That Time I Mailed Myself Into The Armory At Fort Riley

This is a true story. As usual, I don't even believe it.

The trick is to take a deep breath and hold it. Put your feet through first and then your entire body. Turn your head sideways at the end and fold your ears back for the final part and you’re through. Okay, the actual mailslot was a little taller and wider than this but by less than you think. Besides, exaggerating the size to make it smaller is hilarious. It was a mailslot, though. That part is true.

Late summer of 1985, after I won the All-Army Ironman I was feeling pretty incredible all the time. All the time.

Glowing with strength and health. I think a lot of it had to do with the constant exposure to sunlight. That was probably the missing ingredient when I was younger. I was pale, washed-out and sort of tired looking in high school … possibly because I was pale, washed out and tired. Your body needs sunlight to function correctly and without it you won’t be strong, even if you persist.

Train really hard one week. See what results you get.

Now train really hard one week with your entire body exposed to sunlight at least one hour per day. See what results you get. Ten times the result for the same effort.

I practically thrummed like an atomic generator in the summer of 1985 before I got discharged from the Army. My mind, body and soul seemed to be tuned up so finely there was scarcely anything I could not do if I put my mind to it. I’m almost the exact opposite in every way now … forty years later.

I had a pet peeve. I think the sergeant who was in charge of the Armory ran the place like an amateur whorehouse with chimpanzees answering the phones at the front desk. I was convinced I could easily penetrate the security and lock’n’load with live rounds in under one minute. From there it was two minutes walk to the Divarty offices where I could kill the entire upper command including the brigadier general in a couple of seconds on automatic by barging right through the front door.

For some reason this really bothered me. It seemed like only complete pussies would make anything this easy for prepositioned saboteur assets on post who would encounter almost no opposition whatsoever at critical checkpoints. Without the officers, you’d have complete chaos and it was possible a security alert would not be issued for hours afterwards. The saboteur could then go and burn down every single motor pool with all it’s vehicles. It would be days before the post even figured out what had happened. If war was declared on Russia or China or another enemy nation, the saboteurs inside the post could call their handlers a little later and tell them they had effectively taken out Fort Riley in a few hours by themselves. This was supposed to be the locktight Reagan Supertroop Army … not the Jimmy Carter Dud Round contingent of ultimate losers.

I formed a plan. You can form some pretty spectacular plans if you’re superhuman. You can plan to jolt other people with unbelievable visuals and feats of agility that will change their outlook utterly. I had just such a plan to prove the Armory was not secure at all. They never saw it coming.

This does not appear in my military records, yet I have no doubt it is one of the most impressive things I ever did as an enlisted man. In retrospect it was childishly simple. At the time it made me appear to be able to walk through solid concrete. Of all the things I did, it was this one that seemed most like it leaped straight out of the pages of a comic book.