Once on the 0001-0400 perimeter watch in the Ocala National Forrest in Florida, I was attacked by an armadillo. Did you know they make a hopping attack while on their hand legs, front claws up. I learned that if you time you kick just right they fly through the air like a placed kicked extra point...and when they hit the ground it they make a sound like a sack of chains hitting pavement.

The most dangerous event for me on parameter watch was driving around the bombing range during deer season. The hunters used us to sight in their rifle scopes. My budding "Wild" Bill Long and I were young 3rd Class Petty officers armed with a broken radio. We had to run off about forty heavily armed deer huntin Florida Crackers and their girl friends that had camped in one of our radar picket sights. All we said was their was a squadron of A-7's coming down from Cycil Field to do live shooting and bombing practice and their aim wasn't very good...(they had taken out several Winnebagos and a DOT dump truck in the months prior). The girls helped out by pulling on their camo covered hubbies and boyfriends and saying "lets gooo...now!"

Then there was the time we "captured" a dozen fully armed and dressed German WWII Wehrmacht soldiers having reenactment war games on our bombing range (this was Florida in 1978). By "captured" I mean we detained them and called the local Sheriff to come pickup the wierdos.

What does this have to do with the Civil War? I'm sure their guard duty was just as strange.

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David Upton