Story By Jayson, with help by skippy.
Once upon a time, in a far away land called Korea.
Well, the rest of the world calls it Korea.
We called it “Land of the Not-Quite Right”. We being the troops in the 4/7 CAV, who were stationed in what appeared to be the worlds largest flea market. This was a little town called Sonjuri that only had 3 crappy bars, and was near the DMZ.
I was a young, high speed-low drag, arrogant Bradley gunner in Alpha Troop. Our troop commander had always talked about wanting a goat as a unit mascot. As any regular reader of this site can guess, this was probably not the wisest life-choice he had ever made.
One night, most of the unit was out drinking. As sometimes happens when a bunch of soldiers are out drinking, we hit upon a really good idea. In this case we decided that to demonstrate how much we appreciated and respected him as both an officer and a gentleman, we should acquire him a goat mascot of his very own. And thus I found myself with a small group of highly motivated troopers, preparing a night infiltration operation against a local dog farm. In case you are wondering what a dog farm is, it is exactly what it sounds like, and you probably don’t want to know anything else on the subject.
Utilizing our highly trained stealth skills, natural sneakiness, and a near lethal BAC, we made it into the dog farm. Shortly after that we made positive contact with our target. We then subdued our four legged friend, and promptly headed back.
So, we started off back to camp, sneaking through the back streets and alleyways. We had made it about halfway back to our camp, with the goat fighting us the entire way, when the goat executed a counter-measure that we had not anticipated.
It pissed all over the guy carrying it. And the guy next to him.
Cursing our luck (and the goat) as we turned onto the next alley, we encountered three old Korean women. We faced off, looking as innocent as you can while covered in urine and carrying a goat. The women started yelling and chasing us. Even drunk and carrying a goat, we were faster and made it back to the gate well before them.
Now all that remained was the rather trivial task of sneaking a live goat past the guards. Our guard shack had a main room, where the guards were, and a corridor for people who entered to show their ID through the Plexiglas.
So all we had to do was get the goat through the corridor without the guards seeing it over the counter, and out the other side.
“This should be easy,” we thought as we set our plan into motion with the kind of confidence that can only be accomplished with heroic amounts of alcohol, and struggling livestock.
So, we have one guy start talking to the Korean guard who was outside, and the rest of us open the door to the shack and just kind of pushed the goat in. Unfortunately that’s when the three old women caught up and started shouting. Once inside the guard shack, the goat took off like crazy and ran out the other door, into the camp.
So we forget about the animal for a minute and join the three way argument between us, the guards, and the elderly ladies who are claiming that the goat is theirs. Now it might not have technically been ours. But we didn’t steal it from them, and damned if we were going to give them the goat which we had stolen fair and square.
Finally the sergeant of the guard has had enough. He tells us to go retrieve the goat and give it to them, regardless if it’s theirs or not. So we start off onto camp and start looking for the goat.
Now, this is a small post. Only about 500 Soldiers live there, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find this thing. After all, how much trouble can one unattended goat get into in a military encampment late at night?
Well a few minutes later we tracked it down to the lawn of a house.
Which turned out to belong to our Squadron Commander.
So, now we have our Squadron Commander standing on his porch, watching us and wearing the kind of expression that can only belong to a man who has experienced the joy that is “Surprise Midnight Drunken Goat Rodeo”.
We finally manage to get a grip on the damn thing, and take it back to the guard shack. We give the goat to the guards, and they give it to the old women. And we head back to the barracks for some beer. But first a shower because two of us smell like goat and the other two smell like goat pee.
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