Had you not been such a slob, I might have overlooked you, but you left a trail of litter, beer cans strewn all along my rear area road sides. I also couldn’t miss the fact that in the darkness you just left your spent brass shell casings wherever they fell as you fired your semi automatic rifle at spotlighted glaring eyes. It was obvious to me, and left little doubt, that you exhibited expert marksmanship. The meatless boned carcass always sustained a head or neck shot. The butchered deer was always found within a fifty yard radius of your abandoned roadside brass.
You couldn’t have known that I enlisted the help the Forestry Division’s Private Cox and sent him at dusk, radio in hand, scrambling to the top of the fire tower overlooking thousands of acres of the vast North Range. Cox was instructed to watch my headlights and note where I parked and cut my lights some ten miles away. Using night vision, Cox was to radio me the compass direction of any other sighted moving lights in the night and give me directions to merge the lights.
Bingo! On the third night, while peering out from atop of the fire tower, Cox gave me turn by turn directions leading to my vehicle blocking the path of the poacher. As he rounded a curve all that could have been visible to him in the darkness would have been the reflective “Fort Gordon Game Warden” decal on his broadside side view of my Ford Bronco. The vehicle that he was driving slid sideways in the sand as it came to an abrupt stop. With my spotlight in his eyes, I stood in front of him with a pointed double barrel shotgun resting across my vehicle hood.
The Colonel was caught, red handed, drinking while driving an unauthorized military jeep. Further inspection revealed the black market bound bloody meat, taken from six different deer. In handcuffs I took him to the Magistrate in downtown Augusta Ga. His last words to me was,”Son, I’ll have your job for this”! After the Colonel’s trial, I was given thirty days leave, then I was immediately shipped out to the worst duty station in all of Europe. In route, I discovered a new friend who had my orders changed, sending me to the best duty station in all of Europe, that being NATO Headquarters in Heidelberg Germany where my wife and I spent the next eighteen months.
Unsaid until now, this was the second time that I had caught this particular poacher using the exact same tactics. Turns out, the first time that I arrested him, he was a friend of the Provost Marshal, who was also a Colonel. He was released before I even finished my report. Unknowing to the good Colonel, I was also a Deputy Sheriff of Augusta and Richmond County Georgia. He had no friends in the Magistrate’s office who really resented being woke up at 0400 in the morning.
All is well that ends well!
SP-5 James M. Cripps
Game Warden
US Army 1967-1970
VA THE REDNECK WAY, YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO IT ALONE! 