Whose leather is this?

 


Whose leather is this?


    An old chestnut from before we were born as told by John F. Sheehy. Once in a great while when I visited McNerney and sat in the dear old front room with the master stretched out on the couch he would tell a tale of his service in World War II. Like many experienced combat vets he was not quick to give gory details but this was one of the humorous tales from his basic training before he was plucked out as officer material. He was in a barracks with many other GI's who were  preparing for assignments around the global conflict. It was a mix of Americans including wiseacres from Brooklyn and hayseeds from the south. There was one guy named Ed Potentoe who was dumber than the average illiterate hillbilly and probably had not been off the farm he grew up on. The training sergeant would come in each morning for inspection of the barracks that he expected to be spotless. One morning he came in and was met by distinct and revolting smell as he passed the soldiers cots. He stopped and looked closely at a certain pair of boots that were laid out near the foot locker of each man and saw that one in particular was full of piss. The sarge boomed "WHOSE LEATHER IS THIS!?" Poor Potentoe had to fess up and admit he had tried to avoid an early morning trip to the latrine by whizzing in his own footwear. This did not go over well. It was one of many stories we used to ask the old sage to repeat to us as he drew on a camel cigarette after removing his wingtips and settling into the American dream he earned after his service in company B of the 820th tank destroyer batllion. "Seek, strike and destroy!"





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