The word Constable was on the back of his shirt, but I didn’t look to see if he was carrying. Not an ordinary policeman as far as I could tell.
As it got near to 9PM we started back to the Fort. We had a 10 PM bed check so had to be back by then. Knowing that we started running.
Nothing strange about two young men running on Halloween night. Right?
As we approached one residential intersection a man had parked his car blocking the sidewalk. He was standing in front of us with his revolver pulled. He yelled stop, and we slid to a stop before we got to him.
He commanded that we place ID's on the sidewalk and back up until he said stop. We did. He advanced to pick up the ID's, which were military.
He identified himself as a Constable. He'd been following us for a long way, thinking we were probably up to no good. He asked what we were running from.
I explained we weren't running "from," but rather to Ft. Monmouth because we had to be back by 10PM.
He gave us back our ID's and said be on your way.
He followed for another mile as we ran.
We barely made it back to our student company in time for bed check.
The soldier with me said that he was glad I was with him, because as a black man, if he'd been running alone he'd have gone to jail.
53 years ago and I can't remember his name, but he was a nice fellow and being in Crypto School had a brain and a security clearance.