Hanging Out in the Back of an Army Cargo Trailer

It may have been on this particular “road march,” or another like it that the rain began. And “we’re not talking” some average little Florida downpour, (which starts and ends almost before it began). No, this was a real “frog choker.” This drencher to end all drenchers began shortly after our National Guard unit left the armory, and continued as our twenty or more jeeps, blazers, and deuce and a halves pulled into the main gate at the Avon Park Bombing Range.

As we rolled into our field area, it was like the first paragraph from that old volume, “Jane Eyre.”

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so somber, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

And similarly, like Jane Eyre, I was glad of it.

I was fine with retreating to a window seat; (well, not exactly a window seat). As I recall, six of us, (a couple of whom no longer live and breathe) retreated to the driest available location; a cargo trailer. Apparently, there was very little cargo in it, or if so, only a small tent and poles lay on the floor.

And so we found ourselves “snug as a bug in a rug,” and quite filling up the drop down benches which lined each side of the trailer, while the rain continued its unmerciful deluge round about us. Thankfully, the green canvass which lined the wooden structure was “high and dry,” and no leak intruded on our revelry.

My military friends and I spent the next couple of hours talking about a myriad of miscellaneous and sundry things; none of which I remember now. But strangely enough, (to me, at least) as I write these words, it is with tears I remember that day.

It was a personally singular day that came and went, and will never return. But, for whatever reason, it is indelibly etched into my memory.

And I can only wonder if anyone else who sat in that little cargo trailer that day recalls that little interlude which served to postpone our Uncle Sam’s agenda; if only for a little while.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "Snapshots From a Life (Not Always So) Well-lived. Vol. 4. Copyright 2010

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