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Show f aymg kay I'm a upply rgeant now. Now I 11 b th b t damn upply ergeant I can be ' they get frustrated because they see the young r guy taking th ir companies and marching them down the parade grounds and they hear them barking ut the cadence, and they see them running the problems and stuff and that's what they want to do. We had a problem at Camp Pendleton. They had bleachers upon at the top, and the Commandant was coming to visit, Leonard Shepherd. He was just coming to visit. Well, when they come through they just drive through. They had me down with the platoon. They said, "I want you to go down and you run that platoon." It was a live fire problem. So you're using live ammunition. They said, "You run it," because they knew I could run it. They didn't want to trust a kid, and I don't blame them. You don't want to get a kid shot because somebody doesn't know what he is doing. So I was running this problem when the Commandant came. All of sudden the order come out to cease fire. I knew I hadn't hurt anybody. They said, we want Gunny Pastore up the hill. So I come up the hill. I made everybody lock and unload, and I come up the hill, and here was the Commandant. I said, "How are you, sir?" He said, "Pastore! God, I haven't seen you since Korea!" His aide said, "General, we've got to be leaving." He said, "Yeah, just take it easy." So we sat there on the bleachers and had a cigarette, and talked about the old times. All these officers, new lieutenants and stuff standing around looking like, "Who the Christ is this kid? Who is this guy? He's talking to the Commandant, and here I'm a lieutenant, and he didn't even acknowledge me!" But 137 |
