My Favorite April Fools Joke, Ever

I recently read an AC article by the always-articulate Theresa Wiza, regarding April Fools jokes and providing a link to the very best of all time. My favorite could not possibly match most of those jokes in scale, but in terms of effect, it was one of the best.

I should say at the outset, I was not the instigator of the April Fools joke, which took place while I was in the service, but I was a willing participant. It was largely for that reason that I did not make this a fourth chapter about my adventures in the Army, easily-enough located, here, there and everywhere.

One useful thing about the day-April 1^st-is that it is very near the vernal equinox, so that 6:00 AM looks a lot like 6:00 PM. Also, the year of this joke being 1969, we had not switched over to daylight savings time yet. I bring all this up because of Fat Henry.

Fat Henry was the first sergeant of our battery, and he was indeed Henry. He was also Old Army all the way and had a temper that was merely explosive on his happier days. When he had a chip on his shoulder, he was an absolute terror. Some of the G.I.s used to call him The Black Sergeant Snorkel and a number of other names not printable in a family-oriented journal such as this. He was also the best boss I ever worked for.

Not only did Fat Henry fail to discriminate between black and white (and Heaven help the "brother" who thought he was going to get over on the first sergeant because of their common racial identity), he also failed to discriminate between high and low. If a private showed up for duty sloppily dressed or, worse yet, in need of a haircut, he could count on a blistering from Henry that would make the decibel level at a rock concert seem like the interior of a library. On the other hand, if some major up in battalion HQ tried some chicken... "guano" stunt, just to flex his command muscles, he too would hear from Fat Henry at approximately the same volume with the same profanity-per-sentence count that the private got, but with the occasional insertion of "Sir."

He demanded hard work and strong discipline from us all, but, if he could find a way to make our lives a little better, when we weren't humping the ordnance, he would make it happen. The lowest paid among the troops knew they could approach him if they came up short of funds for the month, and not have him give them a hard time over lending the money.

All that said, the first sergeant held a formation every weekday morning at 0600 hours, and you did not, not, not, not, NOT want to be late for it. You would probably be in less trouble if you called him Fat Henry to his face.

Let me get back to the joke. It was ten minutes to six in the evening. Most of us were off duty and free to come and go as we pleased. One of the guys from our squad, a new fellow named Terry, had drawn KP (kitchen police) that day, and had come in exhausted beyond his wildest dreams, some of which he was intent on having, then and there. Whether he meant to take a nap or crash for the night, he was immediately out of his uniform and in the sack, blissfully snoring the snores of a man who has put in much more than an honest day's work.

The fellow who thought up the stunt did not say anything, but, by creative use of sign language, he gave us all to understand that we should start changing back into our uniforms. We did, by which time it was just under two minutes to six. A few of the troops started heading downstairs toward the barrack door. One guy even made a show of finishing up a last-minute shave. At that point, the instigator shook poor Terry roughly awake and shouted, "TERRY, IT'S ALMOST SIX! YOU'RE GONNA BE LATE FOR FORMATION!"

Terry woke with a start, checked his watch, checked the window, invoked the Son of God, and somehow, in the space of about a minute, managed to get into his uniform, down the stairs and out the door at Olympic-sprinter speed, all the while bewailing his fate at the hands of Fat Henry. Two or three minutes later, he came trudging back to the barracks.

"Very funny, guys."

April fool, Terry.