“Peter Rabbit” By W. Patrick Lang

 
             This is a true story.  It is a kind of “war story."  “Basilisk’ asked me to tell you this story.  We were out wandering around the Virginia countryside in the rain yesterday.  “Harper” joined us for lunch at a country inn.  We have those. 

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            In the middle of the Vietnam War, I was in an Army school for captains and majors.  It was a long course, nine months long.  There were about 100 officers in the class.  Nearly all had already served one 12 month “tour” in the war.  They were all intelligence officers but as lieutenants or captains they had served with infantry or other combat arms battalions, or in SF or so far out in the “boondocks’ that what branch one belonged to did not matter much. 

            They were all going back to the war as soon as they graduated and were not very tolerant of people they thought of as “REMFs.” (rear echelon mother-fuckers- this is necessary vulgarity)  they had seen a lot of death,  had inflicted a lot of death and were going to do it again.  There were not a lot of West Point grads in the group. 

            They were difficult students.  I have a couple of examples: 

            We all had very high security clearances because of the material being taught.  To make it easier for the MPs to screen us for admittance into the classroom in which the whole class sat, we wore photo badges that had a green stripe down one side.  After a few months of listening to the mainly REMF faculty lecture us on things they only dimly understood, the class decided to give an “a-----e” of the week award to some worthy soul who had tried to teach something beyond his reach and without any real humility in the matter.  The award was presented on Mondays after weekend consultation in some saloon.  The honored person was presented the “elements" of the award by a committee of officers, usually in his office but occasionally on stage in our classroom.  I remember one poor soul begging to be forgiven rather than be honored.  The award was one of those Thai or Filipino wooden statues of a nude man bent over forward so far that his head had disappeared in his anus.  A vertical green stripe encircled his body.  This was, of course called the “HUYA” award.  We were repeatedly lectured about this by the school commandant, a full colonel.  The response was to give him the HUYA Award at the end of one of these speeches.  He took it and did not return. 

            On another occasion, the Chemical Corps REMFs came in to give their preening lecture and demonstration about what they did to try to justify their existence.  There were three of them in white lab coats with jungle uniform pants and boots sticking out underneath.  There was the usual boring catalog of their “accomplishments.”

            In the middle of the stage was a large wire and wood cage containing a white rabbit that sat looking at the strange crowd and at times looking up at his REMF “friends.”    In other courses we students had all seen the Chemical Corps demonstration of the lethality of VX, a nerve gas that kills mammals within a minute if as little as a single droplet is absorbed.  The chemical REMFs loved to kill rabbits this way for the wonderment of a captive audience. They finally got to that point in their “dog and pony show.”  The chemical instructor approached the cage with his vial of murder.  He was wearing long black, rubber gloves and a gas mask.

           The rabbit looked at him. 

            One of the guys in the class was a white captain from Alabama named "Smith."  His affectionate nickname was “H. Rap.”  He stood up and said, “Colonel we have all seen this demonstration and know that VX will kill the rabbit, or any of us…  Please don’t kill the rabbit.”  He stood there waiting for a response... 

            The colonel ordered him to sit down and reached for the door in the top of the cage. 

            The class stood as one and a kind of animal sound ran around this room full of killers.

           The Chemical Corps colonel took a step back and made a few weakly threatening statements.  He finished and stood on the stage, confused as to what to do. He finally stammered that they would not know what to do with the rabbit if they did not kill it.

           Another “student" said that his children would want the rabbit.  He walked up onto the stage, took the rabbit out of the cage and returned to his place among us, holding the animal in his arms.  We were all still standing. 

            The chemical people left and we all went to lunch.

           The rabbit went home to the children.  

            We were lectured again and threatened with punishment.  Someone in the back of the room replied that the school would have to punish us all. Another asked what they would do to us, send us back to the war?

             Nothing more was said about this incident. In fact, the Army desperately needed men with the brains and skills of this group and we knew that.

            We graduated and went back to our war where some of us died, some were mutilated but all could nurture in their hearts the memory of a white rabbit that we had saved, together.  Pl

 

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks PL because have always enjoyed stories of "military discipline" and how perceived by those subject to it. Perhaps the ARMY is the most democratic of the services because the leaders can always look over their shoulders at all those loaded rifles and grenade launchers. Question? Were the class attendees ever asked their opinion or as to the relevance of the instruction?

[jr786]

A lovely anecdote, Col. Made me me think of the epilogue to "The Time Machine".

We live in indecent times.

[RAISER William]

Thanks, Col. All too often we never hear these kind of "war" stories, or forget them. Good to be reminded that some, most (?), of those who have really been "there" can and do retain their fundamental humanity.

[howler]

In those days, the so-called career course offered a 9-month respite from reality, a chance to live a 8-4:30 life with weekends off, and other diversions (a full dozen wives finished our course pregnant). Never had to suffer with the idiocy you described as we amused ourselves playing 'spring- butt bingo'. The biggest laugh was the offer to the high scorers that they just might be considered for the faculty! Then as you said, the course was over and we went back to real life.

[Basilisk]

Bravo. We may not have been very successful at stemming man's inhumanity to man, but, by God, at least one group of combat intelligence officers certainly controlled man's inhumanity to rabbits.

[John Minnerath]

Great story sir.
I wasn't an officer, but us in the ranks were herded together for the same dog and pony shows put on by those same REMFs.

[ParaPorker]

Awesome story!

[Nightsticker]

Colonel Lang,

A good story [White Rabbit] at many levels. I liked it.

Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96

[Nancy K]

That is a wonderful story. Thank you.

[Lars]

Col.

I have a question. It is a variation on the nurture v. nature one. Don't you have to be sort of be born to put yourself voluntarily in a combat situation? I never have, but it seems that theories, or abstractions, are not all that important. Would that explain the chasm between the warriors you describe, and their appointed instructors?

[Lars]

I meant being born that way.

[The Twisted Genius]

As someone who has had pet house rabbits for over twenty years, I find this story especially uplifting. I remember all the rabbits living at Camp Darby at Fort Benning. A lot of Ranger students (me included) did not feel the need or hunger to kill and eat the rabbits issued to each squad. Obviously, many of our predecessors did not feel the need either.

The surly attitude in your class was several orders of magnitude greater than anything I was involved in. However, during the Infantry Advanced Course in 1980, we did feel sorry for the fellow captains who had to teach us how we were going to defeat the 3rd Shock Army with the "active defense." We didn't cut them any slack.

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

Your posts show that you have more than a government job in DOD for a while back then; you have a Calling to Serve and tell the Truth.

[Thomas]

Excellent.

[Paul]

Aesop, eat your heart out. More stories like this, please.

[Medicine Man]

This is a touching story, Colonel. Thank you for sharing it.

[Patrick Lang]

VV

33 years. Proud to serve, still serving. pl

[Patrick Lang]

TTG

Typical Ranger crap. We turned ours loose. pl

[Patrick Lang]

Lars

I think you have to be a bit of "throwback" to be comfortable with it. All the guys I knew who were not were just terribly unhappy no matter how brave they were. The people in that class had pretty much all "seen the elephant" and could have found some way out of another tour like the last one if they really tried. They were the real deal. the Chemical Corps colonel looked afraid. I don't know what would have happened if he had made a serious move on the rabbit. pl

[Patrick Lang]

WRC

We were repeatedly asked our opinion and gave it. the more "nuts and bolts" material was pretty good, but the fluff time fillers like the invasion of the bunny killers were absurd. pl

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks PL! I was never quite sure how INTEL and Army Doctrine fit together!

[Patrick Lang]

WRC

That was then. I leave it to someone else to say what it is like now. pl

[Green Zone Cafe]

Good story, and funny as hell.

Now tell us about the pig in the SF medic course.

[Patrick Lang]

GZC

In SF field exercizes representing a behind the lines extended situation, the SF medics would buy a pig or a goat, anesthetize it and shoot it. Then they would spend the rest of the exercize treating it for its injury. At the end of the exercize we would eat it. i think that was different. the medics needed the experience. none of us needed the useless experience of watching the rabbit die. pl

[Fred]

9 months of training? I'm sure some gang of consultant's got a bundle cutting that down to a few TV videos and an 'app' for the 'next generation'.