In the military they teach you proper radio communication etiquette and jargon, however there are certain things that simply can't be put into those proper terms.
I was driving a HUMVEE through a desert in West Texas near Ft Bliss. A buddy of mine was following and called me on the radio and said something to the effect of "Vehicle 33 this is vehicle 31, please be advised that there is a 4 hooved, horned mammal attempting a hostile intercept on your vehicle. Over." I didn't quite get what he meant so I replied with "This is vehicle 33, Negative Copy. Say again, over." To which the guy basically just repeated what he said earlier.
Rather than trying to go back and forth while driving I simply said "I don't know what you're trying to say Dale, just spit it out." His reply was a very excited "Dude! There's something with big ol' horns chasing your truck! Look out yer window!!" So I turned and looked, about 10 feet behind and 15 feet over from my bumper was an oryx pacing along with my truck.
In case you don't know, an Oryx is kind of like an antelope or gazelle but with 3 foot long spear shaped horns. It's a beautiful, majestic creature; except when it's running right towards you then it's terrifying. Especially since my HUMVEE had canvas door that those horns could rip through like they weren't even there. I radioed back that I was going to increase speed. I don't know what an oryxs top speed is but I figured stepping on the gas until I got up to 50MPH couldn't hurt. I found out later that there had been a few guys in other units on base who were hospitalized when oryx attacked their convoys. So I consider myself pretty lucky that my buddy saw it before anything bad happened.
Glad he got a new lease of life!
