A funny thing happened on the way to the All CHB banquet at Fort Eustis.

The majority of the attendees boarded two buses to travel to Fort Eustis. I chose to drive my rental car because I was leaving at the end of the banquet to drive to a Norfolk Airport Hotel because I had an early morning return flight. Jeff Johnson and Paul Cusato decided to join me for the ride to the base and would return to the hotel on the bus. Not knowing where the club was, I decided to follow the buses. CAPT Pete Stiles was also driving a POV since he was staying with friends in the area and not returning to the hotel. Approximately one half of a mile before the gate, CAPT Johnson suddenly said, “Oops, I don’t have my ID!” I then asked if he had a driver’s license or other form of ID. He replied that all he had was a credit card. I doubted if a credit card would be valid identification, so I said that at least we knew the route to the base, so we could just return to the hotel and come back.

It was less than a 15 minute drive one way. Since we were far enough along that we could not do a U-turn, I said we should go to the gate, explain our situation and they would allow us to do a U-turn and exit. As we approached the gate and still following the two buses, we noticed that they veered to the right instead of proceeding directly to the gate. We followed. Both buses stopped and security personnel boarded to check ID’s. We proceeded right around them and drove toward the gate. A soldier came across and we stopped. I explained to him that one of our passengers only had a credit card as identification. He looked into the car and said, “You all look harmless” and let us proceed. We then drove forward to wait for the buses.

When we stopped, Pete Stiles pulled up behind us. I saw that he immediately exited his vehicle and came up to our car. He came up to my window and said, “You crashed the gate!” He explained that those were the words of the Army personnel who stopped him for an ID check, obviously something we were supposed to do. Apparently, the soldier who stopped us assumed that we had been Ok’d to proceed. At that moment CAPT Johnson’s blood pressure rose thinking that he most likely would be spending his night in the Ft Eustis stockade instead of his comfortable “king sized bed” in suite 406 with fully stocked mini bar at the Wyndham Hotel. I was worried that I would miss my flight while sharing a cell with CAPT Johnson and Senior Chief Cusato and being accused of being a “defendant” accused of the crime of transporting an undocumented person on to a Federal Installation.

Fortunately, I was not stressed as I had taken my blood pressure pill that morning. Senior Chief Cusato was in the back seat humming “Folsom Prison Blues” which wasn’t helping calm the situation at all while monitoring his pacemaker to make sure he would not be spending the night in the base hospital with an armed MP outside his room. He wondered aloud whether or not they had a Chief’s mess and quarters in the stockade and if they served Starbucks coffee? The buses drove by and we followed not seeing any flashing lights of MP vehicles.

Thinking they may be organizing a SWAT mission, I suggested that Jeff open the sun roof and be on the lookout for helicopters hovering over our minivan and that Paul move back to the third seat and watch out the rear for any chase vehicles. Being a good shipmate, Pete followed us and covered our backs. The bus drivers apparently were lost and having a hard time finding the club or were aiding and abetting our attempt to elude the base law enforcement. In either case our convoy was making numerous turns and U-turns, even pulling in and out of parking lots and in one case driving the wrong way for a short distance. This obviously allowed us to successfully “elude” anyone who might be pursuing us. We finally arrived at the club.

Occasionally, throughout the evening, one of us, usually Jeff, would be tasked with going out to check to see if there were any military police outside with dogs sniffing around our vehicle trying to detect the distinct essence of a Victoria Secret Visa card. Thankfully, we “dodged a bullet” that night, but I would suggest that if any of you find yourself in the same situation sometime, follow a bus if you can.