“Drifting”

 

My teenaged son told me he has a friend who was into “drifting” with his car until it resulted in damaging his vehicle at which point it didn’t seem quite so cool anymore.  He described the phenomenon to me and it sounded a lot like fish-tailing which we used to do in our cars that had rear-wheel drive when I was a teenager.  I guess with front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive cars these days fish-tailing is not as easy as it entails losing traction only on the back tires.  So “drifting” is the phenomenon of losing traction on all four tires by banking hard into a turn and over-steering the same direction as the curve.  

The discussion of this phenomenon with my son brought back a memory of maybe the one time in my life that I actually drifted a vehicle in spectacular fashion.  

I was in my early twenties and serving in a mechanized infantry unit in Korea.  Our company was “Delta Death” and each platoon had four Bradley Fighting Vehicles making twelve total (3 rifle platoons and a headquarters platoon).  These vehicles looked like small boxy tanks because they had a rotating turret with a main gun but also a compartment to hold infantry soldiers.  It was a hybrid vehicle of sorts halfway b/w a tank and a troop carrier.

Anyway, our unit was one of the first to transition the Bradleys into use in Korea so we were all green when it came to this particular 27-ton behemoth.  We spent months getting familiar with it to include learning about its specs, maintenance, weapons system, etc, until they finally arrived and we could actually put our hands on one and drive it.  

And driving it was a challenge.  It was a tracked vehicle like a tank and so heavy that getting it to move from a dead stop took some doing.  When backing up if you wanted to turn your back end to the right you would have to rotate the steering mechanism to the left and vice versa.  In a car it is just the opposite and so it was awkward to overcome all of that muscle memory.  Also when driving a car you are thinking about the direction you are turning your steering wheel which is turning the two wheels below you in the same direction, but on a tracked vehicle it is different.  For example, if you want to turn right you turn the steering mechanism right and give it a lot of gas but it is not a wheel that you are turning below you or even a steering wheel in your hands for that matter.  Instead, the right track slows and the left track speeds up in order to turn the vehicle in a rightward direction.  You get the general idea.    

One particularly miserable rainy afternoon my platoon took its turn at a Bradley training area.  It was a muddy plateau that had been carved out of the side of a mountain somewhere in the no-man’s-land between Camp Casey and Camp Hovey.  The main part of the training entailed driving as fast as you can towards the front of a rectangular open bunker, execute a 180 degree turn, and then enter the bunker via a ramp from behind it.  These bunkers are part of the strategy used by the Bradley Fighting Vehicle whereby you drive down into it so that the bottom part of the vehicle holding the troops is below ground level and the only thing sticking up above ground is the rotating turret which can survey the landscape and fire its guns if need’s be at a pursuing enemy.  

Waiting my turn was excruciating.  I watched the other soldiers take their turn and drive cautiously down the open stretch coming to an almost complete stop when they got to the backside of the bunker and then do a slow and laborious turn of the vehicle until they got it far enough around to enter the bunker.  This looked like an inefficient and herky-jerky mess to me.  If you were the Bradley Commander or gunner half sticking out of the turret (as sometimes happens when just driving around) it would feel like being on a mechanical bull ride where your body and head would be flopping around with each punch and lurch of the vehicle as it swiveled in fits and starts.

My time finally arrived and I giddily entered through the driver’s hatch and donned the helmet with built-in microphone.  I pulled the hatch lid down sealing myself into the driver’s compartment.  I heard the sergeant’s voice through the headset from the turret.  “You ready Haney?”

“I’m good to go Sarge!” 

I got the Bradley lined up at the beginning of the run and got the OK to proceed to the bunker.  I pushed the gas pedal to the floor and it lurched forward.  Peering out the little rectangular glass portals was difficult but I could just make out the muddy tracks in front of me and the bunker up ahead which looked like a small rounded rise with grass on it.  I kept the gas pedal buried so it could reach top speed by the time I reached the bunker.  As we got closer the voice in my headset said “Ok, slow down, slow down, SLOW DOWN!”

I estimated at this point I was beside the bunker and without letting up on the gas I buried the steering mechanism hard to the right and that 27-ton monster box slid full sideways and around in a beautiful wide 180 degree arc and ended up facing the way I’d come at a full stop lined up with the bunker.  My foot was off the gas at this point as I paused and then proceeded nonchalantly down into the bunker.

My headset buzzed angrily: “Goddammit, Haney!  Don’t EVER do that again!” as I sat there with a big smile on my face that no one could see.

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