IN THE MID-1950s my father completed a tour of duty at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska. We were stationed with him and returned to Seattle aboard the troopship USS Funston. As troop commander, Dad was charged with conducting daily inspections of the men's quarters, galley and mess hall. My four-year-old brother, Stuart, tagged along one day. As usual, the galley gleamed, the floors were spotless, and the mess-hall tables and condiment containers were aligned with military precision. My father was about to pass the inspection when Stuart piped up, "Daddy, look at all the gum under the table!" Dad bent down to the eye level of a small child, and was horrified to see years' worth of petrified chewing gum covering the bottoms of the tables.
The mess hall did not pass inspection until later that day and the troops who scraped off all that gum could happily have thrown my little brother in the brig.
Contributed to "Humor In Uniform" by Margaret M. Miller
Provided Courtesy of Reader's Digest.
March 24th, 2007
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