Bar Room Brawl and Sun Tzu

Long before the time I ever heard the name "Sun Tzu", I learned some of the teachings that have now become commonly accepted as good strategies during any level of conflict. I'm convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt,  that those lessons not only saved my life but saved the lives a many crewmen and copilots that flew with me.

I will admit that learning one of these things during a bar room brawl is a bit removed from the typical course of formal combat tactics that I would soon learn within the U S Army's syllabus of instruction. Despite the formality of all that, there was no way that I would ever abandon the hard learned lessons that came from witnessing things that happen when those teachings are ignored or abandoned.

The night of the bar room brawl just happened to take place during finals at Northwestern. It was also very close to the Christmas Holiday Season. The party started out to be a birthday celebration for one of the guys that worked as a truck driver for one of the motor freight companies that delivered and shipped the components that the Colossus Midland inventoried and distributed throughout our part of the South. There were lots of guys there and, as you may well imagine what a group of truckers might look like, there were some pretty tough guys on hand.

One of the guys at the party was named Franklin Rudolph Neal. Frank had received the nick name "Rudy Tootie Heavy Duty" or sometimes just "Heavy Duty." You can use your imagination of what a truck driver named Heavy Duty looked like. Despite his Big John frame work, in reality, he was a gentle giant but one who could handle himself when the time came.

Another member of the group was the former place kicker for the Northwestern Demons Football Team and a former neighbor of mine. He'd dead now but during his day, he was a scrapper, a great baseball player and a place kicker on the football team that should have gone to the NFL.

The last of the key players that night was a guy we called TW. He was a well known fist fighter from Fair Park High School and one that you would never want to get in a fight with.There were many more tough guys in the group including a pair of brothers that were hard bodied country boys who had come to town, found a job working as freight handlers, and did very well for themselves.

As things unfolded, the bar was packed and we had run out of drinks. I had the duty of going to the bar which was also jammed packed, and placing the order.While I was waiting, the guys on the end of the bar who were also waiting to place their order, began a conversation about playing cards. Being a card trickster who almost always had a deck of cards in his pocket, I spoke up and told them about a great card trick. They asked me to show them.

As I pulled the deck out and was fanning the cards getting ready to perform the trick, a guy came from behind me, grabbed me on the right shoulder, spun me around and said: "You can't play cards in here".

I explained to him that I wasn't playing cards and instead, was just showing the guys at the bar a trick. As I looked down at the deck of the cards and took my eyes off the guy, he hit me, broke my nose, knocked me out and I hit the floor.

As I was told later, there was more than a few "Oh shit!" exclamations from the bar area and things became very quiet. Several of the guys in our group heard it and made their way to the bar to see what had happened. When the first one arrived he found me laying in a pool of blood and turned me over to make sure it was me. When he saw that it was me, he said: "Who did this".

About that time, many more of my guys showed up and for just a second, the hitter turned his head away to see who these new guys were. That's when TW took the big, glass beer mug that was popular in the sixties, and broke it over his head.

He hit the ground in a semi conscious state and tried to get up. He made it to all 4's and was shaking his head once he'd managed to get to his hands and knees, still in the all 4's position. At that time, the place kicker for the Northwestern Football Team, let loose with one of those 50 yard field goal attempts and perfectly hit the mark between his legs which immediately put him back on the floor.

I don't know how long the beating took place on the hitter as I had regained consciousness and found myself holding a wooden bar stool making my way back to the hitter to cold cock him with the stool. Fortunately, someone from the bar that knew me but was not in my party, grabbed the bar stool and said "no, you'll kill him".

In the next few minutes the hitter was taken outside of the bar where one hell of a well deserved ass whippin' took place. Since I had to go to the hospital, I was taken away. The hitter had to go too but didn't go to the same one I did. I went to the Schumpert Hospital for surgery to fix the broken nose and the hitter went to Doctor's Hospital to repair the well deserved concussion and multiple broken ribs and contusions he'd received from my guys.

This was the first introduction I had ever received that taught me the value of striking when the other guy wasn't looking or had his back turned.

As I will relate later on in this epistle, I developed a keen skill for hiding in the night sky by shutting off our running lights and anti collision lights on the helicopter as well as NOT following orders of ingress and egress when attacking the North Vietnamese Army.

Next stop will be basic training at Ft. Polk then flight school. Stand by.