A Short Story by Maj. Ray Ambrozak, US Army (Ret)

“What the hell have you been doing?” The question was being put to me by a LTC at Infantry Branch, who had just thumbed through my records. It was late 1971. I was just coming out of my third tour in Vietnam by way of Medevac for malaria. He was of course referring to the fact that I was an infantry officer who had spent most of his career in Psychological Operations (PSYOP) units which he explained would not compete well with my Infantry contemporaries.

My orders at the time were sending me to the 2nd Armored Division, Ft. Hood, Texas. The LTC advised, that it was absolutely necessary that I have staff duty with troops at the 2nd Armored Division if there was to be any opportunity to salvage what was a flagging career.

When I arrived in the 2nd Armored Division, I was surprised how warm the welcome was. This made me optimistic about getting into a Mechanized Infantry Battalion – which was what the LTC at Infantry Branch had told me was my last best hope at the next promotion board. My optimism proved to be unfounded. The Division G-1 told me that they had looked at my records and saw I was the perfect candidate for a special mission that the division had just been given. He listened to my protests as I explained why I didn’t want anything special. I had done special and it did not do me any good. He invited me to return the next day, at which time I met the Division Chief of Staff who painted a picture of how well suited I was for the job about which the division was in a quandary. He proved to be as patient as the G-1 had been as I vented about my need to get staff duty with troops to which he answered that I should return to the headquarters the following day.

The Special Mission

On my third day in the Division, I was escorted by the aide into the office of the Commanding General of the 2nd Armored Division. As the door closed behind the aide, the CG. announced in a manner that did not invite conversation on my part, “You are going to be my Unit of Choice officer.”

Without allowing time for that to sink in, he launched into an explanation of how the Army was to become an “all volunteer” force. The new Unit of Choice (UOC) program was designed to support filling out the Army’s personnel needs. The UOC allowed a recruit to select a unit that he would be assigned to upon entering the service. To assist him in making that decision, major active units were to establish their own recruiting programs. This was the task that the CG. was directing me to take on because he felt my previous PSYOP assignments made me uniquely qualified.

He said he was sensitive to my wanting to be in a mechanized infantry battalion to get staff duty with troops, so he made a proposal. He would have me assigned as the Assistant G-1 with UOC as my only duty, for six months. In that time, I was to establish the Division’s program to include all necessary memorandum SOP’s selecting Division recruiters to work in Recruiting Main Stations throughout the country, create and manage a budget to cover all operations. After six months, he said he would put me in any battalion I wanted. When he asked is six months was enough time, I told him he could start looking for my replacement in three months.

Thus, began an intense year (yes, one year) of the use of Psychological Operations directed toward the civilian population. I knew the heart of the program was going to be the division recruiters that we sent into the field to work with the regular recruiters. They would have two target audiences—the civilian recruit and the recruiters they were to work with face-to-face communicators.

Reaching the Demographic

One of the things I emphasized to our recruiters was to market the 2nd Armored Division name in any way they could. This resulted in special events taking place all the way from historic Boston on the east coast to raceways on the west coast. When an opportunity arose to connect our campaign to the sport of car racing, we were eager to do so, as it targeted our key demographic 18-25 year old males.

One of the events at car racing venues involves what is known as funny cars. The front of these machines lift off the surface as they fly down the track going 100mph traveling only on the rear tires. I was contacted by a funny car racer with an idea to build a 2/3 size fiberglass tank painted with 2nd Armored Division identification. The tank would appear at raceways where it could be coordinated with recruiting efforts in the area.

Bob Perry, the race car entrepreneur, came to Ft. Hood so we could discuss the details of what the tank would look like, as well as the details of the contract, which were tricky since the tank had not been built leaving a list of questions to be answered. When I told Bob that Patton called the 2nd Armored Division “Hell on Wheels”, we both agreed it would look great painted on the side. Bob suggested mounting titanium rear wheels which would contact the track, as the front came off the ground, causing a fireworks display. From that point forward, the negotiations seemed to go easier.

The Inaugural Run

The inaugural run of the tank was at the Western Grand Nationals Race held in Ontario California. This race was to be featured on an upcoming ABC Wide World of Sports telecast. When I contacted the District Recruiting Command about the tank and the race, they were excited and ready to do all they could to make it a recruiting event to remember. There was an extensive static display including Armored Personnel Carriers, artillery, an Abrams tank and the “2nd Armored Division Hell on Wheels Tank”. There were two helicopters used in an aerial repelling demonstration on race day. When that day finally arrived, all of the parts seemed to know where they belonged and began to fall into place.

All the things we could control were going well, except one thing we could not master– the weather – a light shower had wet the track enough to delay the beginning of the races. The delay provided me enough time to work up my courage to make a request of the ABC director Roone Arledge. The ABC operations center was in a trailer near the staging area. Inside, there were four men expressing, in very colorful language, their disappointment about the unforeseen delay. At the earliest opportunity I introduced myself to Roone Arledge and asked him if the 2nd Armored Division tank would be shown in the telecast. His jaw was set when he answered that there were no guarantees, if anything at all would be shown from this day.

My uniform was probably the only thing saving me from being tossed out of the trailer. Undaunted, I broached another question. “Mr. Arledge , if I can get the track dried off in the next twenty minutes or so will you put the tank in the telecast”? He had a smile on his face as he first shook his head, then nodded with a “you bet”. I told the chopper pilots to keep their engines running before I went to the trailer. As I exited, I gave them a thumbs up. The two choppers hovering ten feet off the deck, the length of the track, had it dry in minutes.

There is little doubt that this was the only time a pair of U.S. Army choppers got a standing ovation from several thousand fans at a sports event. The second standing ovation came at the hands of the C.G. as we watched ole Hell on Wheels roar across the TV screen in his office, both of us feeling the “thrill of victory” avoiding “the agony of defeat.”