ATV CRAZINESS

This is a photo of the site parking lot outside of the orderly room. Just to the other side of the area that looks well-traveled, there is a steep embankment that drops off from the road surface. When I arrived at Cold Bay AFS, someone told me that you could tell how long a person had been there by how crazy they acted. I doubted that, but I eventually learned by personal experience that they were right. It seemed that being at a remote site did that to us. One of the crazy things I did when well into my tour involved a vehicle belonging to one of the people from town. One day, when at the motor pool, I noticed an unusual vehicle that was not one of ours. The NCOIC told me that someone had brought it out to the site, asking to see if the Sarge, TSgt Sipes, could get it running. Now, Sipes was a wizard when it came to mechanics. I think he could fix anything on wheels! Anyway, the local had told him that we could drive it some if we could fix it. Now, TSgt Sipes made the mistake of telling me that the owner had bragged about how this vehicle could go anywhere and not possibly be turned over. Naturally, I saw that as a challenge! If I remember right, the ATV seated four, with a roll-bar frame over the top. I piled in behind the steering wheel while three other guys got in with me. I immediately drove it over to the bank just outside of the motor pool, over the edge and straight down. We all thought that was pretty cool! Then I turned and started straight back up that bank until we became vertical. When we started teetering, I knew we were going to flip, so I yelled "jump!" Fortunately, we all cleared the vehicle as it proceeded to fall over on its back and slide back down the bank. I ended up spraining my ankle and hobbling around for weeks, but the ATV was unharmed. Most importantly, none of the guys with me were hurt. Since there were no casualties, nor damage to the vehicle, I felt pretty good about flipping that thing and accomplishing the impossible!