The People You Meet Along the Way, #1
If you wander long enough and meet enough people along the way, you may begin to get jaded and believe that there are just so many types of people. You change the hair color or the eyebrow shape or weight or height but basically there are a limited number of "types" in the world. You know you've met people and said to yourself, "he's just like______" , fill in the blank. Well, I know that there are some people in the world that there is just one of. World couldn't handle any more than one.
Case in point is PFC Charlie. He was a fuel truck driver in my platoon many moons back. In fact, I was just a brand new private myself...my platoon sergeant was fond of saying that I "still smelled like the inside of a new duffel bag". Charlie was pure sad sack. The best wasn't that he filled up the colonel's sedan with diesel fuel...twice. Or that he managed to drive across an open meadow that had to be forty acres...and run into the only tree in the field. Or that he nearly drove into East Germany...twice. Or that he managed to set his trailer on fire while sitting still with all systems shut down. Did I mention the trailer's only cargo was a 600 gallon fuel pod full of gasoline?
No, the most memorable thing about Charlie was the day he was called into see the Commander about a congressional inquiry from his home state representative about a series of letters Charlie had sent to his mom telling her all about the "secret war" that was raging throughout Northern Bavaria and how Charlie couldn't receive all the awards for valor he earned because it was a "secret war". His cover was fuel truck driver but he was really super secret green beret sergeant Rock battle GI and she shouldn't worry too much because he was the best there was...had the highest kill count in the regiment...no one could touch him.
That should have been embarassing enough. But when asked to explain, Charlie led off by telling the commander that there was stuff going on that maybe the commander wasn't aware of. The commander explained a few things to Charlie that maybe he wasn't aware of. And after the letter to mom and congress was composed and posted...the First Sergeant gave Charlie a new cover...he was secret KP for two weeks.