Today, while looking at a CAT dozer, it hit me.
Flash back to 1985. I am in Ft. Lost in the Woods, (Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.) for the Tech part of WOC, (Warrant Officer Candidate) training. I am in a class with 16 guys who are real Combat Engineers. I am the only guy in the class who was not a REAL Combat Engineer. I did Power Generation for 12 and a half years. BUT, for the Army, its all the same. Every day we study Engineer equipment. Dozers, Bucket loaders, M88 Tank retriever, Bridge layers, what ever. Its all new to me. Everyone else sleeps during class. I study hard. One day, we come to the CAT D5, (I think) Bulldozer. I might as well be looking at a UFO. We are in the track park, and the young enlisted soldiers are starting everything up, and doing PMCS, (Preventive Maintenance, Checks and Services)
Due to being prodded by several of my classmates, I climb up on the dozer, to "check it out". Not much for controls. Simple, thinks I. One of the instructors yells to "Drive that sucker out here, and we can go over it for class"! I look around, and there aint no one but me up here, so I sit down. A young soldier climbs up and says he will take it. I said, "Nah, I got it, just tell me how to put the sucker in gear". So he does. Now, I have driven lots of things with pivot steer, so this doesn't worry me at all. We charge out at the speed of a fast melting glacier. I haul back on a lateral, and give er some gas!! And the engine seems to die. Or better said, lose power. I can hear some of you laughing now. Well, the young soldier jumps down, because he thinks I am stopping. I am looking around for something to push, pull, turn on or off, to make this pig go faster. People are now screaming at me, but I am hard hearing, and, well, everyone is screaming at me in WOC, so nothing new there. I cant find any reason this darn thing wont go fast, and about this time the screams get REAL loud and nasty. I look up. My dozer blade is about a foot and a half from the next dozer's blade. This is not good. So I do what any right minded person would do, let off the gas! All the sudden, this pig of a machine acts like its butt is on fire! The engine revs up and away we go! With a resounding metallic clang, my blade hits the other blade and breaks the blade mount off, and starts to push the other dozer off to the side. I have no earthly idea what is going on! I have tromped the darn gas pedal almost through the floor board, and let it back out, in the hopes it is just stuck, and it just goes faster!!
All the sudden, my least favorite person in the world, CW4 Ti******nen, (the School Commandant) is standing next to me screaming to "push your G** Da*n foot down on the pedal!" So I did. And the engine died down to an idle. The man didn't like me before all this transpired, and it sure didn't get better afterwards. After a loud, anger filled tirade, filled with words we cant use here, nor in church, he explained that a dozer gas pedal works the opposite way of a gas pedal on any other vehicle in the world. Well, how should I know? My punishment, was to NOT, REPEAT, NOT, drive anything else in the remaining 2 weeks of school. The guy simply didn't have any humor. I got my revenge later.
The neighbors Powerstroke to rescue!
A busted fuel line 90... a rusty come-along, some rubber hose, a few beers and a lot of help, I was rigged up and good to go.
