Walt's Corner

According to this news article, someone was questioning the validity of someone else’s veteran status and asked for some ID. A knife was pulled, followed by an air gun, which ultimately led to someone being shot in the chest.

Reminds me of an old war-story. All Veterans have some good war-stories. Here’s one of mine.

It was around Y2K timeframe. I know that because that’s when I did a year in Korea. I was so sure that nothing would go wrong with that whole situation that I booked my return flight back to Korea just as it turned midnight, December 31, 1999. I was correct. Nothing bad happened. Also, it is the setting of this story.

I won’t mention this person by name to protect the guilty. We’ll just refer to him as OP-4.

OP-4 had a tendency to pull his nuts out. You know how guys are in the locker room. Someone tells someone to suck something. Somebody then tells the other someone to go ahead and pull them and he will. That’s where most locker room banter would end. Not with OP-4. He would pull them out. In front of everybody. Someone was then left with the choice to, uh, shit or get off the pot, so to speak.

The world was OP-4’s locker room. He called his nuts, his “plums.” Group picture? Zoom in on OP-4. Plums. Hanging outside his pants.

One time we were in a club on Kunsan Air Base, seated around a table ordering drinks. Some Air Force guy asked to see OP-4’s ID. So OP-4 pulled out one his plums and proceeded to call it his “ID.” If memory serves (it has been over 25 years since) he also asked if he needed a second ID as well. He did not need a secondary ID. Thank fuck for that.

“Oh man! That’s fucked up!” Exclaimed the Air Force guy, “This is my wife!” He was pointing to the female at his side. OP-4 was never asked to show his ID again. That I’m aware of.