In my life I've had the opportunity to be involved with several groups of differing identities and I've found that each of those groups - whether educational, political, military, or cultural in nature has its own type of institutional wisdom, usually expressed in humorous aphorisms. I've always liked best the ones I picked up in the service:
- The most dangerous person on the battlefield is a second lieutenant with a map.
- War is God's way of teaching geography to Americans.
- Just remember our equipment is all manufactured by the lowest bidder.
- There's a reason why the only gold-colored rank insignia are a second lieutenant's bar and a major's oak leaf.
I didn't encounter that last one until late 1981 when I was transferred to the battalion staff where I had to work with not just one, but two majors who overlapped. One was the new operations officer, MAJ (Major) Beardsley, while the other was the outgoing operations officer, MAJ Clinton.
Clinton was an artilleryman who'd been assigned to the support battalion based on his secondary specialty (quartermaster) and he was not a pleasant person to work with, prompting one of my sergeants (also a lay minister) to comment 'If I was Moses I'd turn every other Egyptian into a MAJ Clinton and have them bug each other to death'. That was pretty close to my own assessment - we'd clashed on a major training event I'd conduced the previous summer, but to be honest, I was put off just as much by his appearance. He was short – just barely within the Army's minimum height requirement, and his eyes were an unsettling light blue, light enough that I'd refer to him as 'MAJ Bunny Rabbit' to the other lieutenants.
He was also understandably abrasive. At the time the army had a strict 'up or out' policy when it came to officer's careers – if you were passed over for promotion twice your career was over and majors were stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. Moving up from second lieutenant to first lieutenant was almost automatic; chances for promotion between first lieutenant to captain was close to 90%, but your prospects of making it through the next two jumps (captain to major and major to lieutenant colonel) were pretty grim, as in 60% or so. All of this happens after the officer in question has invested ten years in a very specialized career that doesn't pay pension or retirement benefits until the twenty year mark. That was MAJ Clinton's situation – he'd already been passed over once, and his tenure in the battalion had been lackluster and not likely to improve his chances with the upcoming year's promotion board. He was not one to suffer in silence, and became unpleasant enough to have the entire office counting the days down for his departure.
After a short leave he was going to a professional development course but the timing of all this was a little awkward. Most PCS moves between Alaska and the lower 48 states happened during the warmer months, and entailed a lengthy road trip over the Alaska Highway. For this winter move MAJ Clinton chose to have his personal vehicle shipped while he and his family travelled by commercial airline. He was cutting it close, working up until the day he was to fly south.
It was only after he'd left at the close of business that last day at the battalion that his brief case was found next to a coat rack in our office. Getting the briefcase back to him was problematic - He was spending the night before the flight at a motel out by the airport so his personal vehicle had already been shipped. Normally the briefcase would have been mailed to his next duty station, but it held several documents critical to the upcoming promotion board so I instructed the duty driver take it to MAJ Clinton at Anchorage International airport the next morning before his flight left.
Now remember those little devil/angel figures used in old cartoons to portray ethical dilemmas? They'd hover over each shoulder of a character to represent the mental debate of opposing courses of action. In this instance my little devil punched my little angel in the throat and to set out to wreak havoc.
It was one of the few times in my military career that skills gained as an art major proved to be very useful. Using an assortment of file folders, spray adhesive, heavy-duty aluminum foil, and an X-acto knife, I made an X-ray proof silhouette of an M1911A1 .45 pistol and sandwiched it between two generic DA forms that I put in the pocket affixed to the inside of the briefcase's lid.
A seven year old stood a better chance than I did of a getting a good night's rest, but eventually I snickered and giggled myself to sleep, only to be jarred awake by a deployment drill at 04:00 the next morning. Despite the barely contained chaos of a pre-embarkation drill, I managed to get the duty driver out the door with the briefcase in time for MAJ Clinton's flight. Even then it was another day-and-a-half before I got any of the details…and even then the information wasn't very specific, other than for some mysterious reason MAJ Clinton had to take a later flight out of Anchorage International after a very animated discussion with airport authorities.
I kept my mouth shut, but eventually I was confronted by one of the company commanders who pieced the story together as details started filtering in. For a moment I thought I was in deep trouble, but he left me with, 'If I tried something like that as a lieutenant they'd have put me up against a wall and shot me'.
It was something I'd definitely not do now- this happened in a simpler time twenty years before 9/11 when I was still marking the books in my personal library with my Social Security Number, but I'd like to think it restored the karmic balance for a needlessly unpleasant person.
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