Milford chronicle., 1952-04-04
"In The Air Force"
b EIaine Town.end Diekers0n

chance to yell, "Yeh! Rabbit" Ev-
cry night when the boys 5000
longed to crawl in their teepees,
Henson told them it was time to
hunt and Druesdale dFawled, ''Yeh!
Hunting!"
There were q lot of laughs that
week, but there were times when
it wasn't all fun. One night a g.
foot king snake wandered into
camp. The boys quickly killed it
and with pride, showed it to their
instructor only to be told this
snake shouldn't have been killed
since it rid the swamp of rattle
snakes. The whole week it Tained
and seemed awfully cold to me to
be camping out" The boys bath
ed in a cold, black mud hole one
mile from camp.
A new salad, to the survivors,
was introduced to them by Sgt.
Henson and wasn't too bad, Hayes
said. 1t consisted of weeds. lilly
pad roots, mixed with skunk cab
bage. The latter is found inside
the trunk of short, stubby palm
trees and tastes like sweet pota-
/ toes.
One night while out hunting they
saw, in the distance, a pair of eyes
coming toward them. The boys
closed in for the kill and thought
their catch, for that evening, had
been realized. However, the ex-
citement from the hunt soon chang
ed when they found out the animal
was black with a white stripe down
its back. Hayes said they fed for
camp with Sgt. Henson in the lead
Hayes was anxious to bag" q
wild cat, and since the previous
surviving team had, he knew they
were there. Sgt Henson, Hayes
/ lTFuesdale and Gimble were the
four who set out one night in search
of the cat Truesdale was chosen tC
shoot the cat, since he was the
marksman and too, since they haC
only one gun in camp. 1t was nOI
long before Sgt. Henson stopped
the boys, flashed his light over to-
ward a clump of bushes and there
reflected a pair of eyes. Truesdalt
got down fiat on his stomach, mo
toned to the other boys to do thu
same and got all set to fire. Sgt
Henson had told the boys that Dol
, cats, bob their heads up and dOwI
to avoid the beam from your fash
light and these eyes were dOinl
just that. Just as Truesdale, tn,
comedian, was all ready to fire, t
his amazement from the clump 0
: trees came a loud "Moo-O-O." Th'
. skunk and the COW provided tn,
most fun of the whole trip.
/ guess I should mention for tn
benefit of Hayes Delaware hunting
friends, namely J. P. Hammond
, Jr., H. H. MulhOlland, Jr., and L
: B. wilkins, that there were duck
near the camping area and to shOV
: them things haven't changed, II
? DickersOn bagged none.
2 One wild orange tree. q mil
! from camp, was stripped of it
3 fruit and provided about 4 dOze
oranges for the boys swamp break
e fasts. There were several snake
d killed, and two otters, which tas
: ed like chicken, whose skins weI
? worth $500 each, fox, which wa
: not eaten because it might carr
4 rabies, and an OpOssum whic
I Hayes skinned and Sgt. HensO
thought looked sick and shOuldn
1 be eaten, either.
: A story about Avon Park woul
Il not be complete unless Capt. Joh
/, / Kelley's name was mentioned. H
4 is in charge o. all the SURVIVE
: camps at Avon. and is to his "stu
! dents a man. When Chaplin wa
! at Avon he saw Capt. Kelley rid
: and butcher an S-fOOt alligator.
[ Hayes was glad to get home I
b civilization again, but was MOI
= than grateful for his week of SUI
/, vival at Avon and the training
T experienced there.
e Elaine Townsend DickersOT