standing in formation anecdote
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This post was created on the previous version of the MRFF website, and may not be fully accessible to users of assistive technology. If you need help accessing this content, please reach out via email.Hey, Mikey
That story about the private’s angst in formation made me remember an experience, but it’s different when you are a new kid.
I was a brand new Army Infantry 2LT with nine years of active Navy time behind me when I was standing in formation in the Army’s Ranger School’s mountaineering phase.
The First Sergeant told the company that some American Colonel was coming and his favorite expression was ‘Achtung,’ as in ‘paying attention to details,’ and we were to sound off with a hearty “Achtung!” upon his arrival.
I immediately sounded off with a hearty, “First Sergeant, I am no M….F….ing Nazi SOB and I’ll be G….D….ed if I ever say Achtung for any SOB!” He wrote my name down, and we never said “Achtung.”
Of course, I just ‘outed’ myself and that exposed me to much more attention than the other students. There was a visiting Danish Commando Colonel going through the course to evaluate the usefulness for his soldiers possibly attending. At the end of the mountain phase he was invited to dine with the Course OIC Colonel and he told me that he was going to discuss the obviously organized, condoned maltreatment of this officer, who happened to be Jewish.
I took all their physical, non-verbal pencil-marking crap and graduated.
Keep up the good work. (name withheld) (Including WWII my family line has served 133 years!)