The One Where I Set Him On Fire......

****Today I am phoning it in....Have a good Sunday****


During our final bivouac one of our Drill Sergeants had a truck, he had it because every day he had to drive back base to take tests, he would rejoin us at night. This Sergeant was a pretty good guy, well as far as Drill Sergeants go, but he was absolutly hopeless in the dark. Hellen Keller had better night vision.

Every morning we rose before dawn, collapsed out tents and covered them with leaves. In the evening, before it got dark we had a brief oppertuninty to re-erect them. On this evening I put mine back up and then noticed that the Drill Sergeant was not back from base yet. Rather than having to listen to him hisss my name as he wandered blindly through the woods like a lost drunken bull I went ahead and set it up for him. It had gotten really dark by the time I was finishing his tent, and when I leaned in to grab the poles I banged my knee on something really hard. I finished the set up and zipped his tent shut.


I had phone duty this particular night, basically you sit on your butt and try to stay awake for 4 hours. Late, late into the night I hear my Drill Sergeant thrashing through the woods, I found him and lead him to his tent.


I watched him climb into his tent and zip it shut. A few minutes later I heard a "Tchaaa" sound and his tent became a giant orange fireball. He was screaming my name and trying to stand. He made it to his feet, the little tent pegs were no match for him. The tent was draped over his head; he looked like a giant camoflaged ghost. Because I am not insane, I made tracks; though thinking back on it, his night vision was crap before the explosion he couldn't have found me if his life depended on it.


He eventually settled down, I don't know how long that took because I was far far away. He really couldn't do much to me, that thing that I banged my knee on, it was a big contraband gas lamp. That little bump of the knee turned the gas on, with that tent all zipped up one strike of a match and........

You know that thing people do when they laugh at a time when they really shouldn't? You know like in the middle of a church service or whenever a man gets hit in his man-parts? I fought this urge every time I saw him until graduation. He walked away from the "explosion" minus every hair on his head, not lash or eyebrow in sight. Every time I saw him Pink Floyd songs started playing through my mind....no eyebrows.....so funny......looking.......bwaaa haa haa......