Walt's Corner

Boxers or briefs? That’s the penultimate question, isn’t it? I know you’ve been dying to know which I prefer. I guess there’s a third option, commando, but that’s never been an option for me. My choice happens to be the result of a war story.

A war story that I had forgotten until yesterday, when my son tells me that where he thought I was going with my 2 Factor Authentication Gone Plum Wrong story. Hint – it wasn’t the story he thought. At least he got a new story out of it.

This one takes us back to Desert Shield time frame. Somewhere in the sandbox that is Saudi Arabia, before we spearheaded into Iraq. I went to sick call for something I can’t even remember now. My vitals are being taken, but I hear this guy screaming like a bitch in the cubicle next to me. I use the term “cubicle” in the most primal way. We were in a large tent called a GP-Large and there was an olive drab green piece of canvas separating us.

After vitals are taken, I’m just playing the waiting game. Waiting for the doctor to get to me. In the meantime, the doctor is in the cubicle next door. With someone screaming their fool head off. I couldn’t take it any more; I had to look. WTF was going on next to me?

Quietly I got up and moved closer to the dividing canvas. I pried the canvas open a bit for a better look. What I saw horrified me. Some dude with his pants down around his ankles. One of his balls the size of a grapefruit. That alone is enough to make a guy scream. But here’s the kicker. The doctor? He’s flicking that shit like he’s checking the ripeness of a watermelon. Then he lifts it up a bit in his hand AND DROPS IT. Asking, “Does that hurt? Can you feel this?” MF, what do you think? That shit will hurt even if it ain’t swollen. Goddamn.

When the doctor was finished with him and was seeing me, I had to ask him. What made his ball swell up like that? I wanted to know just to make sure that it never happened to me. At least while I was out here and with this particular doctor.

The doctor told me that one of his testicles had wrapped around the other and cut off the circulation. Son of a bitch! That made my nut start pulsating in pain just thinking about it. I asked him what how that could’ve happened. Now, this is what he told me. Was it true? Could be. I don’t really know, but it made perfect sense to me at the time so I took his word for it. He said that it was probably from the kid wearing boxers. He went on to explain that boxers did not provide enough support, especially when you lead an active lifestyle, such as that of a Soldier.

I woke up that morning with 8 pair of boxers and 8 pair of briefs. I ended that day with 8 pair of briefs only. I never wore boxers again.

Task & Purpose, the military-centric news site has a nice little article about the fabled stress card and proceeds to debunk it.

Like all quality myths and rumors it is based on a small grain of truth. I attended boot camp in the 80s. It was designed to put you through a lot of stress; maybe even break you if you could not handle that stress. This weeded out the ones not up to the task before they actually became a weak link later and became danger/risk to themselves or their unit.

Blanket parties. Getting smoked. Fire guard. Four hours of sleep a night if you were lucky. Bed tossing. Hell, even bay tossing – where the drills would throw all your bunk frames, mattresses, blankets, and anything else not physically secured to the building structure out the window into the quad below. Then give the platoon 8 minutes to get everything back up, in place, and back down in formation. Some Drill yelling as loud as they could 2 inches from your face spraying you with spittle. This usually resulted in shark attacks – other Drills hearing the commotion and making a beeline to where the action was, joining in on the frenzied verbal assault.

It was all a mind-fuck designed to weed out the weak and test your stress. Enter the Stress Card. Legend has it, a new recruit could whip out this magical stress card and whatever the current humiliation that recruit was experiencing would come to a sweet, blissful end.

I would gladly pay money to see a video where some weak-minded fool would try that shit with my Drill Sergeants. Bottom line, that never happened.

So how did we get here? Were there stress cards? There absolutely were. Could the troops whip one out when being verbally assaulted and it would all end? Fuck no. There has not been one single confirmed first hand eyewitness report. Never. More like Reo Speedwagon’s “Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend, who heard it from another” you been really stressed owwwwwut. And if you sang along with that, you’re an old motherfucker. We all heard it from someone-A who knew someone-B who gave a first hand account. And that someone trusted that someone who gave the first hand account. In other words they trusted a fart. Never trust a fart. You will eventually shit your pants.

What really happened was someone-B heard it from someone-C who gave the first hand account, and someone-B trusted someone-C, so when someone-B passes along this knowledge, he tweaks the story just a hair. Someone-B relays the story as if they were the actual first hand account. Because they know a truth seeking someone-A will not just accept a word of mouth story as the gods’ honest truth unless they hear it from that certain point of view.

So what were these stress cards? Just that. Stress cards came in various shapes and sizes. The most common ones I have touched came in the size of a credit card and a 6-inch ruler. Most were given out by agencies that fell within the realm of Army Community Services. These agencies go to cheap promotional stores where they get pens, pencils, stress balls, and yes, stress cards engraved or pictured with their individual logo and numbers. It’s their business cards.

The Army has long struggled with suicide. Of course depression/stress played a large part in the root cause of these suicides. These cards would list agencies and phone numbers one could call if one were to be feeling depressed or stressed. Most of these cards even contained a strip of material that when you place your thumb on them for 30 seconds, it would change color. You then matched the resulting color to a scale off to the side to determine your stress level. Sound like a mood ring? Same concept. I’ve been on the receiving end of these cards during various briefings throughout my career in government service and I’ve handed them out to members of my various briefings.

So yes. Stress cards existed. No, they were never pulled out to stop a Drill from berating you.

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.

The Coast Guard released their Report of Investigation on the disaster of OceanGate’s Titan submersible. Their conclusion? “This marine casualty and the loss of five lives was preventable.”

Slap my ass and call me stupid, but I do believe I came to that conclusion myself. And without spending any money or time. Do stupid things win stupid prizes. Fuck around, find out. Winner winner, ocean’s dinner.

If you haven’t watched Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster on Netflix yet, I suggest you do so. You’re welcome.

I saw this meme on facebook. Reminded me of a childhood memory.

Circa 1980 my paternal grandparents, known to us as Grandpa and Grandma Basil, took us out to eat at this restaurant called Tin Pan Alley, in Bradenton, Florida. I was a very finicky eater as a child. So when he ordered the buffet for all of us, I ended up with pretty much just a salad on my plate.

When we had all settled own at our table and started to eat, Grandpa noticed my plate. I could see the disappointment in his face. He told me, “I could have bought a head of lettuce for twenty nice cents. Go get some meat.” I complied.