Paintballing the World, Part 6: Tank Killing and Street Cred

Back at Rochester, I quickly began looking for a team to join. The only team listed in the area on Google was the Miller Stryke Brigade. I joined their forums and asked if I could roll with them. 

We played some pick-up games at the local creek. They were a rowdy interesting bunch to be sure. 

And awesome. Everyone on that team had a personality and a different story. They said West Point would be my team tryout. I had never any game on that scale, and I had especially never played against Tanks...  but I knew they would be at the field.

 I looked up LAWS online, found some easy plans, made trip to the hardware store and made a couple out of PVC, galvanized steel and some sprinkler valves. I dubbed them 'Animal Mother' and 'Shake and Bake.' Bought myself some Nerfs. 

And some upgrades for the A5. 

Game weekend rolled around. 

We piled 5 people and their gear into my tiny Camry and headed south. Weird to go back to West Point. It's always weird. It probably will always be weird. 26 months of my life went into that place. Intensely. It gave and took from me. It is not just a school. Anyone who has ever been a part of it, whether a plebe for a few weeks or an Old Grad or a professor or TAC or staff... there is just something about that place that stamps itself on you. So it was weird. But good.

I'm not sure I have enough stuff... or have accounted for every contingency... oh wait, yea, I have. 

Game day dawned bright. Got up early. Had filled all my air tanks the night before. Was at the Chrono before most people were awake and locked and loaded by 0830. Sat around and had a light breakfast. I never eat much before or during paintball. Do it after. Don't like to be sluggish. like to be hungry. Just habit. Game began. Yankee Div put MSB on base defense for the first two hours. We waited impatiently, excited for the game on! 

MSB up bright and early. 

BOOM. 

I went hard left up the ridge to the edge of the cliff on the tapeline. There was nothing to hide behind. In the absence of orders, find something and kill it... in the absence of something to kill, improve your position. I started building, scrounging logs, trees, branches and rocks and in about 10 minutes had built myself a bunker. 

Managed to slice myself wide open good on some old rusted concertina wire. Good times. My tetanus booster is always up to date, so I taped it up and played on. 

We couldn't push across no-man's land, the deadspace in the middle of the field. Engler pushed his boys hard. I know now that it was the ERSA and Tackleberry. But at the time they were just nameless red players.

 Linked up with some kid with a sick M14 mod for a bit and he pushed on. Everything was madness. Fight your way across no-man's land... get bogged down going up the hill on the other side... get shot... repeat... like some twisted exhausting version of Halo's Blood Gulch... except you didn't get to respawn back at your base... you had to walk there. 

Wait... you mean... I don't teleport back to base... I have to walk? Again?!

 Took a 30 minute break for lunch. 10 minutes in the radios crackled that tanks were pushing the hill. I grabbed my gear, stuffed my sandwich down as I ran back to the field. Had to muzzle load both LAWS with a ramrod.  I kept them both loaded with 12 grams at all times so if i missed the first shot, I could get a second off in seconds. Held the tanks back desperately from behind a tiny inflated bunker. 

The final battle of the first day put flag stations in the middle of no man's land. They drove one of their tanks right up on the barrel. I killed it 19 times before I ran out of rockets. I would run down the hill, shoot it, get shot and run back to respawn. I ran out of rockets. Some little kid volunteered to run down the hill and get one. The rest of the hill covered him. He ran down, hunted and tried to come back.

"FIND ME A BLOODY ROCKET!"

He turned and went back down the hill into the chaos, finally finding one and running back with it clutched in his fist. Slammed it down the barrel, twisted a 12 gram and got off one more shot. My gun was at the bottom of the hill. abandoned in my retreat to a secondary position. The flag was flipped red. I dropped all my gear.

"You going down there?" asked a big tattooed, dreadlocked guy next to me.

"Unless you want to?"

"Fuck no. But I'll cover you. Let's give this kid some COVER!" he screamed, and I bolted. 

I ran down the hill and slid under the tank. The ref told the tank driver not to move,

"Why not?"

"Because there's someone underneath you."

 The tankers couldnt so much as look out of their open topped jeep. There were 300 people on the ridge pummeling them with paintballs. If so much as a finger lifted above the edge of jeep, it would pulverized by hundreds of rounds. So I was safe from the crew. I waited until there were 2 minutes left and then reached up to flip the flag. Suddenly 3 red players slammed into the barrel and another blue player came racing down the hill. There was tussel for the flag. We were wrestling, grappling. Someone kicked over the barrel. Someone else ran off with the flag stick. The Blue team on the ridge decided that 3-4 red players wrestling with one or two blues was acceptable collateral damage... they opened fire. 

For the first time in my life I found it beneficial to be at the bottom of the pile as the paint smacked into everyone on top of me. I felt them flinching and screaming as a hundred people poured on the pain. I rolled back under the truck and stayed there until the whistle blew and the ref let me out.

An awesome first day. 

My Nemesis... and favorite bunker... at the same time. 

I slept like a baby that night. 

Up at 7. geared to go by 730. MSB's mission was to run with the untouchables and take the airfield. We were to negotiate with a 3rd party (the cadets) for military assistance. I brought a coke to use as barter. We made it just to the edge before we got pushed back. I lost the coke in the sprint. Spent the rest of the day slugging it out in no man's land. I left all my guns in the command tent and just ran a LAW, leaving one to Bear and giving the SAW to Varg. Bear ran out of nerfs and started using grapeshot. He got a 9-10 person kill with a 100 round pod. At some point I found myself lying in no man's land with the rest of MSB, pinned down, unable to move. I rolled over and found the coke.

"Hey! A Coke!"

I cracked it and drank it, getting to my feet. Looking around I saw a big tire on the ground. One of our tanks had pushed past us to the foot of the ridge and was taking fire.

I grabbed the tire.

"Thompson what are you doing?"

"It's okay guys! I have the tire!"

"what?"

"The TIRE! I have the TIRE!"

I screamed it back to everyone behind us.

"CHARGE!"

I ran with that damn tire through the hail of paint up to the tank.

"Hey guys, whats up."

"Not much. you have a gun?"

"No... but I have the tire...."

The charge failed miserably. The tank got LAWed and I got shot in the face. But we had the Tire.

Somehow we managed to push the airfield. Some big dude with dreds and a LAW from the red team was stationed at the respawn. He would walk on the field, take out a bunker and get shot. He repeated it over and over and over until he had thinned out our numbers. They were massing with a tank and about a dozen infantry.

Shit. I loaded the LAW and hid behind a bunker. The guy next to me had a TAC8. They charged. The tank rolled right past us, so close I could have touched it. I screwed in the 12 gram but the valve was open. The rocket flopped out on the ground. The tank rolled on, shooting everyone behind us.

"I have to reload!" I whispered.

We felt people slide into the other side of the bunker and three more slid into the one next to it.

"Okay, listen... on 3... I'll go take them out... you shoot whoever is on the other side of this bunker."

"Okay."

"Ready?..... 3."

I ran across the gap as the TAC8 pop-pop-popped. I barrel tagged 3 people with my LAW. the ref called em out. We had cleaned out the infantry and the tank was none the wiser. I started reloading, ramming the rocket down into the chamber... when I heard the TAC8 popping again.

Idiot was shooting at the gunner of the tank like some sort of Saving Private Ryan wanna-be.... but there were no P-51s on the way. The tank stopped. It turned around. I still needed a 12 gram.

"shhiiiiiiit... I shouldnt have done that..."

It hunted us down like rabbits.

Except in Paintball the P-51's aren't coming.... this just pisses off the tank. 

The rest of the day went well. We ended up losing. The final battle was an epic shootout on the speedball field and ended with the flagbearers of both teams trying to barrel tag eachother with their flags. Here's some pics. 

MSB on line.  

Tim hitching up his balls for a desperate charge 

An epic PB photo by any standard.

But I had a blast. On the way out, strapped with 2 laws, my pump and the saw, I ran into the big dude with Dreds.

"HEY HEY he said.... nice to see someone carrying as much gear as I do!"

It was to be the beginning of a long friendship.

MSB won Most Valuable Team at the awards. 

We packed up, sweaty and cramped, into the car, and drove home.

Tim Miller accepting the American MVT Award for MSB

Tack himself. MVP for the day.  

MSB wins MVT

I learned that ballsiness can pay off.... and it can get you shot... dozens of times... by angry tanks. You win some. You lose some. The memories last forever.