I did REFORGER '86 when I was at Riley. Once in Germany we pulled tanks (M60A1's) that were moth balled in warehouses there and we headed for the field. By about the second week we were dead tired. The weather had been snow, cold and rotten. The Tanks were breaking down all over, life was pretty much misereable.

One night we got into position in a wood line along a farmers field, it was about 1am. We had been holding off on running the heater because we only had one igniter left in our stash and couldn't afford to burn up the one still in the heater. I was a driver at the time and the heater was my baby. Once in the tree line the TC (Sgt Sagersee) told me to crank up the heater and we would catch some z's. We were suppose to keep an ear on the radio though 'cause we had to move out in an hour for night maneuvers. Needless to say, once that heater fired up we were out cold.

Next thing I knew we had Tanks moving to our front. I woke up Sagersee and told him to get ready to move. As it turned out though, the tanks were coming back in, not going out ! We had missed the whole maneuver! I looked at my watch and it was almost 4am.

I thought we were all going to get Article 15's for that. As it turns out though, they never knew we weren't with the Company. Only one thing worse than us not making a maneuver, the Company Commander not knowing he had a Tank and crew missing ! This was very unusual as the Company was a pretty good team and this kind of thing would NEVER happen the rest of my time with them.

Don't know why, but you getting left at the LZ made me think of that.