Back in the early 70s, for reasons which will forever remain a mystery, I became nostalgic for military service and almost on a whim I decided to join the active Army Reserve and become a Weekend Warrior.

I joined D Troop, 5th Armored Calvary, 187th Infantry Brigade, Yankee Division. The unit did weekend drills at a nearby army base and two weeks active duty at Camp Drum in New York -- it seemed like a good deal at the time.

Because I was a prior service enlistee I was able to skip army boot camp. Which was both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was I missed out on endless push-ups and 20 mile marches and the curse was I also missed out on quite a bit of the practical and tactical training the other Army veterans had.

My 4 years in the Air Force and modest tour in Vietnam was a cake walk compared to my one year in the Army Reserve. There is a world of difference between serving in a purely logistical or support capacity than there is in serving in a combat unit.

I was assigned a vehicle, a beat up Armored Personal Carrier which must have seen its glory days during the Korean War, and because of my new rank as a hard stripe Sergeant (E-5), I was made vehicle commander and squad leader.

My vehicle crew knew more about the job than I did and I spent the next year playing catch-up while trying not to get myself or anyone else killed. I remember one afternoon when I ended up rigging 20 lbs. of high explosive with detonator cord (det-cord) after two hours of class room lecture. Thank God I took notes.

As my one year enlistment was drawing to a close, my unit deployed for a training exercise in New Hampshire. D-Troop was an Armored Reconnaissance unit as its mission was to serve as advanced scouts for the 187th Infantry Brigade. Apparently the brass felt we needed more ground combat training and it was about time we learned how to fight as infantry men. It was to be one day field problem which met we carried in everything we were going to need for the next 24 hours. I traded my armored vehicle for an M60 machine gun and my crew became ammo bearers for the duration of the exercise.

As the machine-gunner I had the help of two ammo bearers who each carried 500 rounds of machine gun ammo. I carried 250 rounds myself, plus the the weapon which weighed in at 23 pounds. The ammunition came in hundred-round belts connected with black metal clips and was like the live amo except there were no bullets. We looked like a cast of characters from a "Pancho" Villa recruting film. Our weapons were fitted with blank adapters which insured no one would actually get killed. The adapters were fitted to the end of the weapon and choked the muzzle to provided enough back pressure to insure the gas operated weapon functioned like the real thing. Running at full throttle an M-60 could chamber and fire 450-550 rounds per minute.

As I cleaned and examined the M60 which I had been issued I noted it was pretty worn out and had clearly seen better days. Weapon issue in this reserve unit ran on the principle of a poker game - you shut-up and played with the cards you were dealt.

Shortly after dawn on a hot August morning, D-Troop did a helicopter insertion at a place called Stone Mountain. Somewhere in a state forest in New Hampshire. The aggressor forces my unit faced were members of D-Troop's LRP Team (pronounced Lurps) short for Long Range Patrol.

On paper the plan was simple. The Lurps were some place on the mountain and D Troop was to deploy around its base -- eventually, as we moved up the mountain, the Lurp's zone of operation would gradually shrink -- contact would be made and the bad guys would loose and the good guys win. Such was the plan.

The day started out hot and grew progressively hotter. Every degree rise in temperature seemed to add 10 or 15 pounds to the loads we were carrying. The terrain was rocky and heavily wooded and the mosquitoes were so thick some places looked like a brown fog bank had rolled in. Within minutes I and every member of our assault team was drenched in sweet.

The morning passed slowly in a series of leap-frog advances as one team covered the advance of another team. The forward team would take-up positions to provide cover fire for the unit which had previously been the forward team. And then the process would repeat. It was a long slow slog up the mountain with no sign of the 'enemy'. Around noon, about a third of the way to our objective, a squad on our right flank ran into a set of booby traps set by the Lurps.

The tree line to our right suddenly erupted in a series of explosions. The thundering booms echoed off the surrounding hills and sounded like the grand finale of a 4th of July fireworks show. A cloud of thick white smoke enveloped the side of the mountain and amid the dying echoes of the blasts I could hear our commanding officer, a 2nd Lieutenant, swearing a blue streak.

In a classic trip-wire booby trap, the Lurps had mined the trail and some poor luckless trooper set it off. The trip wire was connected to a series of artillery simulators -- card board containers holding about 1/4 pound of flash powder. They were as loud, if not louder, than the flash-bangs you see at the end of a fireworks show. The Lurps had rigged about twenty of the devices in a daisy chain where each one set off another.

As the smoke lifted and the Lieutenant's voice went hoarse I could hear the sound of laughter and cat-calls coming from higher on the mountain. 'Gotch 'ya suckers! Better watch your step!'

And that's the way it went for the next few hours. We humped up the hill, sweated buckets and swatted mosquitoes the size of pigeons. Every now and then, someone set off another Lurp booby trap.

Those guys were good and knew their stuff. If this had been a real combat operation, half our numbers would have been killed or wounded by the mines and booby-traps set by our Lurps.

Finally, as we neared the top of the mountain, my squad got a break. One of my ammo-carriers spotted movement in a rock pile near the summit. I ordered my squad to break to the left and and we began to circle around behind our target. We were lucky and made our approach unseen while the Lurps focused their attention on another squad advancing toward their position from their right flank.

We finally worked our way into a spot slightly above and about 50 yards behind the Lurps. We had managed to get into position without being spotted by the other side. In addition to the advantage of surprise, we had a great position with plenty of cover and a clear field of fire. I set up my weapon, double checked that a round was chambered, flicked off the safety, glanced at my loader who, with a grin, gave a thumbs-up, then I turned, aimed and pulled the trigger. Our plan was to empty our entire allotment of ammo into their position -- if for no other reason than we wouldn't have to slep the stuff down off this dammed hill.

Instead of the Rat-at-tat of an M-60 firing at full throttle there was a single BANG-CLUNK! I watched in disbelieving ammazement as the barrel of my weapon went sailing off into space and cartwheeled down the mountain.

Poker game rules applied and we played the game with the cards we were dealt. In this case I was dealt a joker in the form of a weapon so old and worn that the barrel's locking mechanism sheared clean through the first time a round was chambered and fired.

For the next few minutes the hills were alive but it wasn't with the sound of music -- it was me venting my frustration and rage at the guy that issued the weapon, the son of the guy that built the gun and the mothers of them both.

I was not a happy camper but I was cured. I was no longer nostalgic for military service and returned to the bottom of the mountain a confirmed civilian. Been there, done that, and got the T-Shirt. Next.