock of Deeds Publishing. Ceilia Stratton, the former 4ID Museum Director at Fort Hood, offered some great comments, edits, and recommendations which only makes the book that much better. Based on her advise, I utilized foot notes for explanations and I am adding a glossary for acronyms used through out the book.

One of the constants in the army is the jargon we use. I have been around the military for my entire life so the jargon is part of my nature. I forget it's almost a foreign language for those not familiar with the military.

I am still hoping for a Memorial Day release of 'What Now, Knucklehead?'

My second book is about ready to send to the editor. Problem is, I haven't decided on the title and was hoping I could get some help. I have three ideas for you to chose from, however, I am open to others. Please vote by responding to this post with either the number associated with the title or with an addition suggestion. The current choices are:

1. We were Knuckleheads Once...and young.
2. FM 102 - Knuckleheads
3. Then a Knucklehead...

Prize! - If I chose your title then I will send you a signed copy of my first book.

While in Afghanistan on my first tour there, I was deployed with another major who was on his first deployment. As this was my fourth deployment, I was somewhat of an old hand at the ins and outs of what to expect, the other major on the, on the other hand, was understandably anxious. We were on a remote Forward Operating Base (FOB) in one of the south east provinces which had a habit of receiving indirect fire from time to time.
The thing about the bad guys shooting indirect fires at us is, they weren’t all that accurate. Being an artilleryman, I have a fundamental understanding of the elements of accurate fires and truthfully, the bad guys had all the odds stacked against them. Even so, every once in a while miraculously a round would find its way onto the FOB.
This other major had heard all of the horror stories about working with the Afghans. How there were a number of them that would turn on us from time to time at the drop of a hat. His job was to account for all the equipment we had given over to the Afghans and in order to do so he would have to venture down to the Afghan HQ and start counting.
The Afghans we worked with were rather tempered and the Afghan battalion commander had given me his personal guarantee that we would be safe while under his charge. Having a bit of experience I knew to take this for what is was worth, however, one couldn’t overtly contradict this promise for fear of insulting the battalion commander. Wearing our armor while walking on the FOB was taboo as we didn’t want to appear weak to the eyes of the Afghans. So, there was a little bit of danger involved in what he had to do, but, the job had to be done.
As the major was a guest of my team, I was obligated to provide a security team for him. I offered up two soldiers to escort and act as his security while he did what he had to do. For some reason he insisted on wearing his armor everywhere he went. The other soldiers began to talk about this major behind his back and I do remember at least one conversation about his behavior with the Afghan commander. I began to get the hint he was causing an embarrassment for us so I decided to confront him and ask him to muscle up and start acting like a leader.
It was during our Thanksgiving feast that I was able to get the chance to confront him and I sat down with him and we both enjoyed the wonderful meal the FOB cook staff had prepared for us. Truthfully, those cooks were able to conjure up a miracle from time to time and this meal was one of them. As we finished our meal, I decided it was time to talk to him.
I am not all that political in my demeanor and this was one time I wish I was. I told him about the Afghan commander’s promise and how if we appeared not to trust him it could turn him against us; I continued by telling him the security team was more or less embarrassed to escort him and he needed to muscle up a little bit. Right after I finished my well-rehearsed speech, four rockets impacted on the FOB as if on queue. The chow hall was full of soldiers and as the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for rounds impacting on the FOB was to find overhead cover, wait for the all clear, then account for everybody, understandably there was a mad rush for the doors of the chow hall.
Me, knowing more folks were probably injured rushing to the bunkers than by the actual impacts, I sat back calmly and waited for the doorways to clear before I moved to the bunkers. Truthfully, as a leader, I am under the school of thought that the leader has to remain calm for fear of insighting fear amongst the troops. The other major, he subscribed to a whole different school of thought. I think he ran over no less than twelve soldiers barreling through the doors.
After the all clear was given, I was in the process of accounting for all my troops. This generally takes a couple of minutes and I did have some great NCOs on my team, which made this process a lot simpler. None of us could find this other major. We spent about 30 minutes looking for him and he was nowhere to be found. I was receiving pressure from the FOB headquarters for my report and I told them I couldn’t find this one Soldier we began a search party looking for him. Four hours later, he was still nowhere to be found. I began to fear a DUSTWUN (Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown) or more commonly known as MIA (Missing in Action).
I began to pull the report together and I began to think, where could he be? We hadn’t had anyone rush the FOB during the indirect attack. He was there with me in the chow hall after the last round had impacted so I was relatively certain he wasn’t injured by them. Where was he…
I decided to look in his room one last time. I walked into his room and looked around a bit. As I began to walk towards the door I heard a faint call, “Ray…”
I looked around and didn’t see anyone and I began to think I was hearing things. I walked toward the door again and a little louder I heard a distinct, “Ray….”
“Hello?” I answered.
“I need help.” I heard.
“Where the hell are you”, I asked. “Over here”, I heard from under the bed. He had worked himself so far underneath his bunk he couldn’t work himself out again.
I was thankful for several things that day. One, all my soldiers were unharmed by the indirect fires; two, the food was wonderful; and finally, I had found my knucklehead major hiding under his bunk.

When I was a Platoon leader we deployed to 29 Palms California. Some folks will ask, what the heck is an army artillery unit doing on a marine post? We were an MLRS battalion (Multiple Launch Rocket System – and we shoot really far!) and we needed space to shoot our systems and 29 Palms was just about perfect because the entire post is an impact zone. We loved it. Anyway, we had been there for about a week or so and I had my platoon set up in a platoon operating area. I was driving around early one morning looking over some things when the urge in my bowels hit me.
I told my driver to stop the vehicle and I climbed out, grabbed the shovel, the toilet seat, and walked around to the front of the vehicle. I then dropped the grill on the hummer, clamped the toilet seat to the grill, and dug a hole directly under the seat. I climbed on the seat and began to read. My driver, having a bit more couth walked around to the rear of the hummer so as to smoke a cigarette.
Unbeknownst to me, my platoon sergeant saw my humvee from a distance and not knowing what I was up to decided the area I had picked was a good place to feed chow. He approached my vehicle from the backside and he was oblivious to my disposition.
Our normal procedure for feeding chow was for the platoon sergeant to call the launcher chiefs and have them meet us at a centralize location, back the two humvees together, drop the tailgates so he would have two flat surfaces to serve chow from.
Imagine my surprise when I heard the tell tale sounds of approaching tracked vehicles and right in front of me there was one screaming towards my position. As the launcher approached I saw the launcher chief pointing and laughing his ass off. I looked to my left and saw another launcher approaching. This is a situation they really don’t train you on at OBC (Officer Basic Course). I did what every good leader would do in this situation…I reached for the toilet paper.

First Range

I remember this one time while I was a 2nd Lieutenant stationed at Fort Sill, I had just finished my initial entry training, had been assigned to my first unit, and given my first range to run. It was a .50 cal range, the weapon system in known a the M2 or Ma deuce and is one of the best weapons ever entered into the army inventory. It remains mostly unchanged even after over a hundred years of service. It serves as both an air defense weapons system and an effective ground unit weapon system, anyway, I digress.

As this was my first range I was rather excited. I went through the proper channels and procedures of organizing and coordinating the necessary resources for my range, briefed the operations officer and the battalion commander on my plan, and got the green light to execute. The day of execution arrived; I took my platoon out to the range, set up and waited for folks to arrive so they could qualify on their Ma deuces. Out at the range there is an observation tower, a set of bleachers, and an ammunition shack (a little 10x10 building designed for a crew of soldiers to occupy and keep the ammo under cover and out of the elements). We setup a butcher block (a large display with instructions written on it) to inform folks what was expected out at our range.

My platoon sergeant (the second in charge of a platoon) told me to sit in the HMMWV (High Mobile Multipurpose Wheel Vehicle – pronounced HUM-VEE also known as a hummer) and watch the radio. I had been enlisted at one point so I knew a little bit about the army. I had never been a platoon leader before nor had I ever run a range before; and, I knew a lot of platoon sergeants were skeptical about former enlisted officers as we tend to want to “take over” and run the platoon. The running (or operations) of a platoon is the purview of the platoon sergeant. The over all management of the platoon rests on the lieutenant. So, he and I had talked about this in the past and I was content to let him run things – boy would I be sorry.

About halfway through the day, while I was sitting in the HMMWV acting as an over paid radio operator, the lazy day was interrupted by a KKRACCKK!!! Quickly followed by a TWANG!!! I learned quickly these were the tell tale sounds of a round impacting in the bleachers. Everything seemed to freeze in place.

I jumped out of the hummer and ran over to the bleachers in order to see if anyone was hurt. Fortunately, the bleachers were empty but sure as shit there was a hole (a rather large one) extremely visible right through the bleachers. I looked at my platoon sergeant wanting an explanation. He said,

“Hell sir, I don’t know what happened but, don’t worry about it. I know the guys out at range control. We’ll be able to cover this up no problem”. I had my doubts.

At the end of the day I reported to the battalion commander about the results of my days range; the number of folks who attended and number of folks who qualified. We had had a pretty successful day with about 30 systems running through the range (we had expected about 35) and all had qualified. I carefully avoided anything about the bleachers. When I finished reporting and answering all his questions, I saluted and said, “Sir, this concludes my report”.

He returned my salute and I started for the door. Just before I reached it he asked, “Ray, do you have anything else to tell me?”

My heart almost stopped. My palms began to sweat. My throat went completely dry. I knew he knew what had happened. I turned around and held my head low to the ground.

“Yes sir, we had a round that somehow hit the bleachers.”

“Ray, I’m glad you told me. If you had lied I was going to fire you.” He calmly said. I did receive a thorough ass chewing but I didn’t get fired. I had to file a report and do an investigation into the incident as punishment but over all I learned a couple of life lessons about the incident. One, don’t try to hide the truth; and two, my platoon sergeant was a piece of shit.