When I was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, I was fortunate to have four generally good roommates. But not everybody was that fortunate or that lucky, depending on how you look at it. Perspective is always a bitch. And that’s where fortune versus luck comes in. I always considered myself fortunate with regard to my roommates because it came to choices. And other than my first roommate who was chosen for me, I chose my other three roommates, and I chose them wisely. At least I would like to think I chose them wisely. But most people allowed luck of the draw to choose their roommate. And if you’ve ever played cards, you have a good idea how luck of the draw works. If you’ve never played cards, start. You’d be surprised how much you’ll learn about life. You can learn an awful lot by playing cards. Luck of the draw can be a real bitch sometimes. Especially if you’re playing for money. My advice to you is, don’t go to Vegas and play for money. Chances are you’ll lose. Anyway, people that depend on luck of the draw to choose a roommate may win or lose. More often than not, they lose. Here is what I mean. A new guy, John Gould, came into the unit and was assigned to room with a guy by the name of Tim Rupert. Rupert was a good old Southern country boy, and he was friendly enough and pretty easy-going. But he had a few what I like to call fatal personality flaws. Some people would attribute his personality flaws to hygiene. Other people would attribute his personality flaws to housekeeping. I think it was too much of both and not enough of either. Here’s what I mean. He didn’t have any hygiene and he didn’t have any housekeeping. He was one of those fellas that you didn’t want to stand near in formation, if you had good sinuses. It didn’t matter which way the wind was blowing. If your nose worked, you did not want to be near that boy. Imagine that you could visualize the smell for a moment. Close your eyes and picture this. It’s a hot humid day. The air is stagnant and heavy. It just hangs around you. Now imagine that someone near you hasn’t bathed in four or five or six or seven days. Imagine that flies are buzzing all around that person. You can’t see them because your eyes are closed, remember. You’re supposed to be imagining this. Now imagine that the odor wafting off of this person can be seen as little waves of stink being emitted from said person like a pulse. And these pulses keep coming over and over and over and over. And they build up to a crescendo of stink that ruptures when it hits your nose like a stink cloud or stink bomb. Boom! Now imagine that the stink cloud follows you everywhere because the stink cloud is being emitted from your roommate. That’s how it was for Gould after he met Rupert. To make matters worse, Rupert had a bad habit of eating in bed and getting food crumbs and crap all over his damn bed. As a result, the room had a problem with pests. To top everything off, Rupert made such a mess in his bed one night that he woke up screaming. He was screaming so loud that he woke all of the second floor of the barracks and some of the first floor. People came running to see what was happening. His roommate, Gould, turned on the light and got so scared, he came running out of the room. A few of us went in to look at the problem. Rupert was covered head to toe in fire ants. Essentially, he was being eaten by the fire ants. They were biting the shit out of him. I ran out into the hall and grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran back inside Rupert’s room and sprayed him down. It was the only thing I could think of to do. But it seemed to work. The ants dispersed enough to where we could get Rupert out of the bed. Meanwhile, someone had notified the charge of quarters. The charge of quarters had called the fire department and the MPs. The fire department rolled an ambulance with the fire trucks. Soon, Rupert was being whisked off to the hospital. I know in Rupert’s case that was one extreme. But there was another guy who was equally as bad with his personal hygiene. His name was Swanson. Swanson flat refused to take showers. Nobody would go near him in formation. His squad leader made him stand in the back of the formation, all by himself. The reason was because everyone would fight over who had to stand next to him. Several people tried to convince Swanson to clean up. But nothing worked. Finally, one night, the Platoon Sergeant authorized a blanket party. It is very rare that somebody so high ranking would authorize such drastic action. If you don’t know what a blanket party is, you are either lucky or fortunate. I witnessed my first blanket party in basic training. I thought I knew what to expect with the Swanson blanket party. Man was I ever wrong. I’m going to take you on another imaginary journey. However, this journey isn’t quite as imaginary as the one earlier. This one is a lot closer to real life. Swanson also lived in a room on the second floor of the barracks. Those barracks were the old wooden World War II barracks. You may not be familiar with them because most if not all of those old, World War II barracks have been torn down by most military installations here in the US. I mentioned that the Platoon Sergeant authorized a blanket party. However, he would not have anything to do with it beyond authorizing it. In other words, we were on our own to come up with a plan to get into Swanson’s room in order to execute the blanket party. That wasn’t as much of a challenge as you might think. Here’s why, Georgia gets really, really hot in the summer. And not every room in the barracks had fans. That’s just the way it was. Some rooms had two fans, one for each roommate. Other rooms had none. Seniority in the barracks usually dictated who had the fans and who didn’t. If you were the newest kid on the block, you were SOL. By the way, for those you who don’t know what SOL means, hint, it means shit outta luck. Swanson was one of the relatively new kids on the block (newbie). His room didn’t have any fans. The only cooling his room had was open windows. That actually worked in our favor because we simply climbed over the balcony outside the fire door on the second floor and walked on the eaves of the little overhang above the first floor until we came to his window. Then, it was just a simple matter to take off the screen and climb in through the window to gain access to the room. Swanson was sound asleep and did not hear us coming. We wrapped him tight in his blankets, and we stuffed him in a wall locker. Then, we threw the wall locker out of his second-floor barracks window. Now, imagine that you are a member of the vigilante blanket party and you are on a midnight raid to instill barracks justice. Will your vigilante blanket party bring that justice? You don’t really care. You don’t even think about the possible harm that you might bring to the individual, upon whom you are about to rain down terror upon. You only think about the frustration you experienced, as you watch the wall locker sail out the window and down to the ground. Then, with a loud thud, the wall locker slams into the ground and the stinky package inside lets out a horrible scream. Could you visualize that? Could you imagine the ride, as that wall locker sailed out the window and down to the ground? Could you see the stinky package wrapped up inside that wall locker? These are just two extreme examples of how vigilante justice took over and handled hygiene issues with roommates that people were unfortunate or unlucky enough to be paired with in the barracks. Don’t be the next statistic. Don’t trust in the luck of the draw to pick your roommate or you just may experience your own exercise in futility.
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