OCR Text |
Show Flying - 54 about it and tried to make him go to the hospital, but the kid says no, says he feels O.K., it was just a virus or something, begs the old man not to send him to the medics. And then the next day, the kid tosses his cookies right in the chow line-before he eats. "And he still doesn't want to go to the hospital, only this time the old man made him." O'Connell looks at his audience with as much pride as if he'd planned the whole thing himself. "You dig the sheer genius of the kid--the old man had to make him go to the hospital. And all the time he was doing this, except for being a bit weak from not eating, he was a perfect soldier, kept his area clean, looked sharp, worked as hard as he could In the motorpool." "This was here?" says John Henry. "Before your time," says O'Connell, who came to Fort Hood right after Signal School in Fort Gordon, and has been here ever since. "Anyhow, when the kid got back from the hospital, the medics recommended a discharge, and the kid walked out the main gate a week later a free man." A free man. Regurgitatlve spasms of throat and gullet, fingertip against soft palate and push gently. It would probably become automatic after a while. A matter of course. "You see," says O'Connell, "the whole secret is to make them think you love the army and they have to force you out. |