“Yehth Thur”

When ever you leave an isolated world such as Huntington Indiana, and expose yourself to a world of diversity that you can’t help but be ah struck by some of the humor and weird stuff that comes across your path.

As an example one Recruit in our platoon, “Private Olivera” had a speech impediment and could not say the words “yes sir”, instead he would say “Yehth Thur!!”. On top of that he was bone skinny and had ears that were extra big and stuck out extra far from his shaved jar head.
Olivera and I got along pretty good and were no threat to each other. However, one very hot day our platoon was out on the Parade deck marching. It was so hot that as you marched the asphalt would pop like “bubble rap”, our drill Instructor was obviously aggravated at our performance.

All the sudden he gave the command “Hippity Hop, Mob Stop!!!!!!!!!! , Left face”. For the next few minutes he chewed us out as spit flew out of his mouth, then he’d yell, “is that clear?”, to which we all screamed “yes sir”!!!!!! Then he’d scream, I can’t hear you”, to which we’d scream louder “sir, yes sir”.

It was at this point I had heard “Private Olivera ” scream “Yehth Thur!!”. So for humor sake, I had it in my mind that the next time the Drill instructor yelled ,“is that clear”, I would mimic the same as Olivera’s “Yehth Thur!!”!!!

As I was listening intently for the right moment, it finally arrived and I thought I heard him say “Is that clear”? So I screamed at the top of my lungs “Yehth Thur!!”. The problem was no one else yelled.

Evidently I was imagining and anticipating the command to the point where I prematurely responded. Then like in a slow motion movie he was standing in front of me as all eyes were full of fire as he focused on me.
I was caught and for the next hour I had to “get off the parade deck and do push ups with my rife, then stand up and put my rifle above my head over by the steel Quonset huts”!!!!!!.

Down, out and up I went until I thought “man this is soooooooo dumb”. So I took the M-14 rifle by the barrel and pointed the rifle butt in the air to the left as the drill instructor marched the troops to the left, then to the right as he marched them to the right. I was having a little fun and taking a calculated chance until someone smacked me in the back of the head. As I turned to see who it was, I was staring in the face of a tall Black drill instructor who questioned, “where in the #@#@##@ is your drill instructor puke!!!!!!!.”

All the sudden things got real nasty when he went out to the parade deck and said something to my drill instructor. It was like a bomb exploded and all the sudden all the Marine recruits were marching towards me and didn’t stop until they were all running in place in the sand pit. There I joined them and for the next three hours all 80 of us did every thing from making it rain with sand, push ups sit ups, scream, and dig holes.
Being that I am a visual person I saw it all and every once in a while some money or valuable such a finger nail clipper would drop out of somebody’s pocket. I’d pick it up and stick it in mine. It was my way of diverting the pain and dealing with the punishment. In the end everyone was so filthy and wore out and yet no one said a word.