Gleason

D Vautier
11/2006

Gleason could drink.  It’s fair to say that he could out drink anybody, any time anywhere on this entire planet, and I found this out.  It’s also fair to say that he was about as Irish as you could possible get.  Even his eyes seemed to twinkle with an emerald green cast, and sometimes when he looked at you with that concentrated stare of both profound honesty and childlike ruthlessness, you’d swear that he had within him a large, hunkering leprechaun.

Born in west Ireland where living was hard and jobs were scarce, he joined the U. S. army in 1964--I’m not sure why he did so, perhaps wanderlust, or a desire to get away, or just curiosity about the rest of the world.  A good number of foreigners did join the service, because it was steady work and counted toward citizenship, although some did not even plan to become U. S. citizens.  Our unit did have its share of foreigners.

Jim Gleason was a T-meter operator, and at that time in 1965 we were just phasing out the T-meters in favor of newer DME (Distance Measuring Electronics) technology.  The T-meter had an oscilloscope and was a very cantankerous thing to operate, got out of adjustment easily, and you had to slap it around sometimes to get a good reading.  It also weighed a ton.  The DME on the other hand was all plastic, light, durable and had dials instead of scopes--a decided improvement.  Our unit was one of the first to receive the new DME units.  We loved them.

I worked on Gleason’s team as a recorder.  Everything about this guy was in the extreme; he worked hard, cussed hard, and drank hard.  He was also a big guy, and stood about six feet three, with bulging bulbous hands and a five o’clock shadow that usually appeared about one o’clock.

One of my brothers was too tall for service.  Nowadays  they don't care how tall you are, but back then they issued only one size bed--too small and too hard.

My first month in Germany saw me out in the field constantly.  After a particularly difficult survey (which we closed real tight of course), the sergeant went down to the class five (liquor store) and picked up several fifths of rum.  These were British fifths, which are bigger than American fifths, so we were all set for some serious celebration as a reward for good hard work.  What better time to celebrate. 

I got into an ongoing poker game that night with the rest of the survey party. Gleason, as was his nature, challenged the rest of us to match him drink for drink.  After about three shots of straight rum, it became difficult for me to even get the glass up to my mouth let along drink it so when Gleason wasn't looking I began to pour straight coke into my glass along with very little rum.  I held the rum bottle up to my glass but with some cleaver prestidigitation, little of the precious liquid would flow forth.  After some time at this charade, I was the only one left sitting at the poker table besides Gleason.  Everyone else had passed out.  But my deception was found out.  During the very next drink Gleason caught me pouring coke into my glass.

“Vautier, You’ve been drinking coke.  Ya’ cheat’en scoundrel, ‘ya turncoat.  I'll rip 'ya...I’ll thrash ‘ya by God! I’ll tear ‘ya within an inch, within an inch…”

At that very moment he reared back like a giant bull in an effort to deliver a mighty blow to my helpless and defenseless person.  But while in his great wind up he caught his arm in the upper bed springs of the rack behind him (We called our double bunks “racks”).  As I stood up to see what was going on and why I had not been justly punished, I simply passed out.

Several hours later I woke up with a pounding headache to find Gleason still hanging from that bunk unconscious, his arm tangled up in the mattress.  I woke up the party chief and we disengaged poor Gleason’s arm and laid him in the lower bunk.

Next morning Gleason remembered nothing of the incident and I never attempted to tell him.