I was stationed on Site 04, a Nike Hercules Missile Site, on Mt. Gleason in Southern California as a radar technician when a sudden blizzard socked us in and cut us from communication with the rest of the world.
Site 04 was one of 16 missile sites surrounding the greater Los Angeles area. It was the highest Nike Hercules missile sites in the Continental United States. The only one operating at a higher altitude was in Thule, Greenland.
The mountain lies halfway between Pasadena and Palmdale. Its highest peak is more than a mile high at 6,250 feet. The snow came down so hard that 20-foot drifts accumulated and the main access road was totally blocked.
There were 98 members of the North American Air Defense Command stuck on the mountain. After a couple of days, we ran out of our regular food and had to break into C rations of World War 2 vintage to keep eating.
We kept in contact with headquarters in Pasadena by radio and telephone and managed to perform our duties while the Army tried to reach us through the massive snowdrifts. We managed to perform our regular duties during the day. At night after chow, we would retire to the Day Room to play pool, ping pong, and poker -- mostly poker.
Fueled by beer (we had an adequate supply of that), the games grew hot and heavy. I was a Private First Class playing against non-commissioned and commissioned officers along with a corporal. He and I did not get along very well and the poker made us dislike each other to an even greater degree.
His name was Ronald. He was from New York with a New York attitude about everything. He had a swaggering, overbearing attitude and I made it my business to beat him at poker, which he did not enjoy.
After losing four hands in a row to me, he threw his cards across the table and started cursing me out. I raked in the chips and said in a mild tone of voice, 'That kind of attitude won't help you win any pots.'
Ronald shot to his feet and took a wild swing at me. He missed. Two of the other soldiers grabbed him and a sergeant intervened.
'There will be no fighting in the war room,' he said. 'If you gentlemen want to settle this, do it outside.''
'That suits me fine,' I said, totally fed up with the corporal. He agreed with me and I followed him through the door into the frigid outdoors.
The ground was icy and packed with snow. We didn't even wait to put on our jackets. We were ready to fight.
We circled each other slowly looking for an opening. Suddenly he swung a roundhouse right at me -- and missed. The momentum caused him to slip on the ice and he went down in a heap. I waited till he got up and we began circling each other again.
This time I swung a right hook at him. He dodged it, I missed, and I slipped and fell.
For the next 10 minutes, we kept swinging, missing, and slipping and falling because of the ice. Once I helped him up and as he staggered to his feet, we both lost our balance and fell. We had been fighting nearly 15 minutes and we hadn't landed a punch.
I said, 'This isn't getting us anywhere. It's cold. Want to call it quits and play poker?'
He smiled. 'Why not? That makes more sense than freezing our butts off out here.' We shook hands and went back to the Day Room.
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
