The Hunting Trip Read Online Free PDF Page B

was experiencing a blizzard in early October.
    On the Greyhound bus back to north New Jersey later that October day, ex–Cadet Private P. W. Williams had been enormously relieved that his military service was over.
    Another option, the captain explained, was for Phil to apply for the Army Security Agency. The ASA was charged with listening to enemy radio communications, copying them down, and if necessary, decrypting them. Personnel selected to be “Intercept Operators,” the captain said, had to have the same intellectual qualifications as officer candidates, that is to say an AGCT score of 110 or better.
    Reasoning that places where radio receivers were located were probably going to be inside, and that Intercept Operators would probably work sitting down, Phil selected the ASA for his career in the nation’s war machine.
    He was given yet another long form to fill out, this one asking for a list of his residences in the last twenty years, and other personal information. He had no way of knowing of course that ASA Intercept Operators were required to have Top Secret security clearances, or that the form was the first step in what was known as the “Full Background Investigation Procedure,” which was necessary to get one.
    The next day, Phil was transferred from the Reception Center to a basic training company.
    There he and two hundred fellow recruits were issued blankets, sheets, a pillow and pillowcase, a small brown book titled
TM9-1275 M-1 Garand Manual
, and an actual U.S. Rifle, Cal. 30, M-1 Garand.
    They were told that until graduation day, when they actually became soldiers, they would live with their Garands. And yes, that meant sleeping with it. And memorizing its serial number.
    The idea was for the recruits to become accustomed to the weapon. They wouldn’t actually fire it until the sixth week of their training. Until then, they would in their spare time, after memorizing the serial number, read
TM9-1275
and learn how the weapon functioned.
    The first indication that Phil had empathy for Mr. Garand’s invention—or vice versa—came that very evening at 8:55 p.m., or, as the Army says that, twenty fifty-five hours.
    At that hour, Sergeant Andrew Jackson McCullhay, one of Phil’s instructors, walked down the barracks aisle en route to the switch that would turn off the lights at twenty-one hundred.
    As he passed the bunk to which PVT WILLIAMS P had been assigned, he saw something that both surprised and distressed him. PVT WILLIAMS P had somehow managed to completely disassemble his U.S. Rifle, Cal. 30, M-1 Garand. All of its many parts were spread out over his bunk.
    In the gentle, paternal tone of voice for which Basic Training Instructors are so well known, Sergeant McCullhay inquired, “ EXPLETIVE DELETED!! head, what the EXPLETIVE DELETED!! have you done to your EXPLETIVE DELETED!! rifle?”
    â€œSergeant, sir,” PVT WILLIAMS P replied, “I have disassembled it.”
    â€œSo I see,” Sergeant McCullhay replied. “Now show me, EXPLETIVE DELETED!! head, how you’re going to get your EXPLETIVE DELETED!! Garand back together before I turn the EXPLETIVE DELETED!! lights off in four minutes and fifteen EXPLETIVE DELETED!! seconds.”
    â€œYes, sir, Sergeant,” PVT WILLIAMS P replied, and proceeded to do so with two minutes and five seconds to spare.
    â€œI’ll be a EXPLETIVE DELETED!! ,” Sergeant McCullhay said. “ EXPLETIVE DELETED!! head, you’re a EXPLETIVE DELETED!! genius!”
    â€œYes, sir, Sergeant,” PVT WILLIAMS P said.
    He had already learned the most important rule of all in the Army:
Never Argue with a Sergeant.
    Sergeant McCullhay was genuinely impressed with the speed with which PVT WILLIAMS P had reassembled his stripped Garand, especially after he timed himself at the task. When, that same night, he told his buddies at the sergeants’ club what he had seen, they didn’t believe