It is an old time-honored tradition that Army units field sports teams and compete. Each season produces its own following. Boxing, softball, basketball, flag football, volleyball and some others...racket sports are more individual but there are numerous tournaments for folks who prefer those kinds of activities.

The tradition includes that the teams are mainly composed of enlisted and managed by NCOs...although lieutenants are often included and the odd commander or two will play in some sports, it is an unwritten agreement that this is an area ruled by the NCOs. On the playing field the traditional roles of rank are still observed, but very relaxed. In the interest of good sport. Having said that, it is tacitly understood by both sides of the NCO/officer line that competition breeds heat. Sometimes tempers flair and sometimes very vocal disagreements develop but while the rules of rank are relaxed, they are not disposed of . Competitors are competative. Even in the fiercest of disagreements, a certain level of decorum MUST be maintained. "Are you freakin crazy? You missed me by a mile.....sir" That sort of thing. Most commanders will sit in the stands and root for their team and sometimes commanders in the stands get into it, too. But there are rarely "dugout clearing" brawls like you see in the majors or even city league teams. In all honesty, I know for a fact that many enlisted men use the sports as an opportunity to lay into one of their favorite sergeants or officers. What they soon come to realize is that the door swings both ways.

My own experiences in the sports program verified that fact many times. As age began to wear on me, I moved from a pretty speedy left field to a fairly quick third base to a lethargic catcher. On one Saturday during a slow-pitch softball tournament at Fort Leonard Wood, I was catching and a young buck sergeant that I didn't like and apparently returned the favor, in two successive innings rolled me up in a ball in collisions at home plate...my glasses flew one way, my hat the other, dust flew and when it was all settled, he was out and he was smiling. The second time it happened I realized he wasn't after a score so much as trying to settle one. In the dugout I got sympathy and encouragement from my team mates, but I told them that what I wanted wasn't sympathy...If young buck gets the opportunity to collide with me again, I wanted them to throw the ball in to home plate HIGHER. We practiced getting the ball in low to facilitate the tag and I practiced catching dirtballs and bounces of the 1 or 2 variety. But my request for a higher ball was met with confused looks at first but it soon dawned on them that I wasn't concerned so much for the score.

I had to wait until the last inning and then the stars and planets all alined and my buddy Ricky delayed a blazing throw from just behind the pitcher's mound so that it arrived at the exact right moment to make it all seem an inevitable accident. I caught the ball at shoulder level about a foot and a half inside the baseline, swung my glove with both hands and the glove, the ball, and 200 plus pounds of BFD connected with Young Buck's head just below his cheek bone. He was coming full bore for his third rollup but he left the baseline in a slow spiralling right turn, never got to home. In subsequent games against the same team, I don't remember having any further confrontations, with any of them.

But I got sidetracked...this is about Willie. I told you about Willie in a couple of previous articles. Willie was Puerto Rican. A light skinned, black featured, fire plug of a man. No more than 5'8" and easily over 200 lbs, he was a tough guy in the truest sense of the word. Willie was not a bigot or a racist or any kind of "-ist", he was a soldier. But he used his confusing appearance to his advantage. He terrorized privates of either race by becoming the worst case opposite in any confrontation. Willie was a scrapper, an effective one. But realistic. He once told a huge black trainee, who stood enraged after a fuscilade of the worst kind of racial slurs from Willie, that he was gonna "climb your frame, Private". He looked over at me and in an aside said, "I may need a little help getting down!"

That's the kind of guy Willie was. So there we were. A late afternoon softball game in the field behind the shops. It was kinda on the way home so I stopped to watch for a few minutes. The game was LVDC (us) against the 2nd Training Battalion's HQ team. There were a few young LTs on the HQ team and one in particular was an arrogant fella who was well known for his disdain of NCOs and his lofty opinion of himself. Willie was on shortstop. A ground ball ripped just to the right of second base. The second baseman was quick and made a great play, it looked like the double-play was on. Willie raced to cover second, concentrating on the incoming throw from the second baseman while mentally lining up his shot to first. With all that thinking going on, Willie failed to notice the lieutenant we loved coming into second with a totally unnecessary slide with his spiked right foot raised up about crotch level. At the last possible instant, Willie saw what was shaping up and was able to side step the spike but it cost him his accuracy to first, the ball pulled the firstbaseman off the bag and the batter was safe at first. There was a lot of booing and arguing in the stands...one side (us) booing and angry, and one side (them) gloating over their successfully breaking up the double play.

At second base, Willie was busy turning beet red and screaming unkindnesses at the lieutenant. Instead of just walking back to the dugout, the LT turned back to Willie to put him in his place. He was an NCO and NCOs don't talk to officers that way. Expecting the sergeant to back down, the LT found himself in an argument he didn't want and couldn't win. At one point the LT said something like, "You'd love to punch me out right now, wouldn't you, sergeant!" I don't know what the LT expected from Willie after that, but what he got was, "You D*** right I do...sir!" Feeling, I am sure, that he now had the means to make the sergeant back down, the LT said, "Well you just go ahead...you got my permission!" At which point, after a head check to see if I was there to help him climb down, should the help be needed, Willie knocked him flat on his butt.

The Lieutenant was in the Battalion Commander's office the next day wanting to crucify one Puerto Rican buck sergeant. He had a whole field full of witnesses. He demanded justice. The Colonel laughed at him and pointed out that he, the Colonel, along with about one hundred other witnesses saw and heard the LT give the sergeant permission to hit him. Wasn't gonna be any charges.

Willie was waiting in front of the Colonel's office when the LT came out. They didn't speak a word to one another. The Colonel reamed Willie. A real professional job. He knew that if they brought him up on charges he would request a court martial and the whole thing would be laughed away. That didn't mean that Willie was off the hook. He was wrong and he knew it. Willie's only defense was that if you saw the LT give permission, then you had to see that same LT take a shot at Willie's manhood. There is no rank priviledge that give a man a right to spike another man's crotch no matter what rank he holds. Although I am not sure that the whole officer corps is aware of that.

After it all settled down, Willie collected on the ten dollar bet he had with John, another of our instructor team, that he could cold-cock that particular LT and not face any disciplinary action. It is rumored that our Colonel has entertained the stag bar at every O Club he ever found with a masterful recounting of how the sergeant knocked out the most deserving, arrogant, 2LT that ever walked. All in good sport, doncha know.