When I was captured by the U. S. Army

When I was in my early teens, three of my uncles rounded up seven or eight of us cousins and headed out onto the Fort Chaffee military land to pick muscadines, which was considered great fun. We turned off Arkansas Highway 10 between Greenwood and Booneville and headed out. At a likely spot, we stopped, piled out of the pick-up, and headed into the woods. After we had been out there a little while, searching for the vines, all of a sudden we heard a stirring in the brush, and soldiers in combat gear started popping up all around us.

It turned out that they were in the midst of war games, and the opposing side had previously recruited a local boy who knew the landscape to help them, so we were suspects. They took us back down the road to a clearing in which were a couple of troop transport trucks. We were – officially – prisoners of war, even if it was only a game.

In the truck beside us were several of the opposing army. While we were watching, they staged an escape. One of them threw a rock into the brush, and they all jumped and ran. The guard pulled a plastic grenade and threw it, then sprayed the area with his automatic rifle. We never got to see how that came out. I supposed they officially escaped, because there was not a judge around to mark them as “dead.”

After a while, we were released with strict instructions not to go back up the dirt road – and believe me, we did not. However, we could hardly have had a more exciting day. I can now tell my grandchildren that I was once captured by the Army.