Neanderthal drill sergeant

Casey, my youngest, is 34. Earlier this year, he completed three years as a drill sergeant at Fort Benning. An incident last year brought home his age.

On a rifle range, Casey was teaching a concurrent class on disassembly and assembly of the (whatever the standard combat rifle is these days).

“One trainee had finished disassembly, except he hadn’t removed the buffer spring from the buffer,” Casey said. “So I told him he had one step to go. I said, ‘Look at the thing that looks like a Slinky.’ He looked confused. He said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Drill Sergeant.’ I said, ‘Look at the thing that looks like a Slinky.’ He shook his head and said he didn’t know what I meant.”

At that point, Casey suspected a realization.

“I asked the rest of the platoon if anybody knew what a Slinky was. What I got was shaking heads and a lot of ‘No, Drill Sergeant.’”