40th anniversary: Learning that words have power

By Mike Fak

[July 14, 2011]  Next week it will be my 40^th anniversary of never officially being in the U.S. Army. You see I never said the oath that day, I had gone to the bathroom and when I came back into the room the sergeant told the hundreds of young pups shoved together that we were now all soldiers. I never did use that loophole to just walk away from the whole affair being lucky enough to catch a creampuff assignment.

In a strange way, the Army is what caused me to become a writer of satire and eventually a columnist and now an editor at LDN although there are days when I look at what I wrote that I'm not sure that is anything to be thankful for.

Shortly after my arrival at my assigned military base, the installation started up a small weekly newspaper. Since I already had a reputation of making my opinions about army life known, several of my buddies said I should submit some of my diatribes to the paper. I wrote a column making fun of the new mess hall's menu and the fact we weren't allowed seconds to support the original measly portions we had slopped on our trays.

I expressed my disdain by wording the column as if I was writing to a family in Korea asking them to adopt this company of poor starving G.I.'s. The editor, a lieutenant and a graduate of the University of Iowa, thought the piece was hilarious and printed it in the next edition of the small four page newspaper.

I remember how everyone on the post made it a point to come up to me and slap my back or buy me a beer that week. I had said something they believed needed to be said and had said it in a way that made them all laugh. I had always been a comedian, getting in trouble as a jokester since third grade, so this new-found celebrity sat well with me as I enjoyed my moment in the limelight.

I remember hearing that the post commander was none too happy with my column. I also was told the editor stood up for me because even in the Army, the First and Fourth Amendments were still a part of the Constitution. The editor relayed to the post commander that there was truth in my column and perhaps he should check it out for himself before getting too mad at me. I told the L.T. that technically I wasn't a soldier if that would help but he advised me not to go there with that defense.

A few days later I learned my first real lesson in the power of the word. As I and my platoon were in the mess hall eating a skimpy meal of undercooked chicken, two company captains and the post commander walked into the mess. They always ate at the officer's club so this was a shock to all of us. All three walked up to the line and taking trays, went through the mess line as soldiers scurried to get out of the way.

Of course when they came to the chicken, that day's main entrée, they all received double portions as if that was the norm. Everyone was watching and everyone was mad and I recall a few nudging me to go tell the commanders we didn't get fed that well. I figured I was on soft ground already and didn't need the post commander attaching a face to the column I had written so I told everyone to shut up.

As luck would have it, one of the captains tore into his chicken breast and found the meat still blood red. Now anyone knows raw chicken is nothing to serve even to young draftees but for the captain to get one of these pieces of crap was a thing of beauty.

Now I will never know if he was just really ticked off or had decided to put on a show for the post commander. Whatever the motive, the captain stood up and threw his tray full of food against the wall and started screaming at the mess hall sergeant to pull every piece of food off the line and to get a new meal prepared in fifteen minutes or his kiester would be in Alaska feeding "blankety blank" Eskimos.

After that day, the food was better and the portions we received were also more in line with what young men needed to not feel like we were starving.

It was my first real lesson in what the power of words could do. I never forgot it. I never will.

Archived columns