Appearance Matters
One morning while I was still in the Army we got to do sports day PT. So instead of running or doing push-ups we got to play sports. Usually sports consisted of either football, or some other game that always started as a recognizable athletic competition, and would devolve into some sort of rugby/Ultimate Fighting hybrid. One thing was for sure, we felt pretty strongly that all sports were improved with the addition of tackling. And we tended to take a very liberal definition of what constituted a tackle. Good, if occasionally painful, times. To this day, I think that if Ultimate Frisbee was actually played the way we did it you would have a serious contender for a new Monday night sport.
Well on this particular morning we were playing soccer with our usual rambunctious glee. When suddenly, a few feet away from me, two soldiers collided. I will refer to these two soldiers as Boots and Nosy.
Boots had started out as an infantry NCO and had reclassed into PSYOP. SO he was a fairly big and imposing guy. Nosy was a particularly tiny female solder. And the bridge of her nose went into Boots’ forehead. Hard.
We all heard a loud crack and Boots staggered around comically for a few seconds and then collapsed. A few people laughed and he was told to get up and quit screwing around. And he kept laying there. It slowly dawned on us that he was not goofing off, he was hurt. A tiny female soldier half his size had just head-butted him into unconsciousness. We didn’t think of it this way at the time, but upon further reflection at a later date, this was determined to be freaking hilarious.
The game was halted and some of us began to give Boots first aid, while some other ran for a pay phone to summon an ambulance. I noticed that Nosy was standing over to the side, bleeding profusely from her face, with something poking out of her nose. She had a compound fracture. Nobody else was paying any attention to her and she didn’t even seem to realize that she was hurt.
I looked around for something to try to stop the blood and realized that the only cloth readily available were the PT uniforms we were wearing. I quickly reasoned that if I tried to take off her shirt to use as a pressure bandage, people might take that the wrong way. So I grabbed mine, looked for a spot without too much sweat on it, and tried to stop the bleeding. I didn’t even take it off first, I just kinda pulled it away from my torso. Eventually, someone showed up with an actual first aid kit and I got my shirt back. Once the paramedics showed up they looked over both our injured friends and determined that they would both be okay, but would probably need some stitches. The rest of PT was canceled and we were dismissed.
I was walking back into my barracks, and I was in a really good mood. You know that rush you sometimes get when you think something really bad has just happened, but it turned out okay? That’s how I felt. Just as I arrived on my floor, my roommate who was in another company, was leaving our room. Here’s how he described to me what he saw:
“I open the door, and here you are, coming down the hallway. You have a big, happy expression on your face, you’ve got a cigarette dangling out of your mouth, and you are whistling cheerfully. And your shirt and arms were covered with blood. I thought to myself ‘Oh crap. Schwarz has snapped and killed everyone at PT.’ “
Which is probably why he ran back into the room and locked the door.
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March 27th, 2008 at 4:05 am
I think that was probably one of the funniest things I’ve read in quite a while. Here’s hoping my PT won’t be as difficult as yours sounds (whoo for summer camps that the government hosts!).
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March 27th, 2008 at 4:08 am
The fact that the first though that came to his mind was that you killed everyone and not that you had gotten hurt or something of that matter is a testament to your personality
Also, that’s absolutely hilarious
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March 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
That was awesome! I’m a Navy veteran, and thoroughly enjoy Skippy’s list.
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March 27th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
heheheh that is hilarious….sick, but hilarious
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March 27th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Oh wow.. I can think of so many other ways that could have gone. And I’m sitting here in the school Comp. Lab, laughing my arse off, and people are looking at me.
-Spazzy-
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March 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
i love the roommates reaction!!!
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March 27th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Did ya leave out the rest of that last sentance? I mean the part that goes “he ran back into the room and locked the door, then dived out the window hoping like hell that the locked door would slow Schwartz down enough to make a safe getaway!”?
Bet yer roomie slept with his eyes open for a while after that one……
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March 27th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I could so see that happening to me. Play rough, first aid then be happy and then everyone around me thinking I finally snapped and decided to use all the unarmed combat I know. Ya I give it six months before it happens.
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March 27th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
OMG, the mental cartoon!!! I loved reading this one! :)
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March 28th, 2008 at 3:31 am
This one is a winner.
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March 30th, 2008 at 6:09 am
That story is so full of win! =D OMG I have an idea for a prank. *belines for the nearest Asian market*
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March 31st, 2008 at 5:50 am
I have to admit, adding tackling to any sport makes it much better. My cousins and I would spend all day when we were younger kicking each other’s asses for fun. Good times. By the way though, you happen to be one of the funniest men I have ever come into contact with on the internet. Thank you for constantly brightening my day.
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April 7th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Amen to that. you should see what happens when one adds tackling into basket ball…along with kicking, punching, and the occasinal bitting.
That’s great though. This summer, Skippy…Gos..MAD!!! *dramtic dun dun dun*
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May 12th, 2008 at 2:46 am
I just spit coffee all over my monitor.
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Snyarhedir reply on January 30th, 2011 12:48 am:
It is so cool to hear/read when that really happens.
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September 25th, 2016 at 4:52 am
My second tour at Ft Gordon,Ga (Home of the Signal Corps) out behind our 2 story class room buildings made of concrete blocks. We had a volleyball court built, and at lunch time, the instructors would play volley ball as alternate pt. We played combat rules ( injuries didn’t matter, cause we’d get time off.) And we bump check at the net. One time one of the SSG’s got really bad bump checked and went down hard. Ended up going on sick call the next day for lots of pain. Ended up he fractured his coccyx (the last bone in the human spinal colum) and ended up on limited duty till it healed. Funny thing, he just changed mos’s from Airborne Infantry, and never got hurt in a jump, but managed to get tagged by, remf’s…..
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