with him, having him fold the same shirt over and over again – all night! How did he respond to that? Speaking not a word, he would look at them is if they weren’t there, while folding again and again.
The worst of the treatment Jim received came from three guys from Brooklyn. One day they announced, “He’s our boy, we’ll take care of him.” From that point on, the head bully from Brooklyn (let’s affectionately call him “Dumbo”) and his two little flunkies,’ “Dumb & Dumber,” proceeded to make Jim’s life a sadistic nightmare. Whenever they wanted or felt like it, they would come up to Jim and beat him from head to toe.
Even at night, after Taps and the lights were turned out, they would come over to Jim’s bunk and beat on him. How did Jim respond to this? He would laugh as he said, “Hit me again, hit me here!” In the morning when you would get up, Jim’s white pillow case and sheets were red with blood. This became both a daily and nightly occurrence, and was starting to get on some of our nerves.
MARCHING LIKE “F” TROOP
One day as we were practicing marching on the parade ground
I had a fun thing happen. At least it was fun for me. As Reservist, we were terrible at marching in unison. We looked like the guys on the old TV series F Troop. They would say to the left flank march, half of the guys went left, the rest continued going the way they were originally marching. The command to the rear march, got even funnier results, as guys would turn and run into one another. They kept breaking us down into smaller and smaller groups. Finally, we were reduced to columns of two. The company commander counted thirteen, pulling out the odd guy who was standing at the end, and telling him he was to count cadence.
Who was the lucky and definitely “odd” guy in my group? It was none other than the head bully from Brooklyn. This guy was as pathetic as the rest of us. He had no idea of what he was doing. On top of that, a cold wind was blowing as a blizzard was going on, so it was difficult to hear unless the guy shouted really loud.
I was marching at the front of the left hand side. The bully was at the rear of the column of two, six guys long. He made a whispered command which I did not hear. All of a sudden I felt lonely. Looking to my right, the rest of the guys were marching away from me. I ran over to catch up. The bully called out, “Squad Halt!”
Then coming up to where I was, he proceeded to curse at me, using vile profanity. “Callihan, you “F”n Idiot, don’t you know your left from your right? You G.D. Moron, when I give the order to go to the right, you go to the right!”
I must admit, my live and let live nature had always made me look like a dream come true to bullies. But unfortunately, I was of the mind to let die, if that was what a bully wanted me to do. I loved to make their expected dream into their worst nightmare. I had been taught never to be a bully, never pick a fight with anyone. But…if any bully was dumb enough to pick a fight with me, I should not walk away until I found out who won. Of course, I always fought with the desire to win (almost always… there was one time, when I had to fight my best friend. My heart was not in it, and I lost).
So I asked myself what is the best way of dealing with this idiot. Realizing he had no authority to be speaking to me like this, I decided to ignore him. Turning to the guy next to me I said, “I don’t believe this weather. I think it might snow (this with a blizzard gong on).” Understanding what I was doing, he replied, “I think you may be right.” I then said, “I can’t believe this, it’s May. Back in Florida where I come from, it’s in the eighties.” To this, my friend replied, “I wish I was in Florida right now.”
All during my conversation Dumbo was standing to my left side, spouting out words which confirmed he suffered from a bad case of moron mouth. One of his Flunkies happened to be standing behind me. He took it on him self to push me in the shoulder blade, saying, “That’s you he’s talking to!” Turning around to face him, still ignoring the presence of the idiot, I said, “Yeah, you’d better tell him to shut up, before he gets into trouble.”
Finally I had enough! Turning to face the Moron Mouth, I held my rifle in my hands, ready to swing it hard toward his face. Looking him coldly in the eyes I said, “If you don’t want this rifle butt to become part of your butt, you’d better shut up, NOW!” Dumbo shouted back at me saying, “Oh Yeah!” Swinging the rifle butt toward his face, I said “Oh Yeah!” I thought to myself, I’ll try to stop in time, if I do, he’s lucky, if I don’t he’s very unlucky.
It turned out he was a very lucky guy. I was able to stop about a half an inch from his jaw. Poor Dumbo turned whiter than the snow; he knew he had almost lost some teeth. He immediately began apologizing to me very sincerely. I looked at him and said, “I think you should apologize. Just who the Hell do you think you are talking to me like that? Do you know how close you came to loosing all your teeth?” “Yes, and I’m very sorry to have spoken like I did. I was wrong, please forgive me.” Typical Bully Type! I just smiled at him and said, “I’ll let you go this time, but if there’s ever another time, I guarantee, you won’t have a tooth left in your head.”
CAN YOU BELIEVE? IT GETS EVEN BETTER!
Finally, we were down to just two days of Boot Camp left. My incident on the parade ground had happened only a day earlier. On that second to last day, we had just finished having lunch. Upon returning to the barracks, as usual, many were engaged in various activities. Some were having conversations, others were reading a book, while still others were writing a letter home. No one was sitting on their bunk, as that was not allowed. All were either standing around or sitting down at the small tables in the center isle of the barracks. I was in the process of attempting to hang my P coat when suddenly it happened.
The three guys from Brooklyn, Dumbo, Dumb, & Dumber, had gathered around Jim, who was sitting at one of the tables. All of a sudden, they let out with a vicious attack. Immediately Jim’s nose began to bleed. Customarily, Jim began to laugh saying his usual, “Hit me again – hit me here!”
All at once one of the guys who was sitting at a table about four feet away from the Dummies, jumped to his feet. “ALRIGHT, THAT’S ENOUGH! THIS POOR KID IS MENTALLY SICK, AND I’M TIRED OF WATCHING YOU TORMENT HIM. IT WILL STOP – AND STOP NOW!” To this, the chief Dummy, Dumbo replied, “Whose going to stop us?” “I AM!” the good guy answered. “You, and who else?”
I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that question. In fact, I missed the hook, dropping my coat as I rushed to stand beside the good guy who had demanded they stop. What happened next looked like a scene from a movie. It was almost as if it was choreographed, but this was real life.
One by one, the guys put down their books or letters. They stopped their conversations. It got really still, as one by one they either came to stand beside me and my brave friend, or beside the Dummies. Sadly, of the 79 people there, it was like a 50 – 50 split. Half of them liked being sadistic, enjoying the torture of a fellow human being, while the other half by now knew Jim was mentally gone. He did not deserve receiving such treatment. It had to come to an end, and if it took a fight, so be it!
As we were picking out who we wanted to fight, I turned to my friend – the instigator, and I asked him a favor. “Bill, you can have the other two, but I want the one with the mouth. I have some unfinished business with him.” “I know, I heard what happened yesterday on the parade ground. O. K., as much as I’d like to have him, he’s yours.” I pointed to Dumbo, and grinned with a big smile on my face. To his credit, he pointed back at me, but I just knew I was going to enjoy this fight.
Once everyone was in position, we started slowly moving toward our intended target, pointing
