A Humbling Experience (AKA: Lost in Croatia.)
This text is a direct copy of the email I sent to my family after my experience of getting a convoy lost in Croatia when I was in charge of the escort. One of those "embarrassing moments" in life that are so much funnier in retrospect than when they actually happened.
Items in [brackets] were added or amended to make the text more comprehensible.
Hi, everybody
Be warned, this is going to be a long one, part 1 of a 2-part message. To put is briefly, it's been an interesting week, and it's only Wednesday!
It started off on Monday. For the last couple of weeks, we have been on QRF [Quick Reaction Force], and haven't had much to do. But we have to be ready to take any missions that suddenly pop up. Well, one popped up for me.
It was 10 AM and I was about an hour into my class on military police reports and other paperwork (sloppy paperwork and poor English skills being our biggest problems when working Law and Order missions) when we got a somewhat frantic call from our Operations center. It seems that one of the Military Police teams from another platoon went to the convoy holding area to pick up a convoy for an escort south. All well and good, except they picked up the wrong convoy. The convoy they were escorting didn't require an escort. Meanwhile, the convoy they were SUPPOSED to be escorting was waiting at the holding area for its MP escort. Since I was on stand-by that day, I dropped what I was doing, grabbed the other three soldiers on stand-by, and we drew our weapons and equipment and ran out to our vehicles to take the convoy. It was something of a comedy of errors, but we finally got going about 10:30.
We were told that the convoy had already left, and we were instructed to catch up with it "...as safely as possible." Of course, that meant balls-to-the-wall, 60mph+ for us. Despite that, we didn't catch up with the convoy until it got to the Convoy Support Center (CSC) in Virovitica, just south of the Croatian border [about 80 miles away.] Normally, this would be the farthest we would escort a convoy, but because of all the screw-ups and the short-notice of the mission, we were instructed to take the convoy all the way down to Slavonski Brod (Slav Brod for short.)
Now, I had told the people in our operations that I was unfamiliar with the route, but they said "no problem. The route is WELL MARKED!"
I made contact with the convoy commander, a very young Lieutenant (from the 1st Armored Division's 1-6 Infantry) and asked him if he was familiar with the route. He said he was. Then I asked him whether he wanted my lead vehicle (with me in it) in front of him or behind him. He said he didn't really care, so I said, "Well, we usually stay out in front, so I'll take the lead." He said that was fine. Of course, I actually doubted that he knew the way, and I was damned if I wanted this LT to get me lost, so that's really the reason I wanted to be out front. besides, I'd been on these roads enough that I felt I would be able to find the way even though I had never been on this specific route.
And this was a BIG convoy. 19 vehicles, including one semi-truck with a very long trailer on it, several military 5-ton trucks and several 2 1/2 ton trucks (deuce-and-a-halfs), a large military truck designed back in WWII that has NO power steering, NO power brakes, a manual transmission, and a turning radius about the size of a shopping mall parking lot.
We had a few problems getting out of Virovitica, mostly because some of the truck drivers in the rear thought they knew the way better than their commander and took a wrong turn. But we finally got them together, and, with the commander right behind me, we rolled down the road.
Now, I should have known something was our of place when I noticed the road going into what appeard to be a residential area. I remember looking around and thinking "gosh, this sure is a narrow road to be an approved convoy route!" But, since I was heading straight down the same road that had been clearly marked with "SFOR" convoy route signs, I thought nothing of it. Unfortunately, I should have been watching for the signs when I was looking in my rear view mirror counting vehicles behind me. If I had, I might have seen the sign that points out that the convoy route made a right turn.
But, at this point, I was oblivious to all that, as the road got narrower and narrower, and climbed higher and higher into the hills. It wasn't until about 3 miles later, when the road turned to dirt, that I thought "oh, shit. I must have missed a turn." I quickly stopped, with the LT right behind me. I jumped out and before I could say anything, he said "I think we missed a turn back there!" We both realized what we had done, but, not wanting to compound one mistake with another, I told him to hold the convoy and I would go up the road to make sure this wasn't just a short break in the pavement. But as I drove down the road, and it became rougher and narrower, I realized that I was now faced not only with the task of finding the right road, but of getting all 19 of these vehicles turned around in a narrow, rural, mountainous road. I quickly drove back to the convoy, conferred with the LT, and we selected a site about a mile further up the road, adjacent to a farmhouse, to turn the convoy around.
The first 5 or 6 vehicles were all small ones, Hummers or CUCV's (A Chevrolet commercial pickup with a coat of camouflage paint,) which had no trouble turning around. Even the huge 5-ton trucks didn't have too much difficulty, since they have power steering, power brakes, and automatic transmissions. The "deuces" were another story. There were three of them, each one pulling a trailer. These trucks had to make at least 10 or 15 "cuts" at the turn before they got turned around, and by the time they were near the end, the driver's arms were so tired from wrestling with the wheel that the assistant driver had to jump up on the running board and help him turn it. I was dismounted, keeping traffic from interfering with our operation, and I could feel the seething hatred of the drivers towards me, the 805th MP Company, and probably the entire Military Police Corps that day as they struggled to turn their vehicles around on this little patch of ground. Finally, the only vehicle left was the semi-truck. I was mystified as to how they would get this one turned around, but actually, the driver and crew (they were civilian commercial drivers, hired in Germany) surveyed the site, conferred for a few minutes, and then deftly maneuvered that huge, flatbed trailer until they had the thing completely turned around and were ready to roll out. I was truly impressed.
But by this time, the convoy was still not out of Virovitica, and it was 3:15PM (we left the CSC at 1PM!) Fortunately for me, there was an MP element from Slav Brod that was within radio range, and they quickly found us and escorted us back to the main road. Not wanting to repeat the agonizing process of turning this convoy around again, I swallowed my pride, and sheepishly asked them if they'd escort us all the way down to Slav Brod, since they were headed there anyway. I considered their rolled eyes and freindly jibes as just punishment for my hubris, and kept my mouth shut all the way in, which took another 4 hours.
By the time we got into Slav Brod it was way too late to even think about anything but food and sleep, so we stayed the night there. And since the 4th Platoon folks had done me a favor by leading us down to their area, they figured we could return the favor by escorting the next day's northbound replacement buses. Then they asked if I wanted to go with them to get the buses. "Go where?" I asked. "To Brcko, in Bosnia" was their response. What do you think I said?
Next installment: Minefields in Eastern Slavonia, Crossing the Bridge, my 15 Minutes in Bosnia, and Croatian Kids with filthy mouths. Stay tuned!