Well, it was that time of day when students at a military school house make a mad dash exodus off of the military base. It was no different at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. My cohort in crime, Clyde Warren, and I had expertly disguised ourselves as professional wrestlers masquerading as normal civilians. We decided to grab a couple of beers in our theatrical roles as the Wild West Bunch. We arrived at a bar just in time to find a bunch of people pairing off for a dancing contest. We looked at each other and said, “What the hell? This ought to be interesting. Do you think people will get upset if we dance together?” Since we were pretending to be tag-team wrestlers, we decided to be tag-team dancing partners for the dancing contest as well. We figured it couldn’t hurt. And we might get a few laughs. I didn’t think we had a fiddler’s chance in hell of winning. But who knew? Stupid shit always seemed to happen. There were actually a few people at the bar who knew us from Aberdeen Proving Ground, but they didn’t say anything. They kept our secret, and they let us pretend to be professional wrestlers just as we said we were. The dancing contest got underway, and soon it was our turn to dance. Clyde and I tagged up just like professional wrestlers would. Then, we just stomped and jumped around like wrestlers would in a ring. Every once in a while, we would lock arms and twirl around. At several points throughout our comic interlude, we drew laughs from the audience, as we expected. At a couple of points, a few people even clapped. Seriously. What was that all about? When it came time for the judging, we didn’t win, which was also as expected. However, we did receive honorable mention for the originality of our routine and the entertainment value that we provided to the audience. The announcement of that honorable mention award drew another unexpected round of applause, catcalls, and whistling from the audience. At that point, Clyde and I decided it was time to finish our beers and disappear. When we went out into the parking lot, we noticed that a huge crowd was forming outside of a bar across the street from where we were. I looked at Clyde and asked, “I wonder what’s up with that? What do you think? Should we go over and check it out?” Clyde replied, “I’ll go if you go.” “I guess it’s settled then.” So, we walked across the street to see what was going on. We recognized a few people from our class in the Ordnance Officer Advanced Course out at Aberdeen Proving Ground. We immediately walked over toward them, and I asked, “What’s going on here?” One of the lady captains answered, “When we showed up, there were a bunch of people from the NCO Academy here. Everything started out okay, but it was obvious that a few of the NCOs were very drunk. After a while, those drunk NCOs started getting really rowdy. At that point, Clyde stopped them and asked the question, “What do you mean, they started getting really rowdy?“ One of the female captain’s responded, “Well, first, they started swearing really bad. Then, they started smashing beer bottles on the floor. When they smashed one of the beer bottles, someone at another table got cut pretty bad.” “You mean, somebody not with the NCOs got cut?” “Yeah. So, the people at the bar had to call an ambulance and shit. Someone also called the cops. Then, the manager of the bar came over and told them that he had called the cops and that they needed to leave. That’s when they got really mad. They went outside and smashed a couple of the windows to the bar. The crowd formed because they broke the window of the bar, and that’s when you walked over.” “Oh shit! So, they broke a window, they cut somebody inside the bar with a smashed beer bottle, and they were trashing the inside of the bar. Does that sum it up?” “Yeah. Pretty much.” “Oh shit! I hear sirens. We need to get the hell out of here. Cuz when the cops get here, heads are going to roll. Those NCOs are going to jail. They’re too dumb and too drunk to realize that they stepped in shit. We don’t need to be here when the cops slap the jewelry on them. Cuz we might be arrested as well.” Clyde and I quickly ran across the street back to where our car was parked. We immediately left and headed back to Aberdeen Proving Ground. The next day, we talked to the lady captains and found out that they had left right after we did. It seems that they did not want to go to jail for a broken window either. That would have definitely been an exercise in futility for all of us.
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