Battle on Hogback Mountain

written on 1/21/02

When I was in about the eighth grade, some friend of mine and I demonstrated our research skills by heading to the Huntington Central Park Library to dig up an old Newsweek magazine and read an article about Paintball battles. Well, I've looked for the opportunity to join such a fight ever since. You can't play army and squash as many plastic toy soldiers as I have and not have some lingering desire to test your mettle on a battlefield (especially when a nasty bruise is the worst consequence you're likely to face). After all these years, that moment came for me today on Hogback Mountain (about 25 miles west of DC). A group of my former Senate colleagues set up a day-long session for us, and I figured it was an appropriate way to commemorate MLK's non-violent teachings on his day. Saturday it snowed, but by Sunday the thaw was underway. So today found Hogback mountain a snowy/muddy battlefield. There was more rain this morning, adding to the muck, but the sun came out and we battled under clear skies. The gun, semi-automatic powered by C02 can hold about 50 marble-sized paintballs and pump them out just as fast as you can squeeze the trigger. The balls don't really have paint, just a water-soluble food coloring. We were shooting Yellow today, so hits exploded in a sticky yellow mess. That's if they break, which they don't always do. So even if you've been hit, you don't admit death unless you're bleeding yellow because bounces are just flesh wounds, not death. Not that bounces don't bruise, but you can keep fighting. Don't bother too much with aiming, as these things fly all over the place. The place we played had about a dozen different battlefields on which my Blue Team repeatedly fragged those pussies on the Red Team. My finest hour came in a fight at 'The Castle', a field on which both teams are trying to capture the same flag hung in the center tower, and deliver it to the opposing teams side. In our first fight here I did the honors, surviving a long firefight, charging to the tower under withering fire, and then hauling ass to the other teams side (with a nice fall on my ass on the way). It was great. We played from 10am until 5pm with a brief break for a lunch of hot dogs and chips. As you might imagine, we were soaked through, caked with mud, and splattered with paint by days end. Two of the smartest things I did were wear long johns, and bring extra shoes. The muddy boots and jeans went in a bag in the trunk, and I drove home in my steaming long johns and sneakers. Of course, these days you can't have an experience like I had today and not think about our soldiers who are fighting where the bullets don't bounce. God bless 'em. Anyway, it was a great time. Take the chance to play it you get it, I hope to again. And next time you're all in Washington we'll skip the monuments and head to Hogback Mountain.

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