About Fort Bragg...

I mentioned being stopped by security forces at Fort Bragg in my skiing post. Of course that requires a story.

My son's troop and I went to Fort Bragg for a weekend last year. When you arrive at the entrance, everyone must exit the vehicle, open all doors, open the engine hood and the trunk. All adults must hand over their driver licences for background checks. The entrance guards who are wearing guns search the vehicle and engine I guess for bombs or whatever. Its an interesting site to see. So I thought I would take some pictures. WRONG!!!.

When a guard saw me taking pictures, he immediately stopped me. Said he was supposed to hold me for questioning. He was not kidding. He evaluated the situation and decided to have me go through every picture on my camera and delete the pictures I had taken at the entrance. I was relieved that was the satisfactory conclusion to the incident. Anyway everyone had a good laugh later at my expense.

We had a great weekend. We got to meet with the military bomb squad who allowed us to experiment with bomb disposal robots which cost $250,000 a piece. There were three guys in the unit on duty. The officer was probably around 28-30 years old. The other two were around 24 years old. These guys get called out every week to go somewhere to dispose of suspected bombs. Very sobering to see people so young doing very dangerous jobs. In fact the base had just lost one of the bomb squad in Iraq that week. We saw the parachute practice run area. We didn't get to actually do the practice because too many soldiers are away in Iraq and Afganistan. Like I would really climb the tower and go down the wire.

At times, I felt like we were in Iraq as we saw military hummers with a soldiers sticking out of the top with mounted machine guns. I think they were going to military exercises.

We saw the airborne museum and I was very surprised to see a very large glider made of canvas and light framework that was used in World War II to deliver troops and equipment to the front. These gliders could carry over 4000 lbs. (see this site for details http://www.exploringthenorth.com/gliders/history.html). I had never heard of this.

We went bowling on the base that night. It was a lot of fun. They turned off all the lights at the bowling alley and only had black lights illumating every thing. It was like one big party on a Saturday night. Soldiers, their dates, and families were all there having a great time.

We ate every meal on base eating in the same cafeteria as the soldiers. I did see one funny site. A woman soldier went up to a guy soldier, both dressed in full uniform, and gave each other a big hug. They appeared to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I just thought it was funny, nice, but funny. I'm not used to seeing soldiers in uniforms give hugs. It was cute. Both were very professional just funny to see.

I stayed out of trouble the remainder of the stay, but one of the cub scout Mom's told me of her recent visit a couple of months ago. She had heard about my getting in trouble through the grape vine and wanted to share her recent incident.

She and her 10 year old son went to Fort Bragg for him to participate in an ice hockey competition on the base. She somehow missed the main entrance, but saw a small entrance to the base. There was one soldier sitting in the booth at the entrance. She didn't know if she was supposed to stop or not. As she drove told the entrance, the soldier didn't get up and motion in any way so she drove on. Definitely WRONG unfortunately!

After she passed the entrance, several hidden military vehicles took off after her with lights and sirens blaring. She quickly realized she should have stopped and pulled over. She figured they would talk to her and then she could go on. The soldiers poured out of the vehicles with guns drawn. They got her out of the car and had her hands on the hood. She thought they were going to search her. Next thing she knew her hands were handcuffed behind her back as she laid down on the hood. They got her drivers licence and were doing a background check. She kept looking at her son in the car who was looking more than a little concerned. As the soliders sized up the situation, one of the soldiers said take the cuffs off before you freak her kid out. They established her identity and purpose and then let her go with an apology but with a reminder that they have to do their job. She recovered quickly but will always remember this somewhat funny event.

Nice to know though that our forces are on the job.