Evening star., 1956-03-05

Well, I'm not. Old King has lot of juice in
him yet You think I'm going to let four
little stripes ruin my life? NoSir. not old
King! Nosir, can take it, by God!" Then
he turned to me and said. $50 you're going to
gunnery school. You're going to ship out far,
far away and never come back no more and
won't ever see you no more you think
can't take it? With that. I can take any,
thing!"
"I1l try to make it back every once in a
while" said.
"Yessir with that can take anything"
he said. Even my car I. even
And then somebody yelled out. "Yeah,
there it comes!" from the inside Of the bar
racks and Sergeant King stopped and they
yelled, Its outside, King! They just brought
it in!"
He looked outside the door. They just
brought what IMP"
"Your car" they said "They got it out
there now Look at that thing. will you? Hey,
yall look at that thing!" People were yelling
to each other all over the place, running to
the windows to get look at it. 1t didn't look
so good, neither. The seats was turned upside
down and the back one was poking out
through the rear window and all the other
windows was broke, and it had weeds all over
it and big dent in it, and it was the most
peculiar-looking color ever saw. 1t was hung
on the back of wrecker parked in the front
APPS going inside. Sergeant King looked at
it: then turned away from the window real
quick and lit a cigarette and begun walking
up and down, putting, and rubbing his hands
over his face. Then one fellow said, "You
could tell them you was going to drive-in
movie and you seen some boat lights and
thought that was the movie, and you just
happened to :" but about that tlme the
First Sergeant stuck his head in the door
nd 111Of wifb tn
geant King, and Sergeant King took deep
breath and started out again.
Well, it warnt until got back from dinner
that I found out what had happened
stopped by his room on the way back to get
my bags packed, and he was setting on the
side of the bunk looking out the window.
Some others was standing around but they
quit when come in, and turned and looked
at me. said, well I guess I'll start getting
packed now. I guess I'll see you around be-
fore go so can say goodbye, won't I?
And then this fellow next to me said mo
use in that. He's going to gunnery school him.
self He'll be right with you.'
Well, it was the most surprising thing! I
looked at Sergeant King and he just kept
setting there staring out the window, and /
couldn't get over it for little bit. Me and Ben
and Sergeant King would all be together. "It
just goes to show you." said, that nothing
bad ever happens, but what some good don't
come out of it one way or the other" and
Sergeant King, he agreed. I think. But he
still didn't say nothing, just set there staring
out the window for the longest sort of time.
Off to Gunnery
Anyhow, we went to gunnery, and me and
Ben both got to be privates- -frst-class which
means you wear stripe on your arm. only
we didn't get to wear it long because of this
Captain that was in charge of our crew in
transition. He was pilot of the plane and was
always real particular, wanting you to wear
neckties and such most of the time, which
didn't care nothing about. Anyhow. he stopped
me and Ben up town one day and didn't have
my tie on, and we had few words about that
when tried to explain to him how it was
which found out later warnt supposed to
DOZEN said all I was supposed to do was
stand there and say "No excuse, SIR which
sounded like kind of foolish way to talk to
a man-so one thing led to another and we
was recruits again. and besides that he
changed us off his crew and put us in another
crew. And Ben didn't like that too much
because he said we was now on the sorriest
crew on the base. He said everybody knowed
it was the worst crew there. but didn't much
think so myself because got along with them
pretty good. They was real easygoing COM
pared to the other one; 1t didn't make much
difference with them whether you showed up
for mission or not. Lieutenant Bridges was
the pilot and he was Reserve and was the
only one of the officers I knowed much at
first because the planes was SO monstrously
big and because we few in the back and
they flew in the front so that we didn't see
much of the others, and didn't know them
usually when we did. But Lieutenant Bridges
was mighty easygoing fellow and didn't care
much what you done; he went around most
of the time with his eyes about half-opened
and half CLOSED, just kind of dragging him
self around like he was walking in his sleep,
only he just seemed that way think; he
warnt really asleep but probably only half
drunk, even though it was kind of hard to
tell the difference most of the time. And
as far as I was concerned, had ruther been
on his crew than the first one because he
was so easy to work for. If you took it in
your head you didn't want to go on mission,
he never would notice you warnt there nohow.
I mean like this one fellow we had he didn't
fly hardly any and one day when he come
out to the plane, Lieutenant Bridges didn't
remember him and wouldn't let him fly with US
until he went back to Operations and got
card showing he was supposed to be on our
crew
Anyhow, Sergeant King had got back to
being a sergeant again by that time and had
got himself job in the Orderly Room, and
me and Ben hung around a good bit, not
doing much but going on practice missions
and Ben finally quit worrying about losing his
stripe, and we had right nice time. Ben
still didn't like the crew much-he was mighty
disappointed in them most of the time and
said it was good thing most of the officers
warnt like them and all like that, but he liked
flying a lot, so we went on most of the mis-
sions. not skipping them the way about half
the crew did. And didn't mind it much my
self-it warnt much trouble because there
warnt nothing to do in the back of the plane
but sleep or play cards or set there and watch
the country go under you. Finally I got
checkerboard and took that along and me
and Ben and this other fellow took turns
playing each other, only the other fellow
didn't play much because he was working on
a model airplane that he took along with
him We never did oct IN knou hin, tno oood