Story #2272

About 6 weeks in, some of the guys from second platoon hatched a daring scheme. From our barracks we could see Snack Island. We couldn’t quite make out the individual candy selections, but there was clearly a wide assortment. Word spread like wildfire and at 23:00 PM, a brave soldier climbed out of the window of the laundry room on the first floor with a cargo pocket bulging full of change. He low crawled across the open grass courtyard for a hundred meters, then reached up and started pushing in money and hitting buttons randomly, so he could stay hidden in the shadows. This went on for twenty minutes until his cargo pockets were stuffed with dozens of various chocolate covered confections. He crawled back just as low, laying still when the rare car drove by and hugged the shadows.

If you were to glance at our building from the street, you would have seen two hundred unblinking faces pressed hard against the glass. The round trip lasted almost an hour, but A-5-3’s ninja was successful. Or so we thought. As he crawled back into the laundry room, a gruff voice inquired, “Did you get me a Snickers, boy?”

The whole building shook with the force of two hundred soldiers running back to and climbing in their bunks.

All the next day our dishonored candy bar ninja got smoked doing guerrilla drills and massive amounts of push-ups while the drill sergeants took turns eating the ill gotten booty in front of him. He was the only one singled out for punishment, but a little of all of us died that night.