The CAP Van that got lost in the woods

Started by Pylon, August 26, 2005, 05:27:02 PM

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Pylon

Since this section is dedicated to telling everyone's stories from missions past and other CAP activities.  Last August, I had the pleasure of putting together a land navigation orientation bivouac for one of my squadrons.  It received a good healthy number of cadets and Senior support, and so we spent a weekend in a nearby forest (Highland Forest), camping and teaching land nav skills.

One of our Senior Members is also an Army guy, former active duty and now an Army Reservist, he is an Army Ranger and former Special Forces guy.  He was an excellent teaching asset to have on such a bivouac and helped us much of the training.

On one particular field exercise, the cadets were going to be dropped off in pairs at various points around Highland forest with a map and lensatic compass.  The idea was to have the cadets navigate their way back to the base camp with nothing more than the map and compass and their newly acquired land skills (and a radio for emergencies).   We loaded them into the CAP van and blindfolded all the cadets so they couldn't get a decent bearing on where we were dumping them off.

Capt. Brodsky was driving the van, with our Special Forces Hooah Army SM riding shotgun and helping to pick-out drop-off points as they drove around the forest's trails.   After they dropped off the first pair of cadets, they arrived at an intersection.  Capt. Brodsky asks the other SM, "left or right?" who pauses and then replies "How about Straight ahead."   Straight ahead wasn't a trail, and it looked a bit muddy.   He assured the Capt. that the van wouldn't get stuck so long as he didn't stop.  So straight ahead they went.... for about 50 yards.  The van stopped, and he asked the driver "Why did you stop??" -- Capt. Brodsky replied, "I didn't."





The CAP van had become stuck in the rather thick mud.  Whoops.  They attempted to get the van to either forward or in reverse with no luck.  The cadets, who were blindfolded through this whole ordeal, were un-blindfolded and enlisted to help push the van.  They radioed for assistance and I came in from the field with another SM (we were going to run interference in the field with the cadets trying to make their way back to the base camp :) ).



We arrived after they had been pushing, rocking, and sliding the CAP van everywhere to find a formerly white Ford Econoline 3500 covered from the rocker panels down to the ground in solid mud.  They had also managed to whack the van into a tree, and smash off the passenger side mirror.   ;D    The van was, by now, thoroughly entrenched in it's own pit of mud, almost a third of the way up the tires.



We realized that there was no way we'd get the van out of there on our own -- especially without causing further body damage.  We called in the big rigs and had to get one of those tractor-trailer sized Tow trucks to come and winch the CAP van out of it's trench of mud.  The tow truck driver also came a few feet from winching the van into a culvert, in the process, but luckily the van was retrieved and placed on solid ground.



The kicker was just at this Wing conference, the Wing King was congratulating the Wing on a particularly good safety record the past year.  It was brought up, statistically, that there was only one van incident that year.   ::)

(This story also had a whole thread discussion on it over at CadetStuff, with many of the participants kicking in their angle of the story, but it was lost in their second great data dump).
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

SarDragon

That kinda reminds my of "Alice's Restaurant".
Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

MIKE

Mike Johnston

Matt

<a href=mailto:mkopp@ncr.cap.gov> Matthew Kopp</a>, Maj, CAP
Director of Information Technology
<a href=https://www.ncrcap.us.org> North Central Region</a>

Cmdbuddy

I know of another Senior Member on these boards that gets vans stuck in the mud.   ;)
Christie Ducote, Capt, CAP

whatevah

who's dat?

the van I was in got stuck on wet grass on a hill.  then another senior "oh, I get vans unstuck all the time" moved it 20 feet further down the hill and turned the grass into mud.
Jerry Horn
CAPTalk Co-Admin

Cmdbuddy

Quote from: whatevah on August 27, 2005, 03:57:57 AM
who's dat?

the van I was in got stuck on wet grass on a hill.  then another senior "oh, I get vans unstuck all the time" moved it 20 feet further down the hill and turned the grass into mud.

Nobody would have known it was you if you didn't say anything.  Way to give yourself away.   
Christie Ducote, Capt, CAP

Pylon

Quote from: Cmdbuddy on August 27, 2005, 04:01:00 AM
Quote from: whatevah on August 27, 2005, 03:57:57 AM
who's dat?

the van I was in got stuck on wet grass on a hill.  then another senior "oh, I get vans unstuck all the time" moved it 20 feet further down the hill and turned the grass into mud.

Nobody would have known it was you if you didn't say anything.  Way to give yourself away.   

Busted!   ;D
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

Slim

Quote from: SarDragon on August 26, 2005, 06:23:23 PM
That kinda reminds my of "Alice's Restaurant".

Are those 8 x 10 color glossies with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one?????

At least he didn't try to hit himself over the head with the toilet seat and drown.... ;D

[/Arlo Guthrie]


Slim

BillB

Tisk-Tisk, And the photos show the van isn't even marked as per regulations. Where is the decal CIVIL AIR PATROL, and the decal www.cap.gov? Both are available at no charge from National and are missing from that van.
Gil Robb Wilson # 19
Gil Robb Wilson # 104

Pylon

Quote from: BillB on August 27, 2005, 11:01:45 AM
Tisk-Tisk, And the photos show the van isn't even marked as per regulations. Where is the decal CIVIL AIR PATROL, and the decal www.cap.gov? Both are available at no charge from National and are missing from that van.

I'm not sure how long those regs have been in effect.  I know those additions were made sometime in the last few years.  These photos are not from this past year, they're a bit older.  Whether or not the van is marked now, probably not, but it may have been in regs at the time of the photo depending on the date.
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

NDCS

Can you say CAPF 78 it tends to upset the Wing Commander  :-X
Dean Reiter Col CAP
ND/CC ND001