I was a first lieutenant when I was teamed with another first lieutenant to teach a class on military justice. These things can be frightfully dull, but the Army likes to use skits in training, so the two of us worked on a series of ideas that would get the class involved. We decided to start off with my getting shot by my SP4 clerk. Then we would take him through the entire procedure from arrest to general court-martial.
My clerk went to the Fort Lewis Players and procured a blank pistol for the verisimilitude. We placed him in the back of the room, and then I began, “Gentlemen, today’s five hour block of instruction is on the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” My SP4 jumped up, aimed the pistol at me and screamed, “Die, lifer!” He fired several shots and I hit the ground.
From the corner of my eye, I could see utter pandemonium. My clerk was mobbed by a group of senior NCO’s who thought they were witnessing the end of their careers.
“Grab him!”
“Get the gun!”
The company first sergeant screamed, “Break his finger! Break his finger!”
Most of the students did the proper thing by hitting the deck. One private tried to open the window, failed, used his elbow to break the glass, and was attempting to jump out of the second floor before someone stopped him. Another soldier ripped up the rug, dislodged all the desks and attempted to crawl under the rug and hide.
My teaching partner calmed everyone down and said, “Gentlemen, you have just witnessed a murder!”
The soldier who had tried to hide under the rug was from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and had probably witnessed his share of gang activity. Pointing his finger at my teaching partner, he was in tears as he screamed, “I didn’t see nothin’, man! I didn’t see nothin’!”
I had a tough time keeping a straight face on the ground. My partner stood over me and chanted, “My father can beat your father at dominoes,” which was probably as close to Latin as that Colorado Presbyterian would ever get. I stood up and saw a whole room in shock.
The people from the Fort Lewis G-3 shop, who were there to inspect the class, said it was the best military justice class they had ever witnessed. But they were among the first to hit the deck.
Warrant Officers are OK
But I tell everyone “don’t call me sir, I know both of my parents”