My First Sergeant Visits Northampton County Council

Last night, I met my old first sergeant, Fritz Weide, at a Northampton County Council meeting.

He's actually a German who immigrated here as a boy after WWII. A Cossack pulled him by the left arm out of the closet where he was hiding with his Hitler youth uniform. He nearly ripped it off. As a result, Fritz has virtually no use of that limb. Amazingly, he disguised that physical impediment and enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he served as a Green Beret and even learned to fly. He is one tough bastard.

When I met him for the first time, I was a raw recruit with an artillery unit and he was our first sergeant, or Top. We were a problem unit, and he was sent to fix us. Newbies always accompanied him and the battery commander when they selected new firing positions. We would prepare the location and then wait for the rumbling howitzers to come. Sometimes we'd wait a long time.

In the background, you could hear coyotes howl, or a wild pig snorting away. That's when Fritz would scare the hell out of me with stories about what those damn pigs would do to me if I provoked them. After terrifying me with tales of the deadly brown recluse, scorpions and tarantulas, he'd calmly discuss his plans for a night patrol right through the impact zone during a live fire mission.

For those of you who don't know, the impact zone is where all rounds fired by artillery are supposed to land. It's no place for a Sunday picnic, and certainly no place for a night patrol.

But he was serious. I'd hear him argue with just about anyone that soldiers could really learn by running through an impact zone while howitzers and mortars are sending everything they had. He even made sense!

Fortunately, no commissioned officer ever listened to him.

Not being a colonel or captain, I listened all the time. Once, while crouching in some bushes after staking out a new position, he told me he was going to ignore the officers and just take us through that night, anyway. Then, as the coyotes howled and pigs snorted, he pulled on some plant and started munching.

"Whacha' doing, Top?"

"Eating poison ivy. This is the only vay you vill build resistance. Now I vant you to eat some now, too. Schnell!"

I gobbled away. The next day, Top and I were both rushed to the hospital. My throat was swollen shut and I was unable to speak for a week. But I no longer get poison ivy in my throat.

He's as crazy as they come, but I always loved the guy. Right now, he's trying to get sent to Iraq.

Believe it or not, he lives here in Northampton County. From time to time, he attends council meetings, and treats council members just like they were his privates. Last night, he had a clipping of The Express Times account of skyrocketing health costs for prison inmates, and he wanted answers.

Walking up to council, he addressed Ron Angle instead of Council Prez Ann McHale. "Since you are the most logical person on this council, may I direct my comment to you?" Ron quickly replied, "That would be appropriate," as other council members groaned.

After that, he unleashed a tirade about "pandering to prisoners" and payoffs and getting a new warden and sending them on a night patrol through the impact zone during a live fire exercise. McHale tried to stop him after five minutes, but he was having none of that. "You vill not interrupt me." He ripped them apart for a good ten minutes while a deputy sheriff was trying to figure if he should just shoot him.

As suddenly as he exploded, he settled down. He gave me a high five on his way out of council chambers and went back to his bunker in Forks, humming "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles."

I hope he stays away from the poison ivy.