HA! HA! You Missed

The “cat’s eyes” were closed and nothing was ringing on the double-stacked set of SB-22 switchboards. There was no traffic on any net Battalion, Company or Platoon. There was nothing to keep me from leaning back in my wooden chair, draw heavily on my Camel non-filter cigarette, keep my right foot elevated on the desk, and
just basically ignore the war, the world and everybody in it.

The most exciting thing that happened was some stupid Intelligence Officer at Regimental decided to send out his own Recon Patrol without telling anybody else about it about two weeks prior to the day, and the bunch of Office Poagies ran into one of our routine patrols and all hell broke loose. M-14’s, M-60 machine guns, 3.5 rocket launchers and M-79’s went off on the horizon for about twenty minutes. Somebody called a “Cease Fire”, and that’s when we found out these clowns were from Regimental. Amazingly, through all that shit flying back and forth, no one got killed, let alone hurt.

A couple of more minutes and I’d be done with my shift. Then, it was off to my bunker along Artillery Road. Captain Sims would be ending up his daily meeting, and Sergeant Zaidinski would take over at the radio shack after he got done cleaning his .45. BLAM!!! Jesus H. Christ! What the hell was that? The rail of the chair below my crotch exploded, and the back of the chair blew out. I ended up sprawled out on the floor on my stomach, looking over my left shoulder in absolute confusion.

There stood Sergeant Stan, pistol in the palm of his left hand and the most stupefied look on his face. Just a glance over stood Captain Sims yelling, “What the fuck is going on here?”

It didn’t take long to figure out. Stan was cleaning his .45 and had chambered a round. When he went to “clear” it, it went off. Now, if Sergeant Ski had been on a pistol range and made that shot, he would have gotten an “Expert” badge. As it was, he just ended up in a world of bad news.

Sims was so pissed off that he had to be restrained by the First Sergeant and a couple of Lieutenants. That’s when he ordered my good Sergeant into his office for an Article 15, or what’s called and “NJP” “Non-Judicial Punishment. Hell. There wasn’t even any paperwork done. It was like the old “Rocks and Shoals” of the Marine Corps disciplinary philosophy of WW1. You know, Jimmy Cagney and Forrest Tucker in the famous “What Price Glory?”

Stan walked into the Old Man’s office with three stripes up, and mournfully trudged out with only two. He was now “Corporal Stanley Zaidinski”.

I have had two experiences where Sergeants were busted. One deserved it. He violated security rules and asked people to lie to cover his sorry ass. He was busted, sent to Portsmouth for six months and given a Dishonorable Discharge. The other was the infamous Corporal Grant who I knew at Charlie Company, 13th Motor Battalion, 5th Marine Division. Grant had made Sergeant five times in his twenty years, only to make Corporal six. And, he was damned proud of it.

I couldn’t look Stan in the face. We were both now Corporals, and, technically, I was senior to him. Senior to what? Senior to the guy who taught me everything? Senior to the best radio-wireman in the Battalion? Senior to a legend?

I wanted to go find a hole and dig myself into it. Everything that had happened was an accident. Hell! Shit happens. I’d seen worse. I went to the First Sergeant and quietly protested. I told him a lot of guys were gonna be pissed off. He told me not to worry about it and dismissed me. I went to my bunker feeling lower than whale poop in the ocean, and that’s when you’re looking up at everything else.

The next morning, I did not want to go back to the Company Headquarters. For all I cared, I would rather sit my tour out at that sand-bagged shit-hole of a shack the Corps described as a “fighting position”, but was nothing more than a floodable sinkhole we called a “bunker”. But, duty called, and it was my turn for radio watch, so I showed up around noon, after chow.

There, in all his glory stood SERGEANT Stan Zaidinski, three stripes up and beaming. It didn’t take him half a breath to start jumping on my case about anything you name it. But, whatever it was, it was great to have him back doing it again.

Seems Captain Sims had over-stepped his authority. Only Battalion could promote Sergeants, and only Battalion could demote them. And then, only after the Battalion Commander gave an Article 15 or referred the matter to a Court Martial. A little “behind-the-scenes” (some would say “back-stabbing”) maneuvering was done by the First Shirt to get the whole incident thrown overboard, and it worked.

My hero, my mentor, my teacher was saved. He could live another day to try to blow my balls off.

Author/Jerry Czarnowski