The Grease Barrel Bear

" We each had an M-16 with thirty round magazines locked and loaded..."

Alaska-1981-Elmendorf AFB

The in-flight kitchen on Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska made box lunches, otherwise known as box nasties, for flight crews. It usually had chicken and other toxic eatables.

Outside the door to the in-flight kitchen was a grease barrel that old grease from the fryers was put in. It sat right next to the drive out of the kitchen. It was like a KFC for black bears. They loved to lean into it and grab what ever morsel they could get.

As a young Fire Team Leader I was often bored and tended to do things that I should not do. On this day, we decided to sit next to the grease barrel in our military pickup that doubled as our squad car.

As we sat there a good size black bear sauntered over and started to get his snack. It was cool seeing it that close. My passenger was the closest since he was right next to the barrel.

As the bear feed he decided to explore for more food. He came over to the truck and put his nose into the cab of the truck. Of course we had the windows down. As our sphincter muscles tightened we watched, hoping it would not smell any yumminess in the truck.

We could smell its breath and feel its breathing as it sniffed around. We each had an M-16 with thirty round magazines locked and loaded but they were tucked neatly under our seats and the dang bear was to close anyway if we needed to defend ourselves. We would need a bayonet which we didn’t have.

Eventually the bear decided that there was no goodies to munch in our truck and went on his way. Wow! We should not do that again for sure...though we tried.