...AND THEN THERE IS THE MARINE CORPS WAY... |
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"And then there was Pvt. Craft," Lee Weber said matter of factly. "We were up at Edson Range, in Camp Pendelton. The senior drill instructor came up to me and told me that we were going to have a General’s inspection the following day. So we field dayed and got ready for the inspection. The next day we were up at the rifle range and my Platoon Commander, I was a junior DI, came up to me and said we had failed the inspection. I was stunned, I said that was impossible....no way! But he said we failed and I asked him why."
Les was beginning to smile, almost laugh. I had a feeling he had heard this story before. Either that or he instinctively knew, being a drill instructor, that it had to be something good.
"In the barracks we had laundry bags that hung on the end of the racks. Apparently, the woman LtCol., that accompanied the General, smelled something. After snooping around they isolated the smell down to a particular rack; Pvt. Craft’s. So she sniffed around and found that it was coming from Pvt. Craft’s laundry bag," Lee said with a hint of a smile for the first time. I could tell now that Les knew exactly what was coming because he seemed to be holding back from all out laughter. "So they opened Pvt. Craft’s laundry bag, which was tied to the end of the rack, and found.....I’ll say..soiled underwear in his bag.," Lee said without smiling this time. To a DI this is serious business. How do they explain to their superiors that one of their men crapped in his clothes?
Lee continued with his story. "I was out around the three hundred yard line when I found out why we failed from the senior DI. I went over to Pvt. Craft, who was a non-shooter on the firing line. I went over to him and laid down beside him to find out what had happened...and then I smelled something. Turns out Pvt. Craft had crapped in his drawers, " Lee paused. I could only imagine that he must have thought at the time..."Why is this happening to me?"
"I told him to cease firing and get off the firing line. We walked him over to the tunnel. There was a tunnel between the ranges. We got in there and I told him to drop his drawers. He dropped his drawers and there it was.....he had soiled his drawers! Needless to say we punished him," Lee informed us.
"That night I had the duty in the barracks. I called lights out and all was quiet. Then about an hour after lights out the "fire watch" came into the duty office and said ‘Don’t walk out the door!’, I asked him why. He said, ‘Pvt. Craft is out there and he is locked and loaded. He is in the prone position and when you walk out he is going to shoot you!’ I told him o.k. I said sit down there and have a cup of coffee. I took the helmet liner from him, and his night stick. I removed my utility shirt so I would look like the "fire watch" guy. I walked out the back and around the squad bay. And there was Pvt. Craft with an M-16, in the prone position in the middle of the squad bay. I approached him and hit him across the head with the night stick and knocked him out." he said describing the incident as if he had just swatted a fly. To me, this shows how focused and cool a Marine can be under the worst circumstances. Don’t forget this guy was laying in wait and planned on shooting Lee.
"After that everybody came waltzing in and subdued him. They took him away in a straight jacket," Lee stated.
I asked Lee what had happened to the Pvt. after that. "I don’t know. I never saw him again and I never heard of him again," he replied. "That’s the story on Pvt. Craft!"
I can’t but help to think what had happened if the "fire watch" had not come in with the warning. I know I wouldn’t be here interviewing Lee Weber and that he would not have retired as a 1Sgt. from the Marine Corps.