Great Moments in Military Training: October 1, 1972.

It's October 1, 1972 at Disney Barracks at Knox (B-1R-2).  I'm in 11D training (Recon) and it's after "lights out."

The reason I remember the date is because back then, the heat was off in our barracks at Knox until the start of the fiscal year.  I was 17 at the time... and I'm sitting in the hall outside my room, getting my shit together for a scheduled inspection: doing my brass, spit shining my low quarters, etc,

Sitting right next to the doorway, I notice movement out of the corner of my eye, and I look down and I see a tarantula crawling out of my room into the hallway.

He was coming out because he'd been using our heater as a nest, and it got too hot.

Anyway, I'm thinking "I'd better go get the Drill Sergeant (DS) on CQ (in Charge of Quarters-there's always at least a sergeant around after duty hours around the clock) and let him know.  But the spider might go away while I'm gone, so I'll put the lid of my shoe polish can over the top of him.  (It was one of those big ass blue "Lincoln" shoe polish cans.)

So, I did that when I had this really bizarre thought: what would happen if I put some lighter fluid on the can and lit it?

So, I did.  And that thing took off down the hallway like a hockey puck.  Until it got to the end of the hall where it hit a wall.  Stayed still; tarantula, dead as a wedge.

I think, well, I'll take the now DEAD Tarantula down to the CQ office and tell the DS about it.

I haul the very dead but otherwise undamaged (by appearance) tarantula down to the CQ office in the shoe polish lid so nothing will fall off, only to discover the DS was asleep, sitting in a chair upright, behind the CQ desk.  The CQ runner was gone.

So, I did what any budding Recon Scout would do: I took the tarantula and placed it carefully on the DS's chest, just above his folded hands.  Then I tip-toed out of the office, across the hall, and into the stairwell... and I waited, knowing the CQ runner would be coming back.

Sure enough, I hear him coming back, heading for the office.  He walks in, and I hear him scream: "DS! DS! There's a Tarantula on your chest!"  And I hear this yell from the DS (Not a scream, it was more like he was pissed) and he flipped backwards out of his chair, landing on his head and, as it turned out, knocking himself unconscious while I'm rolling around the stairwell, trying not to scream out in laughter because I know I would have been dead meat if I had... and also knowing that I could never tell anyone in my unit of the greatest prank ever played against a DS in the history of the US Army.

The next afternoon, the DS was out there, although he looked weird in his brain bucket with a bandage wrapped around his head.  Scouts Out!