Well, the Chicks with Ticks aren’t a very military group of gals. We do have to work on military installations on occasion. It just so happens that one, in particular, has been a favorite site of ours for a long time! “Where, Jacque?”, you are asking…..can’t tell ya – would have to kill ya!

We began visiting this site about five years ago. We had to take some training which still sticks in my bean! UNEXPLODED ORDINANCE TRAINING. Well, ain’t that nice? The training taught us how to recognize things we shouldn’t touch! BECAUSE THEY COULD BLOW US UP!!! Of course, there’s no guarantee you will actually see this crap!

Bombs

BOOM!!

Within the first day it was all a joke. We never really expected to see real stuff. Oh how wrong we were. Within the first months we found something unidentifiable. Our instructions were to GPS, tape it off, and report it so it could be removed by the bomb removal squad (who the hell wants that job?). So, it took months for this thing to be removed (implies there’s a lot of stuff to remove). John almost stepped on it the first day so we tease him still about blowing himself up!!!

One morning, driving to the site, I drove along a fence line. Low and behold….my field partner extraordinaire, honorary Chicks with Ticks member, and supa nunja Tyler noticed that there was a HUGE bomb half buried on the drive line. Well, ain’t that special? We stopped. It was very muddy and the soil had washed away enough for us to see….that we had been driving over a 6+ foot BOMB for YEARS. They tell you that there is no way to know for sure if a piece is live or not.

When we drove to report if, I asked what would have happened had it been live. They told us, “Oh, you wouldn’t have felt a thing and it would have taken a team of forensic scientists to identify your remains.” Wow, I really didn’t need to hear that one!! Thanks! Upped my life insurance when I got back!!

We saw all kinds of weird things out there….heard a lot of gunshot and low flying aircraft. We saw a lot of skeletal remains of old military vehicles….but so far, we are all in one piece! WHEW….

 

UXO!