Poker Cheating

While stationed in Corpus Christi, I got into a more or less regular barracks game, dollar ante, five dollar limit seven card stud. This is not a great game, but it's what there was at the time. When we went to Vietnam it would evolve into a pot limit game.

The very first time I played in this game I noticed something peculiar. It seemed to me that one pattern occurred much too often: the same two players would start raising and reraising each other, five dollars at a time, and frequently everyone else would drop. I thought it likely that they were "wired," and planning to split their winnings after the game. Well, it was good information. It seemed to me that if it was true and they were regulars, then everyone else must know it too.

Finally there came a hand when my two hole cards and my first up card were all queens. There was one bet by someone, called around. On the next four cards these clowns went into their act, betting and raising twenty dollars between them each time. Everyone folded but me, and I had hit a full house on the fifth card.

Now I was playing on two levels - maximize the profits, but give them a chance to fold. Even these idiots would know that everyone would figure them out if they had to show two nothing hands after all that betting. Of course everyone had already figured them out and wanted things to continue, but they weren't smart enough to know that.

Seventh card action went bet, raise, and reraise by the two of them, and I raised for the third and final time. They both jumped at the chance to fold. A nice pot for that size game, a little over $250.00.

When the game ended and most of the players had left, I got one of the other regulars aside and asked, "How long have they been doing that?" It turned out that one of them was a first timer in the game, and the other routinely recruited an outsider to cheat with him. Unfortunately for him, it never paid off, and he was simply a source of profit for the game's regulars. Naturally, when the game started, the regulars wondered which of us two first timers was the cheat.

As a footnote, during our time in Vietnam the "regular" cheater disappeared. He was carried as AWOL for thirty days, then as a deserter. He wasn't killed in action as we had seen no action at all. I suppose it was marginally possible for him to be taken prisoner somehow, perhaps in an off-limits village, but "deserter" was his official status. Certainly, he was the only guy in the outfit that I would consider clueless enough to desert in Vietnam.

I've never learned what happened to him. Every couple of years I google his name, "first, middle initial, last," "first, last" and "last, first," but have never found anything. I've been to The Wall, and he's not there either.

The Bully - Part 2

One day an NCO entered the Orderly Room to ask a question about the duty roster and a short leave he wanted to take. Bully was out of the office but under previous First Sergeants I had been taught how to fill out the duty roster and had even maintained it, so I knew I could answer the question. I opened the middle right hand drawer (yup, I still remember it clearly) of Bully's desk, took out the NCO duty roster, found the information, and told the NCO what he needed to know. Putting the duty roster back in the drawer, I discovered that it had been lying on a small ledger which was labeled with my name.

Well.

Who would have resisted that temptation?

I opened it and found that it contained dated entries detailing even the most minor infractions I had committed against Army and company procedures. There wasn't enough material in there to justify even a chewing out, but it was clear that he was building a case. I started my own log, concealing it in my room. No need to emulate his mistake and let him know about it.

One payday Bully and another NCO went to the Finance Office to pick up the company payroll. They should have returned within a half hour, but two hours later there was no sign of them. I began getting calls asking when the troops would be paid. I made a couple of calls and a little bird told me that Bully was in the NCO Club, armed, holding the payroll, and getting drunk. I flipped a mental coin and Bully won. I asked the CO for permission to leave and locate Bully and he gave it. I grabbed the Supply Clerk, told him to sit at my desk and answer phone calls, and headed for the NCO Club.

The NCO Club served the NCO's from a number of companies and was moderately busy when I arrived. Several heads turned when I walked in, as I was not of sufficient rank to "belong" there. One NCO from my company asked me rather belligerently, "What are you doing in here?" I told him I was there on business, looked around, and spotted Bully sitting on a bar stool. I walked over to him and saw immediately that he was three sheets to the wind.

He saw me, put on a big smile, and shouted, "Heyyy, Donnie, let me buy you a drink." That's what too much alcohol will do to some people. Friends might want to fight you, but this enemy and I were old buddies.

"Top, you're two hours late with the payroll. You'll be an E-6 next week if we don't go back to the company now."

We did, he got another NCO to fill in for him during the process of paying the troops, and he disappeared. I imagine he went home to sleep it off. I think the CO was preoccupied and didn't realize what had happened, and Bully got away with it. He never did acknowledge what I had done for him.

Several months later I screwed up. One morning I didn't get back to the company from an overnight stay in Vilseck until after I was supposed to be at work. About an hour late, I walked into the Orderly Room, said good morning to Bully, and sat down at my desk.

MSG Bully: "Well, I've got you now, son. I'm going to have your ass busted." He pulled out the little ledger he'd been keeping and waved it at me. "And I've got a lot of stuff I can add to your AWOL this morning."

Donnie: "It's a standoff, Top. I've got one just like that, but the entries aren't about me. My favorite is the one about you being two hours late with the payroll, drunk at the NCO club, holding all that money and carrying a loaded forty-five."

Silence.

Donnie: "In front of fifty NCO's."

This was a killer for him. There were too many witnesses for him to deny it, and I saw the realization dawn that it was something I could hold over him forever, or at least for as long as we were likely to be together.

Silence again.

Donnie: "I have a proposition for you. You find me an administrative slot that isn't limited to E-4, in another company, I'll apply for it, you use whatever influence you have to see that I get it, I'll leave, and we'll just forget our little differences."

And that's what happened.

And you should have heard him during those phone calls: "Hey, I've got a real good man here who deserves a chance to make E-5 but is stuck in an E-4 slot." ("Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue." - La Rochefoucauld)

I became the post Finance Clerk at headquarters in Grafenwoehr. Whenever Bully needed something done regarding his or his troops' pay, he called, voice smooth as silk, sweetness and light for an attitude, and I accommodated him to the extent that I would anyone else in the same situations.

I don't have first hand knowledge of what happened to Bully later, but in some ways it's a small Army and several years later I ran into someone who had known us both. He told me Bully had been transferred to Fort Knox, promoted to E-8, and then busted back to
E-7 for inefficiency. Cool.

An Ethical Grook
Piet Hein

I see
and I hear
and I speak no evil;
I carry
no malice
within my breast;
yet quite without
wishing
a man to the Devil
one may be
permitted
to hope for the best.

AWOL in Philadelphia

In late January of 1959, I completed my second eight weeks of training. My first eight weeks had been infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and this was armored training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Upon graduation, we all got orders for our next assignments. One set of orders assigned three of us, Mike, Malon, and me, to a holding company at Fort Dix, New Jersey, awaiting flight assignment to the same company in Germany. (I had been in the Army one week longer than they, due to a case of pneumonia resulting in my missing a week of training and therefore being reassigned to their company, which was one week earlier in the cycle. Such attention to detail does the Army pay that this gave me seniority - my date of rank as a Private was a week prior to theirs - so *eye* was responsible for all our records and for our arrival at the holding company.)

We arrived, were assigned bunks, and stood formation with our Platoon Sergeant and the company's First Sergeant. The latter instructed us on the routine, which was pretty much that we were on our own except that rosters would be posted every day with the names of those responsible for policing the grounds and for other menial chores. His last words to us were, "There will be no passes, no leaves, and no bedchecks."

I decided I would go home (Beverly, Massachusetts) for a visit, and gave Mike and Malon my home phone number. They agreed to call me collect if anything came up that required my presence.

Nine days later Malon called. My name had come up on a duty roster. I was to be part of the detail cleaning up the area on the following day.

I returned to the company, pulled my detail, and headed for home again. This time, however, I was just about broke, and was going to have to hitchhike. Nobody wanted to pick me up for a couple of hours, however. I was about to give up when a gentleman stopped and said he was going to Philadelphia. I decided to take the ride, reasoning that I would have better luck getting a ride in that busy city.

Well, I didn't. I guess I gave up. I found out where the USO was and paid it a visit. But while I was there, something, I don't know what, made me call the company. I got Malon who expressed great relief that we were in touch and told me that we were flying out the next day. This was critical information. I was already AWOL, although that was unimportant provided that I didn't get into some other trouble, but if I missed the flight, the company to which I was supposed to report would drop me from the rolls - that is, declare me a deserter.

It was early evening and I was afraid to trust my hitchhiking luck. I explained the situation to one of the USO hostesses and asked her to call the Military Police. She said there were none in the area, but there were Air Police, the Air Force equivalent. I asked her to call them. She allowed me to listen on an extension as she told them there was an AWOL GI at the club who needed a ride to Fort Dix. They asked her not to tell me that she had called, and we smiled.

Soon two of them arrived. There were perhaps a half dozen servicemen in the club, and the APs announced that they wanted to see everyone's IDs. I walked over and told them I was the one they were looking for. Having determined that this was the case they escorted me to McGuire AFB, where I was booked, then drove me to my company at Fort Dix. My First Sergeant had to sign papers transferring custody from them to him.

When they left he turned to me, scowled, and asked, "Are you bucking for something?"

"No, Sarge. I found out that we're shipping tomorrow and I had the USO call the APs so I could get a ride back here."

After a pause, he scowled again and said, "Get out of here."

Right ho.