I recalled how a long time ago being one of an elite force almost caused a problem. It was in the fall of 1954. My beloved New York Giants, now San Francisco had won the National League pennant.   I knew that my leave was over and I should have been back in camp. It was a year that saw New York beat Cleveland who had won 104 games. Anyway I was traveling on the train, sleeping, when a huge, beefy straightleg M.P. tapped me on the shoulder and after perusing my papers told me to follow him to the front car of the train. Drowsy and curious I wondered why he had picked me,then I realized that my papers showed me as officially A.W.O.L.

When I arrived in the front car there were five young Marines. I guessed their ages between 17 and 20. Honestly, they seemed unconcerned by my arrival. The beefy M.P. stood on the side slowly running a forefinger between the fingers of the opposite hand thereby "tightening" the white cotton gloves.  and rocking back and forth on his heels and toes. Apparently the big one had had some prior experiences with a  troopers. My dapper appearance compared to his was more than he could stand. Now in the presence  of his partner and the five Marines he says "You Airborne guys are supposed to be able to take six Marines, well this is only five,what about it?" My point here is that he was trying to show me up merely because I was from an elite organization and although we were both Army he would go with the Marines just to go against an elite person.(Actual unsolicited excerpt from e-mail sent by another 50's trooper)

I didn't mean to let the "make us all we can be" phrase slide in my last
reply Jack. Just as they say we are what we eat---we are a product of our experiences in life. There is no question in my mind that my abilities
(whatever they may be) to face and "don't give in" to problems in life was learned in large part as a "paratrooper". A lot of "legs", "jarheads",
"busdrivers" and "swabbies", etc. didn't like us------but we didn't give a damn---because we had "pride" and had proven to ourselves that "we could get the job done". Visit his beautiful web site by clicking below

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/7549/sposs.html

With the Marine youths continuing to show a deliberate indifference, nothing further materialized. A funny endind to this little story, upon arrival at the Fort Bragg Railroad depot,the view from the window showed about fifteen MPs lined along the platform. They all carried skyward pointing .45 caliber "grease guns". Scared to death, I thought to myself I'm in deep crap now. Imagine if I'd stayed a few more days. When I got out of the train and nobody said anything to me I heaved a sigh of relief. They were only guarding the incoming payroll.WHEW!!