AWOL OFFICERS IN PANAMA

The Battle Group was on an exercise in Panama, having flown there from Fort Bragg. My classmate Jerry and I were the senior lieutenants in the company and had been planning and conducting the training of the company. Our Company Commander, Captain Biggs, was a good boss and we liked him immensely. We took good care of him, making sure that the company always did well. That was as true in the jungles of Panama as back at Fort Bragg.

It had been obvious to Jerry and me that Captain Biggs was hurting. He almost always was hurting when we went to the field, but this was far worse than usual.

The way the exercise ran was that the Battle Group from Fort Bragg jumped into Panama at a place known as Rio Hata, beginning a two-sided war game in the grassy plains area of Panama. Then, after three days of that, it went to the Jungle Warfare Training Center for a week. As soon as they were back in garrison for the Jungle Warfare Training Center phase, we two lieutenants insisted that Capt Biggs see the Battle Group surgeon, Doc Turner. Doc told us that the Captain had a prostate infection and that the only way he would get over it would be to get totally away from the company so that he could get some rest. He suggested that we check him into a hotel someplace where no one from the company could find him.

Of course, there was no way to do this. We tried to get permission for Captain Biggs to simply go back home, leaving the company in their charge, but the Battle Group Commander would not permit that. Jerry had an idea which was insane, but crazy enough that it just might work. In any case, I figured that, given the trouble I had managed to get into, I had little to lose. What were the odds that they would send me to prison?

The next morning, Jerry and I took the sick and sore Bill Biggs into Panama City. We found a bus station and bought three tickets to Colon, the large city on the opposite coast of Panama, about a two hour trip by Panamanian bus. Fortunately, Captain Biggs was too sick to object. In fact, he seemed to be strangely fascinated by the ongoing exercise. In essence, two of his lieutenants had kidnapped him and were going AWOL to transport him to a city far away from his place of duty. The only real question was who was going to swing for this. The answer was probably the boss, who was incapacitated and nearly unable to prevent the whole thing.

When the bus pulled into Colon we asked where nice hotels were located. Jerry spoke Spanish well enough to get such information. We were only a few blocks away from beautiful tourist hotels overlooking the ocean. Carrying his luggage and supporting him as we walked, we guided our leader and friend to the nicest of the hotels. At the desk we explained that he was sick and needed a few days of rest. We told the desk clerk to be sure that he got whatever he needed and not to let him leave the hotel under any circumstances. We then accompanied him up to the room, helped him unpack his few belongings, and bade him farewell. Before leaving we repeated the instructions we had gotten from the Doc: bed rest, no rich foods, and no alcohol. We begged him to follow these instructions and not to leave the hotel.

It was a perilous week. We lived in constant fear that someone would miss the company commander and start asking questions. Miraculously no one did.

Things weren't really going all that well in the company. It wasn't that things were falling apart or anything, but with the company commander absent and young and appreciative lieutenants in charge, the practical jokes were getting out of hand.

First Sergeant Miller was deathly afraid of the jungle. He was able to avoid actually going to the jungle by staying back at the company barracks and doing all sorts of administrative tasks rather than by spending the day with the troops. For the first several days the soldiers went to classes but returned to the barracks at night. That gave them lots of opportunities to bring the jungle back to the First Sergeant. Every morning when Miller opened a drawer for the first time, he found a boa constrictor staring up at him. He would fly from the orderly room yelling for someone to get that snake out of his desk. He might find a C Ration box and wonder why it was in his orderly room. When he opened it he would find some jungle creature waiting for him, such as a sloth, an iguana or a snake. This was, of course, just the tip of the iceberg. Out in the jungle itself, the troops were having great fun tormenting each other. It was all in fun and no one was seriously hurt, but just the presence of the more mature Captain Biggs probably would have quieted things down a little.

Whether the Battle Group commander was aware of this and was anxious for Biggs to return and establish control, remains a mystery. As far as Jerry and I knew, we were in direct violation of a number of rules and regulations, and one slip would expose us all, most of all the one person responsible for everything that the company did, Captain Biggs, to severe repercussions. We sweated out every minute of every day.

Finally the day came when we had to get back over to Colon and retrieve our boss. Once again, we had to technically go AWOL, catch a Panamanian bus across the isthmus, retrieve Biggs (we had no idea how well he might have recovered by then) and bring him back. We retraced our steps through Panama City to the bus station, on the same rickety bus crammed with locals to Colon, down the street to the hotel, only to find no Captain Biggs. We called his room from the lobby and no one answered. We went to the desk and asked if anyone knew where he might be. The desk clerk told us that Bill Biggs had checked out!!

We had no idea what to do next. The one reassuring note was that the desk clerk thought he had checked out within the last hour or two. There hadn't been any busses back to Panama City during that time so he must still be in Colon. The problem was that Colon was a big city, and we only had about 40 minutes left before the bus left.

We decided to start a bar by bar search. Jerry took the left side of the street and I the right side. In the third bar Jerry found him sitting with a Danish lady and her two daughters, all gorgeous. Biggs was holding court with these lovely ladies who were passengers on a ship which was about to go through the canal and was only docked at Colon for a few hours. He did not want to leave them. He told his lieutenants that he needed at least another hour and, hey, wait a minute, there are three of them and three of us, if I take the mother....

It took all our powers of persuasion to wrest him from the three Danish beauties, return to the hotel for his luggage, and hustle to the bus station for the long ride back. It turned out that Biggs had remained quite sick all week, but the restful regime had paid off and he had awakened that morning feeling fine. He was so excited at his good health that he checked out of the hotel, stored his luggage with the concierge, and went for a walk. Then he met the lovely Danes.

Somehow we made the bus and returned to the Canal Zone without incident. No one ever mentioned the absence of one of the company commanders for a week. We had done it. Surely the statute of limitations has expired by now.