All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth (Notes Byrne VIII)

You might be a drunk if you get so wasted that you hallucinate you’re fighting satan ,cut your middle finger, then fall on your butt so hard that your teeth slam together. Then you look on the floor and see your two front teeth in pieces. And to make it worse you tell everyone you got into a fight with the devil and lost. 


Thought I was entitled to be a sergeant, a shot caller. I worked hard at post details (like cutting the grass) and training. Kept my boots mirror shined and my uniform was starched so heavy it could stand on its own. Kept a bald head. I stayed drunk as much as I could without getting busted. Was fortunate to not have a car. I walked or rode a bicycle.

Entitled, after all I had been a specialist, one rank away from sergeant, for over two years. There was just one other soldier in the 54^th Quartermaster Company who was a specialist longer. I was an assistant squad leader. Worked hard at my physical conditioning. Well, except for my legs; mostly jogged. Over the last few months (2013-14) I have been working my legs more. Squats, dead lifts, single leg presses, four sets of each does wonders. No surprise I could never stand on one leg with my bird legs that have now matured to frog legs and are getting bigger. I was always maxing out my p.t. test.

My life was like one big defense mechanism. And as one of my NCO (sergeant) in charge said to put me straight, “No one wants a goofy NCO.” It seemed like people wanted me around to keep them entertained. Who ever it was that said “We’re laughing with you not at you,” lied to you.

They were laughing at you. My antics destroyed my credibility. Can’t count the number of times I’d come to formation with cuts and bruises on my face. The Captain would joke, “Holmes gets into bar fights every weekend.” Truth was that I’d get drunk and fall into things.

In between black outs (“0” promo) I conned my sergeant into send me to a pre-promotional board. I studied for hours, and practiced. Did the best out of ten soldiers. My sergeant gave me kudos, referring to me as, “My soldier.” Then comes the opportunity to deploy to Kosovo and Macedonia. Remembered talk about it while at Fort Leonardwood. Saw it on the TV. Something about ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and Slobodan Milošević was to blame for a lot of it. Before being deployed, October 30, 2000, I went home to see my grandfather, John W. Hancock. He was deteriorating from lung cancer. My grandparents no longer lived in the trailer home. They lived in a house. Felt like a big part of my child hood was taken from me when they got that house and left the trailer to deteriorate  beyond recognition. Address much of this in my novel “0”. Purchase it here http://www.amazon.com/0-honea-byrne-ebook/dp/B00DR7348S/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418351984&sr=1-2&keywords=%220%22+honea+byrne&pebp=1418352029488

When I got back to Lee I worked in the Richmond Morgue to assist in autopsies to prepare me for Kosovo. Notably, Patricia Cornwell, a best selling crime fiction makes many references to Richmond Morgue (especially Dr. Kay) and the 54^th Quarter Master Company (Mortuary Affairs). Also Richmond has The Edgar Allan Poe Museum close to the morgue. I remember seeing about every death you could imagine. They had each of us do a decomposition case as a way to bust our cherries. Mine was a guy who got drunk and shot himself in the face after he had gone through about two cases of beer. He was found two weeks later in his apartment. That one I could really relate to. He could have been me. I remember he had maggots flowing out of the top of his head like lava. The thing about maggots is that they would form into flies; then die consuming the corps leaving behind spots on the corpse that look like black rice. I came to the morgue drunk much of the time. They would punish me by having me clean the deceased clothing from blood, and guts.

And on the night before the deployment to Kosovo I got drunk to the point of hallucinations. Cut my middle finger. Went into my bathroom and fell on my butt so hard that my teeth clashed together. Looked on the bathroom floor and saw pieces of my teeth on the floor. I called our platoon sergeant (the one so proud of me). Told him, “I got into a fight with satan. Flipped him off. He cut my finger. Then he knocked my two front teeth out.”

He went to great measures to keep it a secret from the chain of command. In mid November I left on buses and planes to Fort Benning Georgia with my two front teeth missing and pulp hanging. I was part of a team of seven soldiers and two NCO’s (sergeants).

Near this time I became fascinated with my great uncle. He had fought in Nam’. Then went to college ROTC. He went to Fort Benning. He was Air Borne, Special Forces. He retired as a Major. A man about five foot seven and weighing a hundred and fifty pounds. His mantra was “A man is only a hundred and fifty pounds. The rest of him is bullshit.” In my grotesque egotism I thought I could be like him. Thought it was so cute to tell all my relatives and friends “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” I remember a peer telling me that I looked like a hobo. Luckily, I had my two front teeth replaced our first day at Benning.

Two days into our two weeks, of training to get us prepped for Kosovo, our sergeant in charge of us decided to take us all to a bowling alley.