Military trucks on a quiet street?

It's been almost a month but remembered this an hour ago and thought I'd share, see what my fellow ATSers could posit from this.

Ok, so it was around 1:10am either beginning of January 2011 or end of December 2010, memory's hazy on the date but not the time for some reason. I was sitting watching tv and decided to go to the kitchen to make a drink when I saw two military trucks driving along my road one behind the other.

What I found unusual was that my road is fairly quiet and full of speed bumps to slow down drivers and while they may potentially be going towards the airport nearby, there are several roads right by me they could've driven down instead of going through this road. In fact, it would've been quicker for them to go down the major road just behind the houses on the other side of my street.

I just can't fathom what they were doing there. They looked like this:



The back of each truck was empty though from what I could see when I rushed back to the lounge to look out the window at them as they continued down the street.

Those are "deuce and a half's".
Do you have a guard base by the airport? It could have been drill, mobility exercize, a number of things. If it was a friday night then probably drill weekend.

National Guard...and you admit being near the airport

Maybe they just weren't through with their cigarettes, lunch, phone call, etc. and took the longer route to waste time? Maybe they needed access to an outdoor "watering hole" and your street was quieter? There could be any number of legitimate reasons for them to cruise through your area.

This is the thing though, I'm in the UK and the nearest military base is a couple of hundred miles away, never seen military presence at the airport and haven't seen it anywhere near me at all before which is why this struck me as odd.

I could've understood if it happened near the times that David Cameron and Pope Benedict flew from our airport because of the heightened security involved with those people but this happened months after so it can't be related to security measures. If it were a drill wouldn't it take place near a military base? And there were no security threats at the airport to explain it as that either.

Originally posted by curious7
This is the thing though, I'm in the UK and the nearest military base is a couple of hundred miles away, never seen military presence at the airport and haven't seen it anywhere near me at all before which is why this struck me as odd.

I could've understood if it happened near the times that David Cameron and Pope Benedict flew from our airport because of the heightened security involved with those people but this happened months after so it can't be related to security measures. If it were a drill wouldn't it take place near a military base? And there were no security threats at the airport to explain it as that either.

You live in East Anglia?
The there could be other reasons.

Nope, I'm in the Midlands, right next to Birmingham airport to be precise. Until this incident I'd never seen or heard anything unusual after living next to this airport my whole life which I guess is why it shook me as being so strange when it happened.

NO NONONO NONO NO!!!!

It's the evil I tells ya!!

I hear ya OP, next thing is gulags.. RUN BUDDY!!! RUUUNNnnnn....

he said so,so next week it will be real in someone elses post, dont hate me!!

Could have been a small convoy picking up troops. With all the snow around that time, there were massive changes in planning and movement of materials and man-power. It may have been something as simple as the airport requesting the deuces to help out with luggage.
Remember what a mess it was then?