Backfiring the trucks

"Now, I was assigned to Army intelligence, in the signal corp. And before we shipped out, we had to learn how to drive in a convoy. We were sent down south, to Alabama, to do maneuvers. Why, I don't know, because we didn't do much actual driving in lines once we got to Germany, but maybe it's an army thing. Anyway, we were down there, in this big line of trucks, driving all over the south. When we'd get to a base, we'd have to set up a new signal outpost, for communications. On the way somewhere, it could get pretty boring. So, what we'd do was we'd backfire the trucks."

"What does that mean, backfire?" I ask.

"Well, when you're driving along the road, you turn off the truck engine, it builds up a charge, and when you turn the key back on, it makes a loud bang. So, we'd be going down the road, and up and down the column, whenever somebody got bored, they'd make their truck backfire. It made an awful racket. One day, we were going through this little town, and it's a big deal to see this many army trucks go bye, so a bunch of people were out on main street watching us. This little kid was there, he had his cap gun out, and he's shooting his cap gun at the trucks. So, the guy driving my truck, he turns off the key, builds up that charge you know, and backfire's the truck. The little kid fell down, he thought that he'd been shot, it was so loud."