First let me tell you that gunfire is not involved in any way.
While I was overseas our squad started to receive what we would call drive bys. For months and months when we first were in country we would have platoon meetings. Informal gatherings where MSG Chiles would put out information that we needed. Nothing exciting nothing formal just a gathering where we would find out what was going on. Eventually these meetings stopped and we would receive a “drive by”.
We lived by squads in tents with a door on each end. One day we were just hanging out doing our thing when in walks MSG Chiles. He walked in one door and started talking. Not pausing for anything he walked through the tent towards the far door. On his way though he spouted the information for the next day’s mission then walked out the other door. He didn’t pause, he didn’t wait for any questions, he walked in said what he had to say and walked out. We all looked at each other wondering what just happened.
We would find that this was the new way of putting out information. You had to be on your toes so you didn’t miss any information that you also had to pass on to anyone else who didn’t happen to be in tent at the time. Eventually it became known as the drive by and it is not a very effective way to disseminate information.
I hadn’t really thought about drive bys in a long time, until the other day at work. I was on break sitting near the back kitchen door. The other delivery driver comes out the front kitchen door, walks behind me and states, “we are going to need you take some dels in a few minutes”, then walked back into the kitchen by the back door. For a second I sat there wondering what the heck then realized that I had my first drive by in several years.
