* The names and other parts of this story were deleted to protect the innocent and the guilty. |
Cadet Chong was from Guatemala, but he seemed more Chinese than Latin and we picked on him because he didn't speak English or Spanish very well.
I remember once that Cadet Chong was asleep in his room that afternoon. We were wearing fatigues and boots that day. I was really bored that time so I was going through the rooms to see what I could do and I saw Chong sleeping in his room on his bed. So I thought of a joke to play on him. I decided to borrow some shaving cream from one cadet X* and the pillow from cadet Y and we went to visit Chong while he was deeply asleep.
First with a knife we cut open cadet Y's pillow and poured all the feathers into Y's trash can. Then we walked into Chong's room with great caution trying not to wake him up. I squirted the entire can of shaving cream on him from the collar of the fatigue shirt to the end of his fatigue pants, to where his boots began. After that the three of us carefully put all the feathers on all the shaving cream and we left to X's room. We couldn't stop laughing. It was now time for Retreat formation. Assembly bugle call was played, but we didn't go to formation because we could not stop from the laughing attack we had, especially when we saw Chung running to the stairs of Charlie Company heading to the formation.
By the time Chong fall in the ranks the entire battalion was laughing. We where watching all this from Y's room up in C Company., When Sergeant Guerra got there he sent Chong to his room to get changed immediately. When he got there he accused us of what we had done. Of course we denied it and I told him I knew who did such cruel joke on him. I told him that cadet Z did it. Chong went into Z's room and they fought all over the room and out into the hall, totally filling the room with feathers and part of the first platoon's hallway.
We were laughing so hard but when you got into the Charlie Company hallway we all got totally shut off, our laugh just went to the other part of the world immediately.
Then Sergeant Guerra, without asking anyone what had happened, said "PANAMA, X, Y". I tried to maintain myself serious but the other two dummies couldn't hold it and started laughing so hard that I couldn't hold it, and broke down to the ground having to hold my stomach because it hurt so bad.
I don't remember what happened after that, if Sergeant Guerra pardoned us or gave us more hours than what we already had to walk the flagpole.
All I know is that Sergeant Guerra was laughing too and we didn't have to clean up the mess.
But that time I remember Sergeant Guerra told me that one more of those and he would send me back to El Salvador even if he had to put me on a banana boat himself.
That was only one of the several times we did stuff like that.
Sergeant Guerra is a good man, he shared a lot of his experiences with us and he always took good care of us. That was '84, '85, and '86 and now as I transport myself back to those days I remember that Sergeant Guerra was a man who was always dedicated to taking good care of us.
Thanks Sergeant Guerra. I hope to see you some day, I might be at the Alumni meeting on May 5th next year. (2001)
To see more information on SM/Sgt. - Captain Ed Guerra, click on his name here.
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* The names and other parts of this story were deleted to protect the innocent and the guilty. |
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