Of all the commanders I served under, the one that stands out the most is former Captain John C. Trimble, United States Army Corps of Engineers. While I don't think this account will do the man justice-you had to serve under him to really appreciate him-I'll give it my best shot. I knew he was unique among COs the first time I heard him give Charlie Company, 46th Engineer Battalion, a safety briefing before releasing the company for the weekend. His briefings usually went something like this...
"Good afternoon, Charlie Rock!"
"Good afternoon, sir!"
"Now the weekend is here, and I've gotta give you the safety briefing before I cut you loose! Hooah?"
"Hooah!"
"Now, if you gotta drink, don't drive! If you gotta drive, don't drink! And if you just GOT to do it out of wedlock, use Jimmy Hat Condom! Practice safe sex! AIDS will kill you dead!
"We are engineers! Our mission is to strike hard, fast, and deep, and get the hell outta there! We work hard, and we party hard! We are the only engineers on Fort McClellan; we are on stage twenty-four hours a day, dammit! So we got to be better than the MP(Military Police) and Chemical Corps pukes! We hooah on that, Charlie Rock?"
"Hooah, sir!"
The man lived and breathed "Charlie Rock!" Like we were THE elite unit on post, and wasn't anyone going to tell us otherwise. He liked to cut us loose on long weekends; Fridays were usually half-days. I think we would have, had he ordered it, stormed the gates of Hell, put charges on the boilers, and kicked Satan's backside. He backed up his soldiers 110%. At times he may have seemed certifiably insane, but that was just personality.
Friday mornings were reserved for company "fun runs." CPT Trimble was big on physical fitness. Mondays and Wednesdays, we'd run two or three miles, four at the most. On fun run day, we'd be running all over the post, wearing our "Charlie Rock" T-shirts. CPT Trimble liked to call cadence-and his cadences were vile, politically incorrect, and fun. We didn't mind. but as I recall, at one point, someone complained to the post's brass after hearing some particularly warped cadences...after that, we saved the really bad ones for when we were running in the back 40 of the post. I don't think the deer and squirrels minded...
He was cool. Sense of humor was warped to hell and gone, but oh, well.
There was a time that I had to see him after getting really angry at a fellow soldier and getting into a fight-see "The Date" for the gory details. He could have burned us, but instead, he gave us another chance.
He left the Army in August of 1992 after being offered a substantial exit bonus during a RIF-reduction in force. I guess he wasn't too crazy after all! When, a couple of months later-after we had returned from a three-week deployment to Miami to clean up after Hurricane Andrew and gotten settled in for the next mission-we had a hail and farewell for him and the departing first sergeant, to a man, we were all there to say a final farewell to our leader.
CPT Trimble, wherever you are, I was proud to serve under you, we all were, and we remember.
Charlie Rock!