Yellowstone-TV-Show 1-1.

 Yellowstone-TV-Show

Season 1, No. 1

Lots to rip on here.   There is no Indian Reservation around Paradise Valley, which is North of Yellowstone National Park.  Also, John Dutton stages a raid onto the Indian Reservation.  Although the reservation is fictional, if someone staged a "raid" on land that is a federal enclave like this, the FBI would be swarming all over the place.  

Nuclear Biological Chemical

When I was growing up, I went to middle school at C.R. Anderson school.  We took a 6 week course, that of nuclear war.  We watched 1950s film of Atomic bomb tests, soldiers being in the Nevada desert.  The bomb would go off, and houses would tear apart from the wind, and then burst into flames.  The soldiers would have goggles on with dark lenses.  They would be affected by the radiation, but it took years of fighting with the VA before the radiation claims would be accepted.

We learned about fall-out shelters and the different types of radiation.  The half-life of an atom.  That cockroaches, rats and chickens were best equipped to handle radiation.  There were barrels of crackers and yellow lemon drops stored in the basement of the school.  At some point, these were handed out.    I remember eating some of the yellow lemon drops and kids took the crackers for their cows to eat.

The basement, where we had physical training, was where the fall out shelter was located. It was in this same area that we had a rifle range.  I took the 6 week course on firing a .22 single shot in the basement.   The NRA provided the rifles. I just had to get my parents to buy me some shells.  As the rifle was single shot, we didn't go through many, so one box sufficed. Teachers taught marksmanship. 

I do remember feeling unease around this time.  I remember the news casts talking about a war with Mutual Assured Destruction.  MAD for short.  There were no winners. 

I remember during this time that the Air Raid siren would go off from time to time.  When I was home, my dog Sam would howl with the siren.

Then I joined the military.  I was not keen of the gas chamber in basic training.  The CS gas just burned my eyes.  I could barely breath.  The guy in front of me moving slow, me slamming him against the wall to get out.  We went on a field training exercse before graduation from Combat Engineer Advanced Individual Training, and I fell asleep with my gas mask on.    I slept the whole night with it on.

I again had to go through the gas chamber for ROTC Advanced Camp.  I remember the mucas from my nose was so great that it reached the ground when I bent over.  The cadre thought it was hilarious and they snapped a few pictures.  

When I was a detachment commander, I attended the two week NBC course at Camp Parks, which was at Dublin CA. This was the summer of 1990.  It was old World War II barracks, some of which were literally falling to ground because the Army didn't want to pay for asbestos remediation.   We learned to plot the drift of radiation and chemicals.

My units would have NBC exercises and we would put chemical paper on our boots that would change color if it came in contact with chemicals.  We also would put up chemical detectors outside of our bivouc area.  They would go off if chemcals drifted our way.

I was part of a simulation at Fort Lee, VA concerning combat in South Korea. It was called Operation Prairie Warrior. U.S. forces were hit with a chemical attack.   Casualties were high.  There was political pressure not to bury the bodies in mass trenches. The solution was to contract for refrigerator vans and put the bodies in cold storage until the combat died down and the bodies could be flown back to the United States.

I remember having nightmares about getting "slimed" by chemicals.  I would wake up in a cold sweat. 

In the 1990s, I attended a Reserve Organization Association national convention. We discussed
NBC;  the conversation was that as a soldier we would most likely not see a biological attack. They were tough to do, compared a chemical attack.  Before I deployed to Afghanistan I was given 4 of my 6 anthrax shots.  Biological defense. 

So here we are today.  We are dealing with COVID-19.  You can't wear chemical paper outside and it will light up when you are around COVID-19.  It is a silent killer.  In order to slow the rate of infection, you need for people to shelter in place.  But in doing that, you kill your economy.  Your service industry people can't earn a living.   We did that for awhile, but it was not sustainable.

My wife, who works for a hospital chain, got her first Covid vaccination in January 2021.  I searched for vaccines, but it was crazy.   A Social Worker Professor at Shippensburg University made the front page because she was a vaccine hunter for the elderly.   It was the hunger games, everyone for themselves trying to get the vaccine.  I would go to some websites who said I was qualified to get the vaccine, but other websites said I was not qualified.  I got a text from the Cumberland VA Clinic which said that they had 300 doses.  I was in the office.  Before I could get to window to text, all 300 shots were gone.  Finally, I got in with the VA.

I got my first Covid shot on St. Patrick's Day the Lebanon VA Hospital.  It was like weights were lifted off my shoulders.  I got my second shot in April.  On Friday,  I will go to the VA to get a booster.  

At the beginning of the Pandemic, Health Care workers were the heros.  Somehow, they have turned into the enemy.  Hospitals are overwhelmed with people who refuse to get vaccinated, "freedom".  

Lee

Lee Phillips: My father Lee Phillips was also raised on a ranch around Highwood, Montana; he went to Montana State College where he enrolled in ROTC. At that time all males that were in college went through ROTC or else you would be drafted after leaving college (and losing the college student deferment). It was far better to be an officer than an enlisted soldier; the pay is much better and the quality of life for an officer is higher.

He told me a couple of ROTC stories. One was that he was an ROTC cadet in charge of the rifle range at ROTC Advanced Camp, Fort Lewis, WA. The cadre sergeant assisting him told dad that the easiest way to deal with the expended brass was to have the cadets kick dirt over them. So he had the cadets do that. The TAC Office was not dumb, however, and he figured it out. He verbally savaged dad for not having the cadets pick up the brass. Dad quickly learned that doing it right the first time around paid dividends rather than taking the easy course.

The other ROTC story was that dad was a crack shot. He grew up on a ranch, and handled guns at an early age. He was a crack shot with both a deer rifle and a shotgun. He was very proficient at the ROTC rifle range at summer camp, and he was offered a chance to compete on the Army team for the Olympics. But that would have meant going back to Camp Perry, Ohio in August. He promised his dad that he would help harvest at the Phillips farm between Salem and Waltham, Montana, so that he had to decline that offer.

He was commissioned a field artillery officer. He went to Fort Sill, OK for his FA Officer Basic Course which lasted around six months. The only thing he really talked about at that location was this sheer cliff that Geronimo had ridden a pony down on that military reservation. He was given a top secret clearance to work on the “Honest John” missile. His orders were then to go to Korea. The military sent over his clearance paperwork which was then lost in transit. He was unable to work on that missile his whole time in the Korean theater.

Most of his experiences that he conveyed to me were in Korea where he was stationed for 13 months. They are not great stories, they are horrible stories about the abuse my father suffered in Korea from superior officers. I liked the Army stories anyway. Most officers have both been around “toxic leaders” that are higher ranking and have abusive personalities. Dad talked about Korea being bitterly cold and staying in Quonset huts, tin half-circles that look like giant culverts that had no insulation. His unit was always on field maneuvers up on the De-Militarized Zone. Now, this was not during the Korean War, it was after the Korean War in the late 50’s. But Korea was still not a hospitable place. South Korea and the U.S. Army were concerned that the North Koreans were going to punch across the lines and attack.

One of the stories that he told was, he was sleeping in the back of a deuce and a half truck in his sleeping bag. The truck was faced downhill and he said he had this “hillbilly” driver that didn’t set the brakes and the gears disengaged; the truck started rolling downhill. Well, Dad got out of the sleeping bag and he jumped out of the back of the truck to save himself; he got tangled in this camouflage netting that was draped on the truck. He would have been dragged to death but for the fact that the truck hit a stone wall as the truck hurtled down the hill. There were stone walls all over Korea.

Another time the troops were standing at attention in line, saluting, on this muddy road and this full bird Colonel stood in the back of the jeep as it roared down the road; The Colonel was reviewing the troops as everyone was saluting and, the jeep goes down the road fifty yards, stops, and backs up to where my dad was standing. This full bird jumps out of the jeep, comes up to my dad, and starts screaming and yelling at him that he had a terrible sloppy salute. What kind of officer was this full bird that he would do this? As an aside, Dad always told me that when an officer got “chicken shit” on this shoulders, he got mean. The “full-bird” Colonel could smell that one star rank.

Dad, as a lieutenant and a warrant officer, both on staff duty, were sent into this village. They were tasked with looking for enlisted soldiers who weren’t supposed to be in there; the reason the enlisted soldiers would go into the village was because they wanted to drink and they wanted to shack up with the prostitutes. And so, they saw this enlisted soldier in the off limits area; the soldier started to run away after being told to freeze for questioning. The crusty old warrant officer pulled out his .45 caliber pistol and he aimed the pistol at the soldier’s back; my dad hit the Chief’s hand sideways and the gun went off. The gun shot harmlessly into a building. My dad told me that the guy was running, so disobeying a lawful order but my dad was not going to kill the soldier over it.

Dad also said that he was on-duty checking the guard posts. The soldiers worked all day and then they also had to pull guard duty at night. Guard duty was essential because you didn’t want enemy soldiers overrunning the billeting areas while the soldiers were sleeping. Dad caught this soldier sleeping on duty. At that time, a soldier found sleeping when on guard duty could be put to death. Dad said the soldier got on his hands and knees and pleaded with dad not to turn him in. Dad did not turn in the soldier.

Dad said that the West Point officers would not drink while stationed in Korea. Korea was a wild place, and a harsh place. The temptation to continue drinking would be large stationed at that location. Dad said he followed the West Pointers’ lead and he didn’t drink while he was in Korea as well. When he had some R&R, he went to Japan. We still have pictures of him on leave in Japan.

There was another time when my dad was eating in the mess hall and there were rats everywhere. A rat ran across the mess hall floor and his leg just reflexively jerked out and hit the rat in the head, killing it. All the other officers, junior officers that were with him were very impressed on how that had happened and my dad said he didn’t even think about it, his leg just reflexively jerked out, pegging the rat.

One time he and another officer were walking across a field. A unit was doing a live fire exercise and bullets started whipping around the officers. They had to jump in a sewage lagoon to avoid being shot. He also said that when they arrived in Korea, they were told, do NOT eat the kimchee. His friend, a Ranger, fancied himself to be tough and ignored the directive. The Ranger ended up with some form of hepatitis and lost a lot of weight through sickness.

Dad talked about the slicky boy, that theft was a real problem, in Korea. He said that he had this company commander that said he wanted this old World War II cannon that was sitting in front of the commander’s office, gone. Dad ordered some enlisted soldier drag the cannon from the headquarters building to this creek and the next morning the heavy and cumbersome cannon was gone. The slicky boys had somehow come under the wire and he never did figure out how they got it out of there but they did. They were very industrious.

Dad told the story of this sergeant that unexpectedly reported to the unit. He looked hayseed with ears that stuck out, red hair and a cowlick. Dad found out this sergeant could weld, so dad had him welding a flagpole; the company commander wanted a flag flying out front. Turns out this “sergeant” was actually a CID Major; he was investigating soldiers who were buying untaxed American liquor and cigarettes in the Post Exchange and then selling them on the Korean black market. Some “enterprising” soldiers ended up when getting court-martialed when the CID agent gathered the evidence and then revealed himself.

At the end of the 13 months, Dad was given the chance to work at the Butte, Montana MEPS station. So he finished out roughly 18 months there, driving to help out at the Phillips farm when he wasn’t on duty. He then spent a few years in the Army Reserves in Helena. He rose to the rank of Captain. He was good friends with fellow officer John McKinnon. John had a son, Michael McKinnon, who went to West Point. Tragically, Michael was killed in Iraq after he took company command of a California National Guard infantry company; Guard officers were relieved and replaced by active duty officers. I visited Michael's grave at West Point in the fall of 2009.

Marvin Costello

Marvin Costello: My Aunt Mary (Woodmansey) Costello married Marvin Costello who had a ranch out of Stevensville, Montana. Marvin had gone Montana State College and gotten an Air Force commission. He did his initial tour in Alaska. The story that I remember him telling was an Air Force senior NCO was a Medal of Honor winner. He was also a raging alcohol. The NCO would get on a bull dozer drunk, and do bad things, but his misdeeds would be hushed up because he had the MOH. Marvin’s heart was not being on active duty, so he came home after his initial three years was up. He did stay in the reserves. He would drill for points, having a four hour drill every Wednesday night at the local bar. He was the commander of that local unit. They had an Air Force Reserve slot mailbox where they could put reserve related material. He got paid for his two weeks of annual training in the summer, but he didn’t get paid for his Wednesday night four hour block at the bar. But my aunt liked to say that he could go for a beer on Wednesday night and he would get enough reserve points to get a “good year” for retirement purposes. He got his twenty good years, and he retired as a Major. I just remember in the basement of the farm house, he still had an Air Force issue back pack, compass, “Mickey Mouse” cold weather boots and the shell of a military park complete with fur fringe on the hood.

John Reynolds

John E. Reynolds: There is a story of the ultimate family sacrifice that the Woodmansey clan tells. My Grandmother Kathryn (Reynolds) Woodmansey had a brother, Earl Woodmansey. Earl was known as a rolling stone. At one point, he had a ranch around Sidney Montana and he sold it for pennies on the dollar, even after oil was found on the land. Earl had a son, John, who enlisted in the Army in the 1930s. John was born November 9, 1920. This was during the Great Depression, jobs were hard to find. John was not fond of the Army and he begged his father Earl to make a payment to the Army so that he could be released. Earl told his son that he had enlisted, he needed to finish his enlistment. The records show that he was with Co. B, 31st Infantry in the Philippines at Corregidor. The Battle of Corregidor, fought May 5-6, 1942, was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. Reynolds was shown to be in a “beleaguered status” from 8 December 1941 to 6 May 1942 (Public Law 490, Section 14). The Japanese Government reported to the International Red Cross, who then reported to the Army Provost Marshall the death of John Reynolds. He was reported Missing in Action and was originally reported deceased on 16 June 1943, from “Dysentery while a Prisoner of War.” Subsequent records received showed the date of death as 21 September 1942, the corrected date. He was originally interred in a Manila cemetery, but the Army sent a letter to Earl Reynolds on 28 November 1951 telling him that that SGT John Reynolds was buried at Grave 38-C, Section 82, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, in St. Louis, MO. Woodmansey lore was that Earl Reynolds went to his grave devastated that he didn’t pay for his son’s release from the Army before World War II started. The paperwork shows that the Army was diligent in constantly informing the family of John Reynolds’ status and then where he was buried.

World War I

My Grandpa Fred Woodmansey served in the Territorial Army of England during World War I.  He signed up for a five year enlistment or the duration of the war.  It turned out to be a week's difference.  The territorial army is like the National Guard in the United States.  He was very young.   Of the five years he served, 3.5 years were in the trenches in France.  He hated the British officers, as they didn't treat their men very well.  With all the deaths on the front line, time and time again he had the chance to become an NCO or officer, but he refused.

After a year in the trenches, he refused to make friends, because everyone in his platoon would be killed and he was the only one to survive.  It hurt him to the bone that his friends were killed.  His secondary skill was that of a mule tender.   He always said that mules were smart.  You took care of the mule, they took care of you.  But if you abused a mule, they remembered, and they would get their revenge.

One story that Fred told was that as a private training in England, they were housed with a family (unlike America, there was no constitutional prohibition from quartering troops with the populace).  The woman of the house would cook breakfast for the men and she would say:  "Eat hearty boys, there is more in the pantry."  But in reality, she didn't cook much.  One day, one of the privates said:  "Well, mum, I wish you would cook some more up."  The families resented having to house soldiers and didn't feel like they got paid enough, so of course, the soldiers didn't get any extra food.

The officers were given strawberry jam with their breakfast and enlisted were given orange marmalade while on the front lines.  Grandpa Fred never would eat marmalade after the war.

One story was that in the middle of the night, Grandpa Fred and another soldier were bringing supplies back to the front lines.  Grandpa Fred drove the wagon with mule beyond their front lines by accident.  Grandpa Fred heard German voices in the pitch dark.  Grandpa Fred turned the the cart around and headed back to their lines.   The Germans heard the noise and opened fire.  In the haste to escape, the mule got tangled up in barbed wire.  The other man fled back to the English position, but Grandpa Fred got down and untangled the wire from the mule.  He then went back to his lines and as he was crossing safely into his lines, he heard:  "Yorkie, is that you?  We heard you was dead!"  Fred had some choice words for the sentry that let him accidentally go through the front lines.  An officer came up and asked: "Is the mule ok?"  To the British officers, mules were more valuable then the enlisted soldiers.

Grandpa Fred was shot in the leg two days before the end of the war.  He spent 9 months in a hospital in Scotland.

Highwood in Korea

My dad went to Montana State College and was enrolled in ROTC.  All males were in ROTC.  He graduated with a four year degree and a commission as a 2LT in the U.S. Army.  He went to Fort Sill, OK and became an artillery officer.  He was proud.  He had his Top Secret clearance, and was trained in missiles, to include the Honest John.  His first posting was in Korea up on the DMZ.   Dad was proud of the fact that he had a Top Secret clearance so that he could command a battery of Honest John missiles.  However, his clearance papers went astray when he reported to Korea, never to be found.  He couldn't work on the missiles.

He was assigned to an artillery unit instead.  He said that his unit was constantly on exercises in the field.    It would be bitterly cold in the winter.  One exercise he was sleeping in the back of the deuce-n-half truck.  His hillbilly driver didn't set the brake right, and the truck was pointed straight down the hill.   Dad said that he dove out the back of the truck, but there was camoflauge netting being drug by the truck as it rolled down the hill.  As dad dove out of the truck, he became entangled in the netting.  He said that he would have been drug to death, except that the truck ran into a stone wall and stopped.

Dad lived in a quansut hut, a metal semi-circle tube.   He said that they were cold to live in, not very well insulated.  He ate in a mess-hall.  Officers always ate last.  If the food service officer screwed up and didn't order enough food, it should be the officers that suffer.   One day dad was sitting at the table eating and a giant rat ran by.  Dad said instinctively his right leg jerked out and his combat boot kicked the rat, killing it instantly.  He said his fellow junior officers were duly impressed.

Enlisted soldiers were allowed to leave the base, but officers were not.  That was so the officers, who were held to a higher standard, would not associate with the hookers that were in the bars off-post.  Officers were assigned duty to patrol the bars go make sure that the enlisted were not getting into trouble.  One day, dad was with a wizened old warrant officer as a duty officer making the rounds.    They caught this enlisted soldier breaking curfew and they told the soldier to stop.  The soldier panicked and started running away.  The warrant officer took out his pistol, and aimed at the soldier's back.  Dad hit the warrant officer's hand up in the air as the warrant fired, the bullet whizzing over the soldier's head.  Dad didn't want to kill some soldier because he refused to stop.

In the summer, he was out in the field with a fellow officer.  They started to receive fire as they were in a live fire exercise.  They had to jump into the ditch, which was filled full of human sewage.   That was how the Koreans fertilized their fields.  He said it was better to smell then to die.

His commanding officer, a captain, was a poor leader.  The CO was a librarian at Los Alamos who needed to punch his command ticket to stay in the army.  He was not an enthused leader.  There was an old cannon in the compound, and the CO told dad to get rid of it.  Dad had it towed outside the wire and put in this creek.  That night the "slicky boys" took it.

They had an inspection.  They were lined up along this road and a full bird colonel was doing this review of the soldiers while standing in the back of the jeep.  Dad said that the Colonel passed in review, but then the jeep stopped and backed up.  The Colonel then proceeded to chew on dad for not having a crisp enough salute.  (Dad always said that when an officer gets "chickenshit" on this shoulders, he gets mean, because he wants that one star.)

One time this hayseed sergeant came to the unit.  He looked like he had fallen off the turnip truck.  However, dad learned this guy could weld, so dad had him working on all these projects around the unit, to include the construction of a flagpole.  The sergeant was there for about a month.  Turned out he was an undercover CID major on a sting operation.  Soldiers were buying tax free cigarettes and booze and selling it on the open market, which was illegal.  Some soldiers went down on charges.

While in Korea, he ran into Denny Baugh of Highwood Montana. The Baugh farm was close the Phillips farm.  Denny was a finance officer, a rare breed in the Army that handled money.  Dad had to be paymaster for his unit once, he said it was nerve racking in that he had to sign for $2 million in cash for payday.  He was assigned a driver with a carbine and a .45 caliber pistol.  If he would have been robbed, he would have been responsible to pay back the money.  He would never have gotten out of the military on his pay!

Dad said soldiers were desperate for something to drink while in their hooches.  So they would try to strain wood rubbing alcohol.  It made some men crazy and others blind.

When he returned to America, he worked at the recruiting station in Butte, Montana.  He could then drive to Highwood on the weekends to help with the farm.