When the 4th Training Brigade closed its doors for good, most of the instructors and drill sergeants from all of its service schools were transferred to the newly activated 7th Infantry Division. Most of the instructors from the drivers' school wound up in the 7th's Supply and Transport Battalion...B Company was a medium truck company in that battalion. Some of us went to the 7th AG Company, the company where division's staff support personnel were assigned. I was assigned to work in the AG Company's motor pool. It only lasted about two or three months but it was memorable. There is a story or two there for another time. This time I want to tell you about a Major who was assigned to the AG Company. He traded his Volvo in on a BMW and explained in boring detail to anyone...anyone and everyone he could capture, the great benefits of driving a world class driving machine as opposed to the "truck" that Volvo manufactured. It was imperative that within the first few minutes of meeting this guy, you get the full run down on both cars and how the Beemer was sooooo superior.....blech.
MamaCharlie and I had recently purchased some red wheat, a hearty, hard-seed variety that is really tasty if you soak it in your mouth for a few minutes then crunch it up like sunflower seeds. (An aside for those who are unfamiliar with raw wheat and think you might like to try it...it takes a while for your system to adjust to it...during the period of adjustment you may experience what could best be described as "explosive diarrhea"). Anyway, I was driving my Corvette Yellow '69 GTO in them days, and I had four littlies who were not as respectful of it as I would have liked. So it was messy sometimes...a lot of the time. I had a plastic bag of red wheat that I kept in the trunk for snacks, not in the passenger compartment because of the littlies and the aforementioned parenthetical remarks.
Told you all that so I could tell you this: One morning we had an unannounced "Health and Welfare" inspection (read that as: Shakedown) and guess who drew my Goat to inspect...Major Insufferable. He started under the hood with a running commentary on the evils of gas-guzzlers and the virtues of the German-engineered "driving machines". When he moved into the passenger compartment he began snide remarks about how I didn't deserve a decent car if I couldn't keep it neater...this was not a mobile dumpster...etc, etc, etc. I pointed out that my kids had their own attitude about car care and he informed me that his kids knew better than to even think about making a mess in his car...his approaching-perfect German car. I think I made some off-hand comment about the virtues of Detroit Iron and acceleration...in any case, he continued on to the trunk.
So remember the plastic bag with red wheat in it...the one I kept in the trunk for snacks? He found it. The joy that this brought the young Major could not be measured on the Richter Scale. He had me. He held the bag up for my inspection and asked, "And what have we here, Sergeant?" I told him about the wheat and told him he should try some (I may have failed to mention the affect he could expect on his bowels). He insisted that what we had here was Marijuana seeds and probably enough for a charge of "Possession for Sale". Nothing I said could convince him that it wasn't pot and I wasn't selling it. He had started reading me my rights when the First Sergeant happened by and asked what was going on. (I should say that 1SG Roath was my 1SG in the 4th Brigade; he knew me very well, and was one of my most influential mentors...I have mentioned him in a previous post about how to be a First Sergeant). The Major proudly explained that he had single-handedly broken up a drug ring and held up the baggie. He asked the First Sergeant, "Look at this, Top...what does that look like to you?" Roath looked at it and said, "Looks just like red wheat to me; I have a couple of huge bags of it in my garage."
Roath asked me why it was in the trunk of my car and I explained about how to snack on it and he talked about making hot cereal out of it and as we compared notes on uses and recipes, the Major drifted away without any more to say...searching for some other poor schlub to persecute (and bore to death with comparisons of German vs Swedish cars). I still wanted him to try some wheat...but I was happy to have him gone.