That Jeep picture for some reason reminded me of a story my dad told me about when he was in the Army. He was in Field Artillery at the time, and a battery commander at Ft. Polk, LA. He was in his Jeep out on a recon of some firing positions or something in the Peason Ridge area.
Now if you are familiar with that part of Louisiana, you know that the terrain is mostly hilly pine forests, and it rains a lot. This means that the roads in the lower parts of these areas get extremely muddy. I have personally seen many vehicles that many people consider to be nearly unstickable, stuck really badly in the mud. I saw a Hummer once stuck so bad that it took nearly a dozen senior NCOs hours to get it out.
Anyhow, back to the story, my dad (at the time he was a Captain)was riding along in this Jeep with a Sergeant that was his driver. The Sgt persisted in driving the Jeep into many of these mudholes in 2WD, then when the going got bad, he would stop and shift into 4WD. Now if you do much off-road driving, as I do, you know that when in the mud, you want to keep moving at all costs. Stopping in the middle of a mudhole is a sure recipe for getting stuck. My dad warned his driver that if he kept this behaviour up, he would get stuck, and when that happened, he was going to have to get out and push, while my dad took the wheel.
Sure enough, not long after, they were in the middle of this huge muddy open area, and the Jeep loses traction. The Sgt stops the vehicle, shifts into 4WD, and lets out the clutch. Nothing but wheelspin. He tries rocking the vehicle back and forth, lo range, everything, but nothing works. They are really stuck. So my dad says, "get out and push, and I'll drive." The Sgt does this, but he is unable to budge the vehicle. So finally my dad thinks, well if we are ever going to get out of here, I may have to push. So the Sgt gets back in and my dad tries to push the Jeep. All to no avail.
Finally my dad gets one of those brilliant ideas that only junior officers can come up with. He puts the Jeep into first gear, lets the clutch out, and sets the hand throttle wide open. Then he AND the Sgt get out to push. The Jeep is sitting there, engine roaring, all four tires throwing mud and water back and both of them are straining away and suddenly....... yep you guessed it, the Jeep leaps up out of the mudhole and takes off!
The Sgt is in the mud up to his knees and above, and was pushing with all his might. When the Jeep came loose, he falls face down into the muddy water. My dad was fortunately able to extricate himself and take off in chase of the vehicle. He said that he may have set the 40 meter dash record despite muddy boots and fatigues, as he ran down this Jeep. Fortunately the Jeep wasnt going very fast in first gear, lo range, even with the throttle wide open. He is able to catch the Jeep just before it hits a tree, and spins the wheel swinging it back out into the open area.
My guess would be that the Sgt left the vehicle in 4WD all the way home!
