Teufelhundes And Crappers
I just visited a really great Blog, "Stacking Swivel." Big Bubba, the old Drill Sergeant, knows all about stacking swivels on both rifles and trainees. This story about the Teufelhunde, Inspector General's Inspection is very funny to this old soldier. Dirty leg civilians may have trouble appreciating the subtleties of military humor.
A fellow Drill Sergeant was teaching a Field Sanitation class in a wooded training area at Fort Ord, California. It was during the Vietnam era and Fort Ord was at its peak as a military training center for basic training and advanced individual training in military specialties. The Drill Sergeant was instructing the company about what the military (all branches) call a cat hole for needs beyond urination in the field. The cat hole doctrine was to take your entrenching tool (small folding shovel) and dig a hole twelve inches deep. One inquisitive trainee shot up his hand and asked, "Drill Sergeant, how wide do you dig the hole?" Think about that one logically for a brief moment. You have a small, folding shovel and you are going to dig a hole twelve inches deep. How wide? The dynamics of digging a hole with a certain type of tool dictates that answer. Still a good question deserves a good answer.
The Drill Sergeant let his professional composure slip for one brief moment and sarcastically replied, "Wide enough for a big one, Trainee." Little did he know that the Lieutenant Colonel commanding our Battalion was creeping through the woods for an unannounced inspection. The Drill Sergeant spotted the Colonel and sensed impeding doom. Nothing was said and the class continued. I wasn't there. I am reporting second hand. I did not know a thing about the incident until I received the invitation.
I received a personal invitation to attend the dedication ceremony for the "Captain _____ Memorial Crapper" at a certain time on a certain date. Don't worry Captain ____ your secret is safe with me and I will not disclose your name. I actually helped to set up the ceremony out back in the wooded training area. The Drill Sergeant miscreant had to take a detail out to the site of his error in judgement. They dug a hole and used a steel pot to mold a concrete crapper in the ground. They inscribed around the lip of the concrete crapper "Captain _____ Memorial Crapper."
Prior to the appointed hour I took a flat bed truck full of equipment and a few trainees to prepare for the ceremony. We had a podium, sound system and folding chairs for the guests. We had several iced sheet cakes from our Mess Hall. We had a large container of coffee. We had another one with a punch. The Company, invited guests and VIPs assembled at the appointed hour. The Brigade Chaplain was there for the invocation and benediction. The Company Commander gave the dedicatory speech and cued the Drill Sergeant miscreant to unveil the memorial crapper for all to admire. Then our Colonel took the podium and gave us a piece of his mind. Everyone enjoyed their cake, drink and gazing at the memorial. It was the most memorable ceremony, out of hundreds, that I ever attended at Fort Ord.
Thank goodness the Colonel never caught Drill Sergeant Big Bubba with one of his s**tbirds up in a tree, flapping his arms, shouting "I'm a s**tbird, I'm a s**tbird." He would have come unhinged.
A fellow Drill Sergeant was teaching a Field Sanitation class in a wooded training area at Fort Ord, California. It was during the Vietnam era and Fort Ord was at its peak as a military training center for basic training and advanced individual training in military specialties. The Drill Sergeant was instructing the company about what the military (all branches) call a cat hole for needs beyond urination in the field. The cat hole doctrine was to take your entrenching tool (small folding shovel) and dig a hole twelve inches deep. One inquisitive trainee shot up his hand and asked, "Drill Sergeant, how wide do you dig the hole?" Think about that one logically for a brief moment. You have a small, folding shovel and you are going to dig a hole twelve inches deep. How wide? The dynamics of digging a hole with a certain type of tool dictates that answer. Still a good question deserves a good answer.
The Drill Sergeant let his professional composure slip for one brief moment and sarcastically replied, "Wide enough for a big one, Trainee." Little did he know that the Lieutenant Colonel commanding our Battalion was creeping through the woods for an unannounced inspection. The Drill Sergeant spotted the Colonel and sensed impeding doom. Nothing was said and the class continued. I wasn't there. I am reporting second hand. I did not know a thing about the incident until I received the invitation.
I received a personal invitation to attend the dedication ceremony for the "Captain _____ Memorial Crapper" at a certain time on a certain date. Don't worry Captain ____ your secret is safe with me and I will not disclose your name. I actually helped to set up the ceremony out back in the wooded training area. The Drill Sergeant miscreant had to take a detail out to the site of his error in judgement. They dug a hole and used a steel pot to mold a concrete crapper in the ground. They inscribed around the lip of the concrete crapper "Captain _____ Memorial Crapper."
Prior to the appointed hour I took a flat bed truck full of equipment and a few trainees to prepare for the ceremony. We had a podium, sound system and folding chairs for the guests. We had several iced sheet cakes from our Mess Hall. We had a large container of coffee. We had another one with a punch. The Company, invited guests and VIPs assembled at the appointed hour. The Brigade Chaplain was there for the invocation and benediction. The Company Commander gave the dedicatory speech and cued the Drill Sergeant miscreant to unveil the memorial crapper for all to admire. Then our Colonel took the podium and gave us a piece of his mind. Everyone enjoyed their cake, drink and gazing at the memorial. It was the most memorable ceremony, out of hundreds, that I ever attended at Fort Ord.
Thank goodness the Colonel never caught Drill Sergeant Big Bubba with one of his s**tbirds up in a tree, flapping his arms, shouting "I'm a s**tbird, I'm a s**tbird." He would have come unhinged.
posted by BigBubba at 9:15 PM
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10 Comments:
Although I do not quite understand the colonels motives, I do applaud his creativity. I myself have had some rather "puzzling" experiences, once as a sentry guarding one of the tallest flagpoles in the U.S. and being ordered to challenge all who approached with a "Halt! Who goes there? Friend? Foe? Or subversive cockroach?"
-FJ
Ducky says hi to Big Bubba. I notice your profile says you like gospel. Here's a link to the real deal...shouldn't miss this one.
http://www.yazoorecords.com/2049.htm
I found him for you BB.
Correct way to wipe when issued only "one" square of mil type toilet tissue.
1. Fold paper square, corner to corner, into a triangle.
2. Fold paper again, corner to corner, into smaller triangle.
3. Tear off a small portion at the apex of the triangle, large enough to insert finger.
(Very Important), save small piece of paper by placing in pocket!
4. Unfold paper and slip over index finger.
5. Reach around and thoroughly clean using index finger.
6. Grasping paper with opposite hand and holding firmly remove from index finger removing soil.
Oh... I almost forgot, that small piece of paper in your pocket...
7. Remove small piece of paper from pocket and clean under fingernail of index finger!
Farmer John, My OCS cockroach funeral is a whole 'nother story. I think the explanation for such military hilarity is simple. It is a carryover from school days. If you talk to anyone who attended a Service Academy, Tx A&M, VMI or the Citadel they all have similar stories of seemingly ridiculous exercises that left big impressions and taught a lesson. It is the start of instilling the military theory that if you take care of the small details the big details will take care of theirselves.
BB,
Too true. I guess I had too much time to "think" about it. Have a great Memorial Day weekend. I'm going out for the evenning, but I'll be dropping in and out from time to time to check up on you.
-FJ
BB,
"Thinking" some more on the lesson of 'taking care of the small details' reminds me of some brain experiments that were once done in patients with a severed corpus callosum (the pathway for neurons that functions to unite the two brain hemispheres L & R).
When patients who also had some damage to the right parietal lobe were shown a picture of a bunch of small letter "x's" arranged in the shape of a larger "W" were asked to reproduce what they saw, they might draw a bunch of x's, but couldn't faithfully reproduce the larger shape of the "W". They combined many "x's" into various often linear, but non-W shaped forms. Conversely, when patients with a damaged left parietal lobe were shown the same picture, they would faithfully reproduce a large "W", but saw none of the small "x's" of which it was comprised.
Gen. George S. Patton once said "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."
If I might be so presumptuous, I might add to Gen. Patton's quote... "Tell people what to do and why..." if you ever really want something done, long-term.
Every portrait of Daedelus needs a few nails so that it won't "fly away" (Plato, "Meno"). And besides, most of us men don't have symetrical brains, anyway. The W's are real hard to see, when all you get fed are a bunch of x's.
-FJ
Post Script - I guess I've been out of the military for to long. You start telling every private "why" and the next thing you know Ivan's handing everyone an entrenching tool and telling you to "get to work". I guess the security environment's a little less stringent in the "commercial" world. ;-)
-FJ
PPS - The colonel's ingenuity in creating nails for his portraits of Daedelus is now greatly appreciated. Thanks for sharing that story, BB. It's no longer a "puzzlement".
-FJ
The "why" in the democratic Army is not for the petty details.
One of our directors was once frustrated with me. He told me that "my problem" was that I saw everything in 3-D and technicolor and most others saw flat and b&w images.
And for my final disconnected thought of the morning the x's and w's for some reason make me recall a recent jest, "he has lineally challenged waterfowl issues." Translation: He doesn't have his ducks in a row.
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