I Was Trained to Be A US Army Photographer

My first day at the US Army Photographic Laboratory Technician School in Ft. Monmouth New Jersey. Our first class assignment was for us brand new, and very happy, students to pair off and take a photo of each other. That's a 4 x 5 Graflex Speed Graphics large format camera, and at my feet is the rest of the issued gear plus the tripod was mine to use for the next FIFTEEN -- FRIGGIN-AYE-ALRIGHT -- WEEKS. Every soldier has their complaints, but mine 'ur all about basic training and then after I graduated Photo Lab Tech School and was sent to Okinawa, because I loved every minute of photography school. The instructors were outstanding, the schedule was serious but easy enough for me to handle, the barracks were totally livable in, and my barracks mates and buddies from other barracks were some kinda' Rock 'n Rolling great guys to be around. Our barracks theme song was "Let It Bleed" by the Rollings Stones. And I'm an old, original Rolling Stones fan from the early 1960s. For me, Ft. Monmouth was all good.

When I was in army basic training, we recruits weren’t allowed to have any radios or record players in our barracks at all; but I did smuggle in one of those little 9-volt transistor radios about half way through my basic training. After basic training, when I was attending U.S. Army Photo Lab Tech School, I had one of only two little radios that were available to be listened to by us photography students who resided on the second floor, twenty-man squad bay of the barracks which I lived in. The one record player we had was a small, white, plastic, General Electric music machine with a turntable and tiny, weak amplifier manufactured into an about 18 x 18 x 7 inch carrying case along with one, cheap, 2 x 3 inch oval speaker built into it. That minimal machine was owned by a Jerry Lewis type character named Bill Dickout (swear to it, that was the guy’s name, and he was a Sad Sack type clown with a high degree of natural intelligence and great taste in music).

Bill and several of our barracks mates bought record albums for us to listen to while we worked to complete our photo course homework, polished our boots and brass, did our barracks cleaning chores, swapped wild stories and true facts about our lives back home, matched wits in all kinds of manly but not too overly aggressive ways (no fist fights broke out), and trepidatiously waited to see if we were gonna’ be sent to Vietnam. I didn’t bring any of my records to that barracks for us to listen to, because I always took real good care of my records, and them guys didn’t care so much as me about not getting scratches and greasy finger smears on theirs, so they weren’t getting their paws on mine. Fortunately for me, we all had a lot of the same albums in our personal record collections, so the ones we listened to in the barracks were my kind of music. Our squad bay ‘theme song’ was Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones; we’d sing along to it with loud abandon ‘cause it sure enough helped relieve some of them possibly Vietnam bound blues.

We heard some great music for the first time up on the second floor of that barracks: including James Taylor’s first album, and side one of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s first album—Two Virgins. That is the album with John and Yoko posing frontally nude on the front and a rear nude shot of their raggedy asses on the back. Side two of that album is mostly Yoko (Oh, no!) wailing and screaming high pitched vocalizations of her infamous, artistic personality. Ya’ gotta’ take the good with the bad though, and one time we all had to hear side two of Two Virgins completely through. Bill Dickout wanted to listen to the whole album at least once, and when some one of us ripped the record off the turntable after we had heard about sixty-six seconds of that awful, assaulting noise on side two, Bill went into a rage, grabbed a hold of his record player, raised it up over his head and threatened to smash it to bits if we didn’t let him play side two all the way through just one time; unfortunately, we were such low paid soldiers that none of us could afford the twenty-five bucks to buy another record player like Bill’s; nor could we afford to go to the enlisted man’s club and have a few beers for a while, because it was too far past payday at that time; and, it was too cold outside to go sit out there and study our homework or just hangout together for awhile; so we had to bitch and bear it—twenty some freakin’ minutes of Yoko’s vocal, artistic assault on our senses, or Bill was definitely going to smash that record player to bits, which was treasured by all. That’s how much our music meant to us average GIs in 1970.



That's Specialist Fourth Class Crews there - yours truly - at the left side of this shot heading into position to photograph an approaching parade of 30th Artillery Brigade missilemen and all the other guys - every cook, clerk, and driver, etc. - who were my comrades-in-arms. The soldiers you see in the photo are the 30th Arty Bgde officers and their families. It was part of an all day change of command ceremony for our brigade commander. And I worked hard at photographing it all day then spent the the evening, till after 11 PM, developing film and custom, hand printing 90 4 x 5 photos of the event that were given out to all of the officers there.


Okinawa
US Army
ursusdave
David Robert Crews
30th Artillery Brigade

Leroy Takes Charge

This blog post and the other three

below it on this page

are actually four parts of one continuous story

that is read from here to the bottom of the page.

One day on Okinawa in 1970, I was over in the 30th Artillery Brigade Headquarters office building's little snack bar sitting on a stool at the little snack bar lunch counter there while eating a two-bit fried bologna sandwich and sipping on a nice cold, Grape Nehi soda.

The snack bar was run by an Okinawan husband and wife who were very friendly and great jokesters; they had outstanding Americanized Okinawan comic timing and were easy to get along with. I always enjoyed my times with them.

There was this African American U.S. Army captain in there that day, Capt. Sawyer, whom I had never seen nor heard of before. He was sitting over at a table and talking to a buddy of mine, Sp.4 Marion. Marion was a clerk somewhere in the 30th Arty Bgde Headquarters.

Marion was asking the captain about what could be done in retaliation if Marion’s suspicions that his wife had a live-in lover, back home in America, were true. For some reason, Marion had been reading strange things between the lines of his wife’s letters to him that made him believe that the monthly, Army dependent checks, which the Army was sending to his wife and their two kids, were not only supporting her and the kids but also a new man in her life. Marion was a pleasant, sober thinking and acting married guy, but he had some bad things to think about that day, which would cause most people to contemplate doing the wrong thing.

Sp.4 Marion said to Capt. Sawyer, “Can I cut the checks off?”

Capt., “No you can’t do that, it’s illegal. There are rules that keep the paymaster from doing that without a lot of the right paper work going through, and that could only happen if you and your wife got a divorce. But, then you would probably have to pay her alimony and child support.”

Sp.4, “I can take care of stopping those checks without getting a divorce; between what I can do at my desk, and who I know at other desks, I can get it done.”

Capt., “Aha! Then I can get you for bloobidy blabidy (I wasn’t listening to every word they were saying or hearing it all clearly, because of my usual comic interactions with the husband and wife snack bar hosts).”

Sp.4, “But what if I blimpity blampity, and then that will get her good.”

Capt., “Ahh. Well then I’ll get you for shippity shmapitty.”

Sp.4, loudly, “Well what if I go home on leave, when they don’t know I’m comin’, catch him there in my house with my wife and kids, and beat the livin’ daylights outa him.”

Capt., sneeringly, delightedly, “Yeah! Then I can get you for all kinds of charges and put you in the stockade to do hard time.”

My attention had fully peaked by then, and I heard every word of those last two statements clearly.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Capt. Sawyer was relishing the thoughts of punishing Sp.4 Marion for doing something that he had not done yet, probably couldn’t get the nerve up to ever even attempt to do and so most likely wasn’t ever going to do.

Them two soldiers went on with their conversation a bit longer, until, all totaled, I had heard Capt. Sawyer say the words, “Then I’ll get you for,” or “Then I can get you for,” at least eight times.

In my time in the Army, I had witnessed too many men getting Dear John letters and other bad news from home.

There’s an old dogface soldier saying:

“What’s the best thing that can happen to a soldier?

Answer= “Getting mail.”

“What’s the worst thing that can happen to a soldier?”

Answer= “Reading it.”

Usually, when a guy is in my buddy Sp4 Marion’s position, some other one, or several, of us soldiers, who know him best, helps him to work it out somehow. We talk with him, we walk with him, we sit with him, we stay with him till we’re sure that we have done all that we can to ease his troubles.

On several occasions previous to that, I had overheard Jilted Johns being warned not to do something stupid, which they had just told one of their higher ranking comrades that they were contemplating doing. But, up until that day, the higher ranking soldier had always given his lower ranking comrade that warning not to do something stupid in a tone of voice, and with obvious body language, that indicated that it would cause him personal pain to have to levy the required punishment on his lower ranking comrade.

Capt. Sawyer was the first and only GDSOB who I ever knew to relish the thought of getting to punish a lower ranking soldier for loosing his grip over his own personal family problems.

As I sat there sharing jokes and laughs with the snack bar hosts, I had been glancing over towards the heartless Capt. Sawyer, and I kept thinking,
“Who the fk, what the fk, where the hell did you come from?”

The next thing that Capt. Sawyer said to Sp4 Marion was, “When I take command of headquarters company in three days, things are going to change. I’m going to straighten that mess out over there. I’m going to clean the place up and change some poor attitudes, or they will suffer the consequences.”

Capt. Sawyer was talking about the barracks that Marion and I lived in.

I took a good, hard, cold, but slightly grinning, look over at Capt. Sawyer and projected the thought towards him, “You and me is gonna tangle. Real soon.”

The 30th Artillery Brigade Headquarters Company Barracks wasn’t any kind of a mess. I assure you that our attitudes were adequate for the given conditions.
Most of the guys who lived there in barracks worked in the main office building, which was catty corner across the street from the barracks. They were friggin’ easy goin’ 9 to 5 clerks for kryste’s sake, not a bunch of hard charging infantry guys who had too much steam to blow off after training hard all day playing dangerous war games.

We kept the place as clean and as orderly as it was supposed to be.

Most guy’s personal hygiene was fine. Those men who’s personal habits began to stink were told so, and they were threatened with retaliation, in a reasonable manner, by the barracks mates who had to live near them.

And there was only one drunken fist fight in the barracks, during the whole time that I was there.

Nobody got too noisy in the barracks, especially when others had to sleep.
Conversations were always cordial, and often comical, in the chow hall. The day room was always clean, comfortable and relaxing.

I rarely ever heard of any nasty arguments amongst my barracks mates, and only one came close to physical violence, when Andy couldn't take anymore of his roommate J. T.’s twisted tormenting.

Andy was a self controlled, sensible man who was a dedicated karate student. And Okinawa was the best place in the world to be a karate student.

J.T. was a part time stereo salesman up at the Main PX, and he looked, dressed and acted the part. He gave me great advice and good deals on stereo components.

They both worked together in the company commander’s office.

J.T. could get under anybody’s skin, if they spent enough time with him. I learned quick not to invite him to drink alcohol with us, because, when he got drunk, he could really screw up a good time. He got way too drunk way too fast. I still have a set of color slides of him getting drunk and demented at a typhoon party.

When Andy had finally had his fill of J. T.’s jabbering jaw one day, he still had just enough self control left to keep him from hitting his fellow soldier, but he had to hit something, so he smashed his hand against a cinder block wall and broke his damn hand in several places.

Us guys who lived in the 30th Arty Bdge Headquarters barracks were well mannered army men. I had no idea where that new captain got his dipshit ideas, that we needed to be reigned in and retrained.

When Capt. Sawyer took over command, he immediately began to push everybody around.

His first big clean up the barracks and straighten out the bad attitudes technique was to make us scrub down the squad bays and rearrange the furniture in them.

When Capt. Sawyer took over at the 30th Arty Bge HHB, in our twenty man squad bays, we had double stacked, bunk beds set up with make shift room dividers placed between each pair of bunks. The dividers were made of wall and foot lockers. From left to right, first there was a side by side pair of wall lockers, then a pair of side by side foot lockers on two wooden stands, then another pair of side by side wall lockers.

We had the double bunks arranged across from each other in an alternating pattern that gave us the most possible privacy. It was the best pattern that anyone could come up with for any privacy at all.

On the evening of Capt. Sawyer’s first day in charge of the barracks, while the bays were being scrubbed down and the furniture was being rearranged, I happened to be CQ Runner that night.

The CQ Runner and CQ (Company Quarterly) are two guys from the unit who stay up all night, in the day room, to be there to answer the phone and/or rouse the troops in case a war breaks out or some other emergency like a fire in the barracks arises. CQ duty times were 5 PM to 9 AM on weeknights. The CQ had to stay in the day room, and the runner could only leave on official business. They both had the next day off work.

It was unusually quiet in the day room that evening, because all of the other guys, who lived in the barracks, were upstairs doing the captain’s bidding by cleaning every nook and cranny up there while totally rearranging the furniture. The CQ and I didn’t know all that yet though. We only thought that there was a big cleanup going on; we did not know about the furniture being moved around, till the next morning.

I already knew that Capt. Sawyer was the kind of SOB to make them guys do more work than was necessary for the given tasks, and I informed the CQ of that fact. Consequently, when no one came down to the day room, all evening, to watch TV, play pool or anything, we thought that they were just cleaning the place up for longer than usual.

While we were doing the first part of the CQ shift, just before 11 PM bed time, we had a couple of guys drop in from upstairs with weird looks about them. They were hot, sweaty, dusty and tired, which was normal for the kind of work they were doing, but they had weird, flustered, pissed off looks on their faces and in the way that they walked and moved. And they weren’t talking at all. Everyone else in the barracks were either already cleaned up and in bed or still taking their turns at showering and shaving.

The guys who came into the day room were all obviously having a severe, weird reaction to something. It turned out to be Capt. Sawyer’s new Feng Shui (pronounced Fung Shway), that he had instituted up in the squad bays. Those poor, tired, quiet furniture rearranges could only sit down and stare at the day room TV for just a bit.

Oh, in case ya don’t know what Feng Shui is: it’s an ancient Far Eastern system of arranging a positive home or an environment. Unfortunately, Capt. Sawyer was a thoroughly negative individual.

Our barracks mates’ weird ways caused the CQ and I to look at each other with puzzled questions on our faces, then to inquire of them as to what they had been up to up there. They only shook their heads a little and muttered mumbled words that amounted to, “You won’t believe it.”

When I went up to go to bed in the morning, I couldn’t believe it.

Most of what little privacy that we had managed to secure before, with the old furniture placement pattern, was kaput. The place looked crowded and cramped.
It was dismal.

Capt. Sawyer must have gotten the idea on how to rearrange things from a scene in an old 1940s war movie, when the future war veterans were still recruits in basic training.

Brand new Company Commander Captain Leroy Sawyer had made all of the squad bay residents take all of the wall lockers and line them up back to back, side by side in a long row down the center of the large room.

Then they had to take the top bunks down and put all of the bunks side by side, about three feet apart, perpendicular to and between the outside walls and the wall lockers, all the way down the room. The foot lockers on stands were placed at the foot of every owner’s bed. There was one long row of bunks on each side of the wall lockers, with the head of each bed placed about two and a half feet from the wall lockers.

Sure, we only had half of the beds on each side of the wall lockers, but all but the guys on the end bunks had one pair of someone else’s snoring nostrils to agitate each of their ears as they slept.

All of that previous meager privacy, that we had had, was greatly diminished. Gone were most aspects of privacy for everyday things like dressing, writing emotional letters home, quietly reading a book, just sleeping—people don’t like to be looked at by others when they’re sleeping.

The rearranged furniture definitely wasn’t placed according to the usual arrangement of a 1970 era US Army fully trained soldiers’ barracks, which afforded barracks mates as much privacy from each other and comfort with each other as possible. It made my stomach wretch and my face turn away in disgust, when I walked into the bay and saw what Leroy had done.

That was a miserable morning. There was nothing that I could do but crash out in my public area bunk.

About noon time, I was awoken by a commotion. I looked around and realized that two non-Vietnam Veteran, lifer, sergeant, clerks were re-rearranging the squad bay Feng Shui again. One was an E6 and the other was an E7. They were both married men and had homes off post. So this was interesting to see them taking care of something that normally was not their problem. It didn’t take but a few moments to find out why.

E6, “What the hell happened?”

E7, “Aw, they went to the Inspector General, the Chaplain, The Mole Hole guys went to their section chief, one who works in Colonel Hergert’s office complained directly to him, somebody called their congressman, all totaled at least a dozen of them made formal complaints to five different higher ups. Now we gotta do this.”

Them two lifers were at it all alone for the rest of the afternoon. They put every thing back the way that it had been up till the day before. Our most possible privacy was once again restored to what it had been.

Eventually, I had to get up and go take a walk. I sure as heck weren’t gonna pitch in and help, like I woulda done if I had held just a smidgen of respect for them two individuals.

The next day, a bunch of 4×8 sheets of ½ inch plywood were delivered to each bay. The two unhappy lifers came back with an electric drill, some screws, and attached one sheet of plywood to the back, inside edges of each of the two inside, side by side, wall lockers, that again had the two foot lockers on wooden stands placed between them. That added a nice bite more privacy.

Shoot, it got even better later on. An Army directive came down from way up above us, and it declared that from then on all Army barracks living quarters, at least on Okinawa, were to be set up and decorated pretty much like the residents living in them wanted to do (see http://okinawa1970-71.blogspot.com/2007/04/rockin-on-rock-okinawa.html ).


Okinawa
US Army
ursusdave
David Robert Crews
30th Artillery Brigade

Penciled In Changes

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Leroy Reads

On that Monday morning after the penciled in changes situation, waiting for me in the 30th Artillery Brigade's Headquarters Company Commander’s Office, sitting there behind his desk, was Capt. Sawyer in his swivel, halfway comfortable desk chair, with the First Sergeant stiffly standing at ease behind the captain, and also there was an E-3 private first class, a pfc, company clerk sitting there to my left looking all scarred and worried and sitting as deep down as possible into the pant-seat polished hard wooden planking of a 1950s era, plain, oak or maple, office waiting room type chair. The clerk was there as the one required witness.

I walked up to the front of the desk, saluted and said, “Sir Specialist Fourth Class Crews reporting as ordered, sir.”

Leroy returned the salute, and I dropped mine.

He told me, “At ease.” And I went into the required stance of legs spread shoulder width apart and hands placed together behind my lower back.

I was terse and tight all over. I showed neither respect nor outward disobedience for the purported authority in the room nor fear of punishment.

Then my legs started wiggling tensely; they wiggled sort of wildly at my knees, with my knees going forward and back to lock position like plucked strings on a stand up bass fiddle. It was a manifestation of unadulterated, deep, justified anger.

Just then, company clerk Andy came from my right, looked down and noticed my plucked-like-bass-strings knees, and stood in the doorway that led between his office and the commander’s. As I looked over my right shoulder at my friend Andy, he crossed his arms slowly up onto his chest and leaned, tensely, up against the door frame. That put karate guy Andy next to but slightly behind me, where he could stop me quick and easily, just in case I went after his boss with violent intent.

When I had looked over at Andy, his face betrayed that he was suffering from serious turmoil and seething anger down inside of him. He was pissed at the Captain for pulling that penciled in fast one on me, and he was pissed at me for letting the Captain get me.

Andy hated the Captain just like the whole company did. And Andy had to work right there in the SOB’s office every day. That had to be real bad.

I nodded slightly to my buddy Andy. He looked straight at me without changing his expression a sliver. Neither of us were in a position that we wanted to be in. We were both clearly, thoroughly pissed to have to be there, but with our own individual best interests in the forefronts of our own minds. He would do what he had to do; I wasn't planing to do anything to cause Andy any problems.

I had never seen a look like that on his face before. It was serious business to him. His military record was on the line. He timed that move into the doorway for effect. He wanted me to know that he was there because he had to be, but if it came down to him or me, he was fully intent on coming out on top.

We both knew that he would probably stop me from hurting Capt. Sawyer too bad, if I lost my grip completely and jumped over the desk at him. Also, we each knew that he would only as much force and inflict as much physical pain as was necessary to stop me. But only I knew for sure that I would never hold it against him if it had come to that.

I wouldn’t have trusted a justifiably angry buddy of mine, like I was as that day, either. A buddy might forget all about our friendship and go all out to hurt anyone who tried to stop him from whomping and stomping all over the captain.

When a soldier receives an Article 15, they must be read their rights. They have the right to accept their charges and punishment without question or to refuse the punishment and take it one step higher to a court marshal and fight the charges. That means a chance of dismissal of charges, or an increasingly more severe level of punishment.

The rights are read to the offending soldier by the commander, from an approximately six inch by ten inch card. The lettering is rather large and clearly printed. Leroy had a dickens of a time reading that card. It wasn’t because he needed reading glasses, he was dumb, period.

We all four other soldiers who were in Capt. Sawyer's office knew that he was dumb as dirt when it came to handling soldiers efficiently or fairly, but this scene with him reading me my rights was 'off the scale' for each of us. Our company commander couldn’t read any word that had more than five letters in it.

He would get to a part that goes: if you accept this punishment---and it would be, “If you assep--asss-a--eccc-assip.”

The first Sergeant had to look over his company commander’s shoulder and pronounce the word for him, then Captain Sawyer repeated it.

He went on and on with, “Thisss pun-pahnis-poon-poonis.”

The rights are about six sentences long. They are a whole, complete, well written paragraph.

Captain Leroy Sawyer couldn’t successfully read more than three words in a row without the First Sergeant leaning forward to see what the next word was and pronouncing the word for him, then the Captain repeated it to me.

First Sergeant was pissed, pissed, pissed, pissed! He turned slightly pale, then pink, next he was looking up and mouthing something to a merciless God while beginning to glow red from ear to ear; then his complexion went bluish; and by the end of his excruciating, God fearing ordeal, he was a purple faced fool. His lips were moving involuntarily in a slight trembling motion, but his thoughts were silent. He was nearly out of his mind with rage. He had to of wanted to throttle that idiot captain from behind and throw him out the window.

The quiet, frightened clerk sitting over in the plain wooden chair there to my left looked all scarred at first now looked so shocked to his bones that he ended up nearly sliding out of his chair from the downward pull of both his drooping jaw and his military moral. It was a hard lesson in military madness to him. I didn’t know the guy. I never did, he had a dull, empty personality that precluded him from having the kind of fun that most of us were into. I’m sure though, that he never thought that he would see anything like that morning in the Army. He had sat there fearing me having a violent reaction to my punishment and ended up seeing what the hell my growing reputation of openly rebelling was rebelling against. The last I remember of him was, he was all slumped down, hanged jawed in the chair staring stupefied somewhere off into the office air.

As Capt. Sawyer screwed up the verbal reading of my written rights, I perceived that Andy’s vibes were getting tighter and tighter, from where he stood next to me, while he tried to focus on what karate moves to start with if I exploded violently onto Capt. Sawyer. Any half decent martial artist thinks and plans out their available moves in a situation like that.

My buddy Andy sounded like a determined, self controlled torture victim being slowly squeezed in a giant vise. His tight breathing was barley audible but, to me standing so close to him, it was clearly escalating in intensity. The cloth of his uniform rustled lowly, as he slightly shifted position with every mispronounced word that came out of his boss’s mouth.

Of the five men in the company commander’s office that morning, my guess is that, only one of us didn’t feel gut sick for the rest of the day. The other one felt like he was God’s gift to the 30th Artillery Brigade Headquarters Battery. He wasn’t, but he was too dumb to know better.

Andy and I talked it all over after supper that evening.

First I must say, due to the fact that, at the time, I thought that the penciled in duty roster changes were perfectly legal, I never mentioned that to my friend Andy. What ever he may have known, about it being against Army Rules and Regulations, he had to keep to himself. In the world of the military, except in a combat situation, when it comes down to my butt or theirs going into a sling, I can’t hold it against someone for choosing themselves. Would you have wanted to rat out your commanding officer for making illegal changes to a duty roster, a self righteous jerk like Capt. Leroy Sawyer, then have to go work in his office next to him? I doubt it.

Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how such a poorly educated man could be awarded the rank of captain. During my short Army career previous to that day in Captain Leroy’s office there had been other Army officers who were mean, arrogant, self righteous, back stabbers who had turned my stomach, but at least they were able to read efficiently and had never screwed me over personally.

Andy informed me that Captain Sawyer had gotten were he was through affirmative action. I knew that Leroy Sawyer did not deserve that affirmative action promotion, but some other African American GIs did.

Andy’s statement made me think of several African American GIs whom I knew of who did deserve to be advanced in rank through affirmative action, because of their segregated lives growing up in the USA and the ongoing prejudices of the Euro American civilian and military power class made for an unfair disadvantage against them. I thought of several black guys stationed on Okinawa at the time whom I would be glad to have serve under if they had been commissioned as officers.

My old Ft. Dix basic training company’s first sergeant stood out foremost in my mind as a black man who deserved the benefits of affirmative action the most of all who I knew. He was an impressive soldier to us recruits in basic. His uniform was perfect every day, not Dandy Dan type perfect but military strack. That man could guide lower ranking men through their Army training difficulties or their personal problems better than any human being I have ever known. When he gathered us troops around him to talk to us, we listened with awe and respect. The man was kind, gentle, and generous with his respect for us. We loved him.

By the way, Leroy didn’t take all of my stripes, like he had sworn to do in the mess hall. The 30th Arty higher ups only allowed him to take one stripe, that lowered me to PFC, Private First Class. But that only bothered me on payday. Exposing Leroy’s complete incompetence might have been worth that loss of pay though, let me think about it; I’ll let you know after this story of mine gets around some on the World Wide Web, if somebody reads it to Leroy Sawyer, it was worth it.


Okinawa
US Army
ursusdave
David Robert Crews
30th Artillery Brigade

Leroy Inspects the Troops

It only took me till about a week after receiving that Article 15 from Capt. Sawyer till I had my chance to partially get him back. It was during his first, formal command inspection of the barracks and the troops.

We had to clean every nook and cranny of the barracks real good for Capt. Leroy Sawyer’s first command inspection. We didn’t mind keeping clean, but everybody figured that that jerk Leroy was going to find something wrong no matter what.

While Leroy inspected the barracks, we all had to stand and wait in formation out back.

After Capt. Sawyer did his thing up in the barracks, he came down and stood in the front of the middle of the formation. As he did that the First Sergeant called us to attention.

Formation, for you civilians, is when the company of troops stands in four even rows at given intervals. Formal inspections meant wearing dress uniforms. Even though we all had to go back to work that day, and some of our jobs were messy and dirty which required us to wear work fatigues. My job sure could be messy, in the chemical filled environment of a photo lab.

I was in the third row back, over on the left side of the center of the formation, where the captain stood to signal the time to stand to attention and the beginning of the inspection, and maybe to address the troops, if he had anything to say. Standing inspections go from his left to right, from the front row, then back to the left on the second row and so on.

When a soldier is standing at attention they must not show any emotion. Cracking a smile or laughing is considered to be “breaking attention” and is a punishable offense. Unless the officer in charge tells a joke and expects you laugh.

As soon as Capt. Sawyer started in on his close inspection of each man in the front row, studiously looking over each man for any unshined brass or crooked lines in his clothing, stuff like that, low and behold, I hada’ fart try to escape my sphincter. It was one of them kinda’ bubbles of gas that felt like they were definitely all air, and easily controlled. I could have let it pass out slowly and silently, or I coulda’ let ‘er rip.

I weighed the facts.

It was not against 1970 era Army Rules and Regulations to pass gas, out one’s ass, like a bugler blowing reveille, during standing inspections. Sometime in the past, farting while standing at attention used to be punishable, but before that day in 1970 the Army had somehow been forced to accept farts as uncontrollable natural bodily functions.

But, I had the guys around me to consider. Not just that they had to stand there, while I went rude in their faces, and then they had to smell it, if it stunk (all right, mine stink), but if the solemn looks on their inspected faces broke into grins, giggles, smiles, smirks, or laughter it was their butts in a sling not mine. Capt. Sawyer would have torn into them worse than they deserved, so that they would maybe get real mad at me for causing their uncomfortable run in with the hated Cap’n Sawyer.

Lordy, Lordy. What ta’ do.

Leroy was a comin’ down the line up there on the front row. My butt was merrily bubblin’ inside. Leroy got closer and closer to the guy standing two rows up directly in front of me. My butt wanted to toot its troubles away. Leroy inspected each soldier on the front row faster and faster. I tightened up my gluteus maximus muscles like a nearly fartin' teenage boy sitting in a church pew in front the prettiest girl in the entire congregation. Leroy stopped at the man who was standing at attention directly up there on the other side of the guy in front of me, ahhh man, this is the chance of a lifetime, I gotta’ make it blast like a Moose lettin’ loose and that I did.

It was a loud, perfect, comedy movie style fart: baaraaraaraaruupp!

Fortunately, nobody broke being at attention.

Captain Leroy Sawyer had to go on about his inspection like nothing had happened.

Some of the guys grumbled about it to me a little right after we were dismissed from formation, but most of ‘um where right in tune with it. They only wished that Capt. Sawyer had been right behind me at the time, to receive the full blast of it. They were glad that I had the guts to pull it off and the backing of the Army Rules and Regulations to get away with it.

And a belated, “Excuse me,” to the poor fellow who was standing directly behind me when I passed gas.


Now, before you go too far in believing that I was just a disgruntled, lone wolf soldier who thought up a bunch of excuses to convince myself that I had a right to be disrespectful to all of the sound reasons why periodic military inspections are necessary for the health, safety, and general well being of the inspected troops, read this next tale of a military inspection that I was a part of. If you take into consideration what happened during the next inspection, you will see that just about the whole gahdamned 1970 era US Army must have had lackadaisical attitudes about inspections. Here is the link to that story:
http://okinawa1970-71.blogspot.com/2007/01/generals-laughing-wazoo.html


Okinawa
US Army
ursusdave
David Robert Crews
30th Artillery Brigade