A rose by any other name...
At Kemper was where I learned that names meant something but also they meant nothing. In Delta Co., we had "sound offs". That meant is someone yelled your name; last name of course, you had to respond with your own personal sound off. Like a friend whose last name was Tandy had his sound off: "Sir, my name is Tandy... beep, beep, sir!" It was a play on the Tandy Corporation who owned Radio Shack. Mine was: "Sir, my name is Herring and I am full of ball bearings, sir!" Obviously I was more rotund at the time. And then we had Woodle. Woodle was a 7th grader, small and hyper as a lot of 7th graders are. His sound off was: "Sir, my name is Woodle; Woodles wobble but they don't fall down sir!" After the toys of the day that woobled but didn't fall down.
In any case, Woodle also was a talker. He would say this, he would say that. The Old Boys and chain of command never heard it as he was a New Boy. But us New Boys heard him. We would just shake our head when he said his dad was going to land his chopper and give him his trombone. Uh huh, right.
One Saturday night I was at the movie in the auditorium along with a bunch of other New Boys. As New Boys you weren't allowed to watch tv or if you got that privilege it might not be something you wanted to watch. So there were we watching a movie when we heard it. Like distant thunder but getting closer. It then sounded like something was going to crash into the barracks. We all piled out onto the court.
Suddenly a light from the sky illuminated us. Was it a UFO? Nope. It was Chinook helicopter coming in for a landing on the west parade field (it was the larger of our two). No sooner had it touched down than someone in fatigues wearing a flight helmet carrying a trombone case, jumped out. We could see Woodle run out and meet the man half way. The man hugged Woodle, gave him his trombone case and then quickly ran and jumped back aboard and the chopper took off. The rotors never stopped turning or even slowed. the whole thing lasted a minute; two tops, It then rose in the night sky and disappeared to the west.
Names also never meant anything when you are standing at attention or a brace and you have someone within 6 inches of your face calling you every name in the book along with some highly impossible sex acts. That's why today I can be called any thing by anybody and I just look at them and tell them that I have been called worse by better people than they will ever know AND in more languages. In other words, it doesn't bother me. They don't know me.
One time at band practice, Chief stops us and yells at me to play whats written. We play again, he stops us. He then says "Look, umm..uh, oh Hell, Farmer Boy play that blankety blank tuba right!" He had forgotten my name! That became one of the names that Chief would call me.
Another time, early in my first year at Kemper I was one of the Privates of the Guard. Luckily it was during a parade and I didn't have to march. I was making my way back to the OD Office when the adjutant (Gaskill), yelled over to me "OD, OD come here." I went over to correct him, "Sir I'm not the OD, I'm just a runner." I didn't know that at the time that all personnel on the OD force would be called OD.
I am proud of my name. I am also proud of some nicknames I have picked up over the years as they are road maps of where I have come and it also a way I can identify almost how a person knows me. It all depends on how they address me. Only certain people are allowed to call me certain names. Even close friends who didn't go to Kemper and (ex-) wives are not allowed to call me by one of them as they don't have the right. Of this, it may sound funny, but I am serious. Luckily the ones that know, know.
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