The coveted title of ‘Ace’ is bestowed on fighter pilots that have shot down a minimum of 5 enemy aircraft. Would you believe this honor could be attached to a Suburban?

Pulling out of Lawrence Marshall Chevrolet in Hempstead, Texas on my way to Goldthwaite, I was admiring the new Chevy Suburban that I had just picked up for Layla. It had everything but 4WD – cargo doors, leather, trailer pulling package and I even had them put on a heavy, duty cattle guard.

I was picking her up in Goldthwaite and we were heading 80 miles west to Millersview to open Quail season. The hunting that day was fabulous, near limits and no rattlesnakes and we packed up and headed home.

A few miles east of Millersview we noticed large herds of deer in the fields on both sides of the road and one doe was rapidly changing positions, and we were right in her sights and, ‘crunch’, she slammed into the rear panel of the new Suburban! She went spinning off, dead, on to the shoulder of the road. We stopped and checked the damage and it was minimal. We called USAA and set up a repair job for the next week.

The repair job went quickly and the next weekend, after a morning’s deer hunt we, Brad, Mike Mitchell and I, hooked up the Jeep and headed out to Millersview for some Quailing. Results were excellent again and heading home, in exactly the same place we had hit the deer the week before, here came another one and she nicked the rear bumper and slammed into the Jeep. Another dead deer, rear bumper problems on the Suburban and a small dent in the Jeep. Another call to USAA and they cheerfully took care of the problem.

Deer 3 was another doe, in the same place, east of Millersview, that we hit, head on as it crossed the road. The cattle guard saved us, but we still had almost $4,000. in damages! Another call to USAA solved the problem.

Deer 4 was recorded on Hwy. 16, north of San Saba, early on New Years Day. We had attended a party down there and I had 2 drinks and because of this, Randy said he’d better drive home. Relenting to his request, I cautioned him that on this dark night there would be a lot of deer out, so slow down. He didn’t slow down and at 70 MPH we hit another one. Another call to USAA and they passed on to us that it appeared that we were in a high, deer impact area.

The coveted ‘Ace’ title was achieved when driving to Houston, Layla, was routed around some construction and on the shoulder of the road where a group of buzzards was cleaning up a dead coon. Passing them, one flared toward the Suburban, hit the right rear view mirror destroying it and crumpled dead.

Calling USAA, they took care of the problem and the representative quipped, That makes 4 deer and one buzzard. This Suburban qualifies for ‘Ace’!