SPC C, as my Chaplain Assistant, usually winds up driving when we go outside the wire. As with now-MSG McG, my erstwhile Chaplain Assistant in Iraq, he gets a bit annoyed if I ask to drive. Then-SFC McG would constantly accuse me of "getting into NCO business."
My bad, as the kids say these days.
Anyway, SPC C does most of the driving. The other day we were out on the road again (do I hear a country music song about to start?) and we stopped off at a school out in the hinterlands. I'm not sure the faculty were glad to see us, but the children were agog at SPC C.
I suspect they don't often see someone of his stature in this neck of the woods.
*I* don't even see that many of his stature, and I'm around big men all the time!
The children mobbed him, screaming. (This may have had something to do with the teachers not being all that pleased that we stopped by, come to think of it....)
SPC C didn't help matters in that regard, either. Something possessed him to start doing straight-arm raises (as if in the gym) -- while holding children. He made the mistake of doing that to one youngster, and then spent the next fifteen minutes doing it to many, many, many others.
He and they had a great time.
I didn't get to drive home.
But he can still barely lift his arms, three days later.
Blessings and peace to one and all,
Fr. Tim, SJ
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