Oh, yeah: I should probably note that I prefer to combat bugs with my BB gun.  The advantage in stand-off range easily makes up for the bad PR at home.  Of course, I make every attempt to make these operations as covert as possible.

And so the truce continued.  If I’d spy an advanced scout, I might fire a warning shot with a rolled up newspaper – just as a reminder.  Oddly enough, it wasn’t the domestic spider clan that launched the epic offensive.  Even more oddly, they didn’t attack my wife – they made a full frontal assault on my main body.  And now that I think of it, that term applies literally!

I had spent a day camping

with some friends out near Jackson.  Not the kind of "camping" that requires $300,000 in equipment and a few tanks of gas.  I’m talking a survival knife, a match and a couple quarts of water.  (In all honesty, there were probably some franks, chips and a beer or two as well, but that’s beside the point.)

In the morning I awoke a bit groggy… and late.  So instead of rolling my sleeping gear up neatly…

Yeah, so what?!  I had a sleeping bag.  I also took a size 12 green rubber army overboot – left, if you must know… what else was I going to use for the beer and ice?  Sheesh, not every camping trip has to be high-adventure!

…oh…

…I just wadded it in a ball and threw it in the back seat.

The weather was just about perfect, so I left the windows down… yeah, as in: they weren’t ever up all night… and enjoyed the trip home.

Even though I was in a leisurely mood (and a bit on the groggy side), this was during a phase of my life when driving too fast was just a standard procedure.  I thought the sign "kill a road worker 5 years $15,000" referred to a reward paid out in the form of an annuity!  And as the old joke has it the two seasons in Michigan are winter and road construction.  This wasn’t winter!

About ten minutes into the drive I felt something crawling on my leg, below the knee.  There was nothing there, of course.  It was just a combination of that grimy, slept-in-the-woods feeling and the wind blowing through my car.  Ten more minutes and I felt it again, this time in a different place.  Again: nothing there.  After about the first hour of this repeating I started laughing at myself.  I was letting my mind get the best of me.

Within a half hour of home, still among the orange-barrels that define a Michigan summer, I noticed a black thread had come loose in the brim of my ball cap… my all red ball cap…

I’m not sure of the time that elapsed from the split second that the wolf spider used the leverage of that one "thread" to throw the other seven and the rest of his mass from the top of my hat brim to the bottom – standing there facing me, each of us upside down to the other.  I do know that enough time elapsed that whoever it was that took over piloting duties while I was locked in mortal combat allowed the car to drift two lanes of orange barrels deep into the construction area.

(Oh, don’t worry: no one ever actually works in these construction zones.  They’re just there to protect the potholes.)

It took some time for me to calm back down – but I did regain control.  I got control of the car back from my imaginary copilot as well as controlling my own adrenaline level.  In fact, I regained my composure to the point that when I felt another one on my leg, I was able to remind myself of the earlier phantom bugs.  "There’s no way there are more of those things in here.  Get control of yourself, wimp!", I told myself.

Nope: he had a wingman!  Imaginary copilot deployed: again… Screeching tires (from somewhere): again… Hand to leg (to leg, to leg, to leg) combat: again!

I won the fight, but I never did find all sixteen legs!

There WE were…

No, I’m not Tom Cruise, but I am an Army helicopter pilot.

I was the pilot of the fifth ship of a flight of six.  The other pilot was the aircraft commander.  (There are always 2 pilots in a Huey).  My friend Tom was one of the pilots in the trail ship, which makes this as (or more) memorable for him as it is to me!

The pilots’ duties are split up in the following way: the pilot at the controls flies the aircraft, the other pilot talks on the radios and navigates.  Since each pilot has a nearly identical set of controls, it is easy and routine for the pilots to alternate these duties.

On this particular training mission, we were conducting a practice Air Assault, which means

we were supposed to be dropping good guys (presumably armed) right next to the bad guys.  We didn’t have any good guys with bullets available, so to make the flight more realistic – and by this I mostly mean heavy – we were giving "rides" to some of our soldiers that normally don’t get to go anywhere near the helicopters – it makes for much more realistic training, and improves the morale of the "cargo"!

One of the soldiers on my aircraft was a young ‘kid’ that I had mentored when he was still just a recruit, and he had specifically requested to be on my aircraft.  The other pilot I was flying with was a senior Warrant Officer – in this case "Senior" stands for far more than just his rank.  He had been flying Hueys in the Army National Guard since the Vietnam era and was preparing to retire as a Michigan State Police officer.  Oh… and he didn’t like to be shown up by hotshot, snot-nosed kids – in this case: me.

Now, when you’re practicing to fly in bad-guy-land, you typically want to stay below where the meanies can see you because its harder shoot something you can’t see (and there’s no such thing as "Whisper Mode!!!)  So I fly safe and I follow all the rules, but I fly aggressively because, well; trees are softer than bullets!

Since I was the whipper-snapper, and old Mr. Grumpy was the Pilot-in-command, he let me fly at the controls first – ostensibly to judge my competence.  I did exactly what I was trained to do: I flew fast, maintained the correct distances and angles from the other aircraft in the flight, and I flew low – very low.

The one little thing that I did that I was unaware of until it was too late was, apparently, challenged him to a duel of flying ability.  Still unaware of this miscalculation, we transferred controls normally and he took the second run-through of the route.  At first, his performance was nearly the mirror image of mine – really; there are only so many ways you can read a winding valley or river.  He was doing an excellent job.  He followed the natural cut in the valley as it first turned one way and then the other.  This was the perfect place to practice this kind of flying!

Then in one particular spot the "V" in the trees we’d been using for a highway made a sharp left turn.  The only problem was that this particular narrow valley had one large, soft pine tree sticking right up through the lowest point, turning the sharp "V" into more of a "W".  I’ve heard these anomalous trees referred to over the years as "widowmakers" and this particular one really popped out of nowhere!

He already had the aircraft in a 60 degree bank, which is the maximum bank limitation for the aircraft.  Briefly, I thought he was going to try and go steeper to make the inside of the turn, and just as briefly, I felt the aircraft "mush."  (This is a highly technical term that means: "It ain’t gonna work!")  When it finally occurred to him that he wasn’t going to make it to the inside, he executed the obvious alternative and tried to swing wide around to the outside.  Unfortunately, time was up to change tactics and he ended up decisively executing both and split it right down the middle, lightly brushing the grease off the underside of the bird.

When we got back to the airfield my young soldier friend patiently waited for me to conduct the post-flight inspection and debrief.  When I walked out of the briefing room he was there with a huge, thankful smile on his face.  When I shook his hand he said "That was SO awesome!… That tree went by us on BOTH sides!!!"

Epilogue: Mr. Grumpy retired almost immediately after this flight.  The young soldier in the story is now successful both as an army sergeant AND in his career in law enforcement.  Tom is still trying to collect on his debt – something about me owing him a fresh pair of underwear!

I had a couple young men in my company that I liked to refer to as Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dee.  They are both the type of soldiers you want in your command – hard working, enthusiastic and get the job done even without being told.  (Notice I didn’t include “smart” on the list… but I’d rather have a dull go-getter than a smart lump of laziness any day.)  I openly referred to them by these names – they seemed to accept it as a badge of honor (and clearly all in fun).  I never titled them as one or the other, though – I’d just wait until they were both present and ask their boss to, “find something dirty for the Tweedles to clean!”

One of them finally asked me once – while both were present – which was which.  I replied that 1) I wasn’t sure yet, 2) they probably wouldn’t want to know the answer anyway, and 3) I wasn’t sure I wanted them to know!  (I suspected they were both vying for the coveted title of Tweedle-Dumb.)

The following month I fought my way to drill in a pretty intense blizzard – about six inches of snow had fallen sometime between

three and six in the morning.  (It’s only a blizzard to those of us that live down-state: Grayling locals call this a dusting.)  After the morning formation, while my staff was busy getting to the tasks of the morning’s business, I remained out in the main area of the building, trying to get to know some of my fellow soldiers – which, I’m told, is a good thing for a new commander to do.

Since I had just dealt with a rather heart-breaking soldier issue immediately prior to formation, I was disturbed when one of the top soldiers on my staff quietly interrupted me and said, “Sir, I think you need to see this.  Quickly!”  As my mind searched through the possible calamities – critical testing failure; someone got hurt on the way in; worse??? – I followed him back to his office.

His office window is to his back, so that as you stand in front of his desk you have a clear view of the entire front yard and several hundred meters of the entrance road – you can even catch glimpses of the lake when the winter foliage is down.  It can be quite mesmerizing on a day with a fresh, deep snowfall.

Not allowing myself to be distracted by the view, I grew somewhat perturbed when he sat down at his desk and got back to work as if he’d never asked me to come deal with what in my mind had grown to an epic crisis!  After a long moment, I said, “Well?”

He just donned what I’ve since come to know as his routine mischievous smirk and pointed over his shoulder.

Ah, this was only a joke.

It didn’t take a second for mild irritation to turn to hilarity.  Outside was Tweedle, shoveling snow.  Actually, “shoveling” isn’t the right word – if there was an Olympic event for distance throwing heaping shovels of snow along an unused sidewalk for no apparent reason – the name of that sport would be the word for what he was doing.  At first, as I watched through my tears of laughter, I suspected that he had started to feel fatigued and what I was observing was the final burst of adrenaline prior to the collapse… But a quick scan of the previous 50 meters or so of sidewalk showed not a spec of disturbed snow less than a full meter from the clean path.

After my initial laughter subsided, I refilled my tiny little paper cup with coffee, grabbed my hat and headed out the door.  Out the door… down the steps, past the front of the building… another left on the main walk (all clean and dry).  All the way to the other end of the building I met up with Tweedle where he was approaching the matching set of outdoor concrete steps up the other side of the building.

He was dripping sweat through the outside of the outer shell of his uniform coat!  That’s about three inches of cotton and wool!  I took a sip of coffee knowing that surely an audience had grown in the office to watch this performance… “Excellent job, Tim!”, I said, startling him.  Spinning around, unable to stand fully erect – but trying – he snapped a sloppy salute and apologized: “Sorry sir, I didn’t see you coming up.”  After returning his salute, I assured him there was no breach of etiquette and reiterated how impressed I was with his initiative.

I must have said the right thing: I could see the wide smile even through the desperate gasps for air.  I put my arm around him in the most paternal fashion I could muster…

“You know…

next time…

feel free to use one of the snowblowers.”