I was a first lieutenant when I was teamed with another first lieutenant to teach a class on military justice. These things can be frightfully dull, but the Army likes to use skits in training, so the two of us worked on a series of ideas that would get the class involved. We decided to start off with my getting shot by my SP4 clerk. Then we would take him through the entire procedure from arrest to general court-martial.
My clerk went to the Fort Lewis Players and procured a blank pistol for the verisimilitude. We placed him in the back of the room, and then I began, “Gentlemen, today’s five hour block of instruction is on the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” My SP4 jumped up, aimed the pistol at me and screamed, “Die, lifer!” He fired several shots and I hit the ground.
From the corner of my eye, I could see utter pandemonium. The senior NCOs in the room, witnessing the end of their military careers, mobbed my SP4.
“Grab him!”
“Get the gun!”
The company first sergeant screamed, “Break his finger! Break his finger!”
Most of the students did the proper thing by hitting the deck. One private, a young man from the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, tried to open the window, failed, attempted to use his elbow to break the plexiglass, failed, and then tried to rip up the astroturf rug to hide under it.
My teaching partner calmed everyone down and said, “Gentlemen, you have just witnessed a murder!”
The soldier from Bedford-Stuyvesant had tears rolling down his eyes. Pointing his finger at my teaching partner, he screamed, “I didn’t see nothin’, man! I didn’t see nothin’!”
That was the correct response for Bedford-Stuyvesant.
I had a tough time keeping a straight face while on the ground. My partner stood over me and chanted, “My father can beat your father at dominoes,” which was as close to Catholic Latin as that Colorado Presbyterian would ever get. I stood up and saw a whole room in shock.
The people from the Fort Lewis G-3 shop, who were there to inspect the class, said it was the best military justice class they had ever witnessed. But they were among the first to hit the deck.
You did lead a colorful military life.