Tower Guards

    There weren't but four of them. One tower at each corner and me coverin' the gate. For all practical purposes the guard job consisted of stayin' awake. Sounded simple but they weren't allowed reading material or music. Time passed slowly up in the towers. Standin', starin', countin' the minutes 'til lunch or dinner.  Seriously, it was ugly duty not suited to many people.
     One man loved it. 'Course he usually smuggled a short wave radio up there with him. Had some way of hidin' it so long as he was warned if anyone was headin' his way. That was my job.
     He'd spend his hours listenin' to music from Australia. Had any of the prisoners wanted to climb the fences and worm through the barbed wire atop each, our man would no doubt have not seen a thing.
     Then on his way back from lunch, tell me in minute detail 'bout everything he'd heard. Some of which he'd made up to add a little spice. He was a perfect man for the Army. Happy doin' nothin'. Passin' the time in the never ending repetition of crap he'd heard or done a thousand times before.
     Sometimes I suspect that's why we went to war. Time passed a lot more interestingly when your next step might be your last. Vietnam, Iraq probably both times, all wars resultin' from boredom? The Military sometimes seems just like a huntin' dog when his master grabs the shotgun and puts on his field jacket,
     "Oh boy! Oh boy! We gonna go out and kill ourselves somethin'. Let's go! Let's go! Oh yeah!"
     Or something to that effect.
     That's all well and good but there's a point to my rememberin' the man. Simply put, I failed him. He was up in the tower on one of the nights Super Seven paid us a visit. I was a little slow recognizin' the sound of his Mercury Monterey, just as slow ringin' the inside, then first two towers each hit the snooze button. By the time I was done with them, Seven was out and about. Should I ring up the last tower it woulda been my ass in the slinger. In the dead quiet of the Hawaiian night a ringin' phone coulda been heard all the way to Molokai. And the man was 'sposed to be awake anyhow. So it was his slumberin' butt that got caught. And relieved of the duty he liked. That kinda duty's hard to find in the Army. Bye-bye tower, hello infantry, again.
     By that I mean he was sent back to his regular unit. There was no such thing as a trained tower guard at the Schofield stockade. They were sent to us from the infantry companies. Mighta been a punishment for all I knew.
     There's intelligent men and then there's real intelligent men. We needed a new tower guard. The one we got had in Vietnam with me. Don't remember his name. But I do remember he was from Florida and had been Bravo Six's RTO. So we were radio buddies from a half year in the past.
     One of the non-coms gave him the lowdown about his duties. Take a shotgun, head up in a tower and sit there ever vigilant and awake. No books, magazines, radio, playin' cards and don't even think of man handlin' yourself as it sets a bad example for the prisoners. He looked at me, then the tower and then the shotgun. And thought of spending the next month doin' absolutely nothin' for eight or twelve hours a day.
     So he heads off with the non-com and was shown how to work the tower like he hadn't already got that figured out. The non-com headed back to his cup of coffee inside the fence. For a half hour peace reigned supreme over the land.
     The blast sure got my attention, as it did all the boys with stripes. It was like all hell broke loose as they came runnin' out the gate and headed right for the tower where the new man was. Seemed he'd blown a hole through the tower roof with his government issue, stripped down twelve gauge.
     Let me tell you he was one lucky man. I knew for a fact not a one of those guns had been cleaned since I'd been there. And maybe for years before that. A look in the breech of one was like seein' an ocean beach after a storm. Sand, sticks, glops of unidentified animal parts and detritus from nations far away. So ugly there way no way I was gonna clean one without threat of jail time. Pullin' the trigger was an invitation to disaster. But he took his chances.
     Super Seven led the reemin'. They bitched him up and down, threatened him with every punishment they could think of. And all our hero did was play dumb, near to tears and swear it was an accident. A classic case of tactical stupidity. My kinda guy indeed.
     So they sent him on his way. Back to his unit. As he passed the guard shack surrounded by the non-coms, he gave be a brief glance and a wink. Sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do. Even if it's claimin' you're an idiot when you're the smartest man on the scene.