Day at the Beach – An Ode to Military Humor

Wright here, If you recall from my last few times posting, you may remember that I was talking about leaving Korea and the challenges of raising small children while on active duty in the military.  More specifically, I talked about some specific escapades that my son, whom I dubbed the master of disaster, managed to pull off.  Wright Junior, or should I say Gil, learned the hard and painful way that Superman cannot fly in real life.  Rather, he learned that Superman reacts to gravity just like everybody else.  You may recall that I had also referenced Trouble with a (capital) T in one of my blogs.  You may also remember that I mentioned that troublesome person was (is) my son.  Well, he quickly became the master of disaster.  In fact, he was becoming a legend in his own mind.  I described a couple of examples to illustrate how my son earned the nickname Trouble with a (capital) T.  However, he was just warming up.  His crowning achievement would come the week that we were preparing to out-process and clear from the Eighth United States Army G4 and our apartment at Hannam Village in order to return to the United States.  We planned to take a vacation in Hawaii en route to the United States.  Well, if you read those posts, you know that the master of disaster broke his arm just two days before we were scheduled to fly to Hawaii.  Okay.  I called it, “escape from Korea.”  To be fair, we weren’t really escaping from Korea.  For the most part we enjoyed our time in Korea.  I say, for the most part.  There were exceptions.  I wrote about the more notable ones in my blog.  However, I must say that Gil (you’re probably wondering why I am calling my son Gil when that is clearly not his name) pretty much managed to trash our Hawaiian vacation.  Oh, we did manage to salvage bits and pieces here and there.  I talked about them (the bits and pieces) in my more recent blogs such as the luau that we attended which was sponsored by the Hale Koa Hotel the evening of the first day we were in Hawaii.  Our move to the guest lodge at Tripler Army Medical Center on the second day of our stay in Hawaii.  And I also talked about our visit to Pearl Harbor.  Cuz let me tell you, a visit to Hawaii is not complete without a trip out to see the USS Arizona Memorial.  Well, my kids were relentless.  They just would not quit with their nagging about going to the beach.  It was clear that we were going to have to go to the beach.  On our last day in Hawaii, we decided to do just that.  We decided to take the kids to the beach.  We visited the cafeteria at Tripler Army Medical Center, to see if we could scrounge an extra-large bread bag.  Then we stopped at a hardware store and bought some duct tape.  Hey, I needed some kind of way to fasten the bread bag onto Gil’s arm above the cast in an attempt to keep it dry.  Funny thing about that cast, it was blue.  It wasn’t your standard white.  And back then, Sharpies weren’t a thing.  What we had were your standard black magic markers.  They worked okay, but they had thick writing surfaces, not pointed tips like Sharpies.  Another thing was that the writing was hard to see on the blue background.  That kinda sucked.  Anyway, we told Gil (Wright Junior) that he had to keep his broken arm up out of the water over his head the whole time we were at the beach and they were playing in the water.  Oh yeah.  I almost forgot.  How did Wright Junior get his nickname, Gil?  It’s really rather simple.  It was either while we were still in Korea or while we were at the Tripler Army Medical Center watching TV.  I don’t remember exactly when, but it was probably after one of the master of disaster’s fateful accidents where I was called home after the emergency alarm was sounded.  But I am not really sure.  What I am sure about is that we were watching an episode of “Gilligan’s Island” on TV and Gilligan had just pulled another one of his shenanigans, which of course achieved its desired effect.  A timely angry response from the Skipper.  I looked over at my son and said, “You see that?  That right there is what you are.  You’re my little buddy.  From now on I’ll just call you Gil.”  And the name stuck.  Where were we?  Oh yeah.  We were headed to the beach.  For the most part, my son did exactly as he was told.  For the most part.  But bread bags and duct tape are not 100 percent waterproof, and children will be children, especially if they’re only a few years old.  Did the cast get wet?  Yes.  Did the cast get waterlogged?  No.  When I say that the cast got wet, I mean that it got a little damp, but the structural integrity of the cast was not harmed.  As a result, the bread bag and the duct tape had done the job that they were intended to do.  The kids were happy that we had taken them to the beach and we escaped with no significant exercises in futility besides an itchy casted arm.

**As a PSA the past few weeks have been rather busy here at home and on my son’s side as well. As a result the weekly posting schedule has been rather sporadic. Though going forward we should be back to our regular posting schedule since life has calmed down for us here on the Wright side. And if there are going to be posting delays in the future or any other circumstances that would prevent us from posting according to our regular schedule then we will send out an announcement prior to the delays happening. Thank you for all your support and understanding. Hopefully we can keep going forward with no more exercises in futility.**

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