How I became known as 'Lightning-6'...

On another website there is a place called "Together We Served" which is for members of the US Army (current, retired and passed). Soldiers can list their bio on there and it is a place where others who served with them can make contacts, swap stories and generally get reconnected. One of the first things listed on the site is the Soldier's name along with his/her nickname. Most are personal, some reflect the macho nature of soldiering, some are comical and some just state simple facts (like the guy nicknamed "Goofy Dude").

Well, my nickname is "Lightning-6." Now I didn't get that name because I was the fastest commander in the Army, and it didn't have anything to do with being a super hero either. This was a name given to me by an officer in another MP battalion, MAJ Jim Platt.

It seems our MP brigade was on an exercise and we got caught out in the field during a severe, pop-up thunder storm. Most of the battalion commanders had been briefed on safety during storms prior to the initial move to the field. However, that was four days ago and this storm came up so fast, it literally raced across one open field and was on us before anyone could really react. Now normally Range Control would send radio warnings to field troops of such storms, however, we were so far out and there were two mountain ranges between us and them, their message never got to us. Anyhow, when the winds that preceded the lightning and rain hit our tents (somewhere around 30 m.p.h. full gust) we tried to save them as best we could. About a minute into the first blast, I remember holding onto the center pole, trying to add weight to it, and being lifted off the ground as the tent attempted to take flight.

My radio man was on our net contacting the battalions of the approaching winds. Most of them were at the two POW camps in which we were training just on the other side of the mountains. The commanders managed to get everyone out of the camp and onto the trucks before the storm hit. So now there was nothing else to do but hunker down and wait it out, envisioning a long night of putting tents (mostly GP Mediums and GP Larges) up in the dark (the storm blew over many of the generator light sets and broke cables or bulbs). Good training, right!!

As we sat there in the T.O.C. (Tactical Operations Center), a bolt of lightning struck the ground out by the road, about a half-mile away, and must have hit the underground mag drop line (Army talk for buried phone line). It then carried downline to our switchboard and blew it up like it had been hit by a rocket. Shrapnel flew everywhere and now we had a tent with holes in it!! The the radio man who was not operating the switch but still had a headphone in his hand got knocked about three feet. The Opns. Officer who was sitting next to him in one of those field chairs got knocked down as the lightning must have jumped from the switch to the metal frame in his chair and shot a hole in his uniform sleeve. What a night!! Fortunately, no one got seriously hurt.

Being the good Brigade G-3 that I was (the BDE Commander and Deputy were not in the AO so I was in charge), I thought I had better go out and check on my units. With all our commo shot, I jumped in the HUMMER with the CSM and off we went. Just as I was walking up to the CP of one of the other battalions, wouldn't you know lightning struck close by and the thunder rattled everyone's teeth in that tent. OK -- two strikes for the night. I figured that was just a coincidence and after being assured everyone was OK there, we went out for the second battalion which was kinda co-located with this one. Yep, they had lost some tents and a couple of them said they had a lightning strike a few minutes ago and a big tree limb fell just missing one of their generators. I had one more battalion to check so the CSM and I headed out. By now the storm had pretty much passed and we were in a bit of a calm period.

There is a time-honored tradition with commanders in the military that says when the boss leaves one area and is headed for yours, you call that unit and let them know he is on the way. So the last unit did that and when I got to the next battalion's CP, MAJ Platt came out and welcomed us, and informed me that my new nickname was now "Lightning-6" and if I was bringing any lightning with me I was not welcome in their area!! The name stuck and from that point on, that has been my name.

The story doesn't end there, however. Everything was a mess -- tents were full of holes and almost all of them were blown down, some of them entangled in the barbed wire and concertina wire of the POW camps, mess tents were down, and troops were soaked as was their gear. I called all the commanders and told them to leave a small volunteer guard detail at their sites and get the rest of the troops back to the base to dry out, and get a good night's sleep. I told them to have their mess fixed in the mess hall and ready for an "Oh-dark-thirty" departure. Again, we had been out about four nights by this time and they had done a good job so far. So as the troops were pulling out of the south camp, MAJ Platt must have remembered something in his TOC and ran back into the tent in pitch dark. He ran full tilt into a tent pole and knocked himself out cold. The Battalion Commander got annoyed waiting for him and decided to go see what was holding him up. As he entered the tent, he tripped over Platt lying there on the ground. What a comedy!! Of course, Jim didn't remember anything and fortunately I didn't get blamed for that one. I don't know which is the better nickname -- "Lightning-6" or "Stone Cold."

Jim and I served together again when we were both assigned to the Pentagon. It's memories like these and all the friendships that I have made over the years that make me glad I stayed in for all those years. They weren't all good times and everything didn't always turn out OK, but I don't think I would have traded it for anything.

All the truely great things in the world are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; peace; friendships; mercy; hope; duty... and faith.

Hooah