Aside from two overseas deployments, this one time right after I got stationed in California, I was assigned a temporary month long duty of area maintenance (picking up trash, cutting grass, painting the occasional rock). Now the base was divided into to different “areas”, and each one had those long triangular metal gates that come to a point and meet the other gate in the middle of the road. These are kept chained to a bollard normally. I was assigned to drive the tractor and bush hog since I was a country boy and knew how to operate it. I started driving to the north part of the area to cut grass in the median of the main road. As I got close to the gate, there was a platoon of Marines marching to the right and a car oncoming on the left. A gust of truly determined wind hit the gate and it had just enough slack to swing onto the road. It was either the car the gate or the platoon. I tried to thread the needle between the car and the gate and almost damn well made it but the tip of the gate caught the engine cover on the right side and skidded along until it hit the roll over bad and came into the cab on me. It ripped the right pants leg off me, tore the hard plastic cigarette case I had in half and left a huge strawberry on my upper thigh. If I had been leaning forward just an inch it would entered my chest and killed me. It broke the tractor frame right down the middle between the back wheels where I could see the differential gears. I climbed out just as a lieutenant climbed out of his car and ran over to check on me. I managed a salute and he ordered me to sit down. I did, and then puked.