My D.I. in August of 1969 was an E-6 from Puerto Rico who was also the bayonet, hand combat instructor. NOBODY ever truly back talked him, I was the class clown but was only beat by one guy in the company with pugil sticks, I loved pugil sticks. I was goofing around with my buddy (we went in on the buddy system) during bayonet instruction. It was the classic parry thrust routine and my buddy and I were limp wristing it, goofing off. My D.I. called us to attention, came over, grabbed by buddies M14, took the sheath off the blade, threw it on the ground. He said "Forward Thrust Parry and Hold...Huuaah! He did not hold back he went right for me, I parried the bayonet and siezed his weapon." He looked me in the eye and said "Works don't it...I catch you two goofing around again you'll be stacking rocks til the sun comes up." I enjoyed boot camp, it couldn't get tough enough, I loved it when the California surfer dudes were crying in the rain because it was so collllldddd.
I got out of the Army in April of '73 after taking a short due to some trouble I got into, so I had technically reenlisted once. They thought they had me...I did not get an early out like just about every other enlistee in that era because the volunteers were coming on, many of them were lifers from the get go.
I left mainly due to the pluralistic ignorance mentioned above, someone without my knowledge telling me how to do my job. I had respect for a few above me in rank, nearly every Warrant Officer I met had his Sierra together, I worked for two CW-3s and thought about pursuing that angle as a career but the incompetence at the top irritated me too much.
I only saw one incident where a private assaulted a non com and got away with it. The non com had a habit of tossing guys out of the bunk if they were just a wee bit too slow hitting the deck when he turned on the lights. This was post boot camp where I was training to operate landing craft and tugboats, there were also guys training to maintain them in the same barracks. This non com came in one day, flipped the lights on with his typical "Alright ladies, Lets go." He left the room, we all knew the drill and were up getting ready for chow. One guy, down from me remained in his bunk...a minute or two passed the non com came back in and from the off side of the aisle flipped this guys mattress and him onto the floor, then walked around to toss the mattress off him. The guy on the floor got to his feet and brought a fist with him, laying the non com out cold as a wedge.
Of course there was a ruckus, the guy was removed from that training schedule, the non com was removed as well. We heard through the rumor mill that the guy got off because he wasn't responsible for what he did that soon after sleeping, he got a walk on that incident and was put into another schedule behind us.
