My Dad In The War: Another Memorial Day Memory

On their way to the Philippines, my Dad's platoon found themselves in Louisiana.
     Of course, the U.S. Army can't just have their soldiers sitting around doing nothing, so a Sergeant, who probably wanted to sit around and do nothing, instead found himself having to teach a bored group of them how to use a compass. Now, a compass is a fairly easy tool that all of them already knew how to use, so my father and his buddies weren't happy being treated like idiots.
     They were standing by a lake, close to the water, and, this being Louisiana and all, they had an unexpected visitor stalking them from about five to ten feet away.
     It was an alligator.
     "I don't know how big alligators get," my Dad told me, "but this was a BIG one."
     When the Sergeant turned around to see what his men were making a fuss about, he jumped back with a yelp at the sight of the giant lizard eyeing them hungrily. "Eenie, meenie, miney, mo," the pre-historic man-eater almost seemed to be deciding to itself.
     The sergeant was visibly shaken, but had to laugh when my father joked, "Don't worry, Sarge, he fell asleep listening to you, too!"
 
 

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