In the army the unit known as The Rangers are revered as the best that there is. I thought that it was the green berets, but no, it’s the Army Rangers. Take that little tid-bit and marry it to the fact that in the army the letters “FTA” are understood by all to mean “Fuck the Army”. With that established our annoying 17 year old punk-ass “hero” decided to combine the two in what might be the most irritating way possible.

As a preface my thinking was that since The Rangers were the elite of the army for me to proclaim to be an “FTA Ranger” would imply that I was the elite of the, um, opposition. I went and purchased an army fatigue jacket knowing that whatever I wanted to do with it would not be destruction of government property since I purchased it as my personal property. I then bleached out in huge block letters covering the entire back of the jacket with upper and lower rockers like you might see on a biker jacket the letters “FTA” for the upper rocker and “RANGERS” for the lower rocker. I knew that I was going to blow some proverbial gaskets for the pro-army folks, and that was the point. Still I figured I was covered by the first amendment as far as most serious consequences were concerned. This did not include any ass-kicking that was always right around the proverbial corner for me anyway. As an aside I once had a sergeant so pissed at me that he ran down to his room and got a pistol. He was tackled by other NCO’s. as he ran down the hallway. Surely that act was not to protect me, but to save dude from doing life in Leavenworth. Maybe that’s a short tale worth telling. Hmm, into the queue!

So yeah, I pissed people off just wearing that jacket. That particular game of behavioral Russian roulette was just one of the things that those who knew me, like everyone in my company, as well as the surrounding companies, might have come to expect and therefore were almost numb to. But I wore the jacket out to the enlisted men’s clubs, or off post, where even those who had the same attitude as me weren’t real comfy being around me since it invited the trouble it did. So I played that little game for a while and one day I pushed it even farther.

So where the shit really hit the fan was one day when I was walking along an officer walked by going the other way and offered me a reasonable greeting of “Good morning soldier”. My response was “FTA, sir”. His response was to stop in his tracks one step behind me where he saw my jacket as I was walking the other way past him now and he asked in a not-so-gentle way “What the hell did you just say, son?” “And what the FUCK is that on your jacket?” And from there things just got very ugly. He asked me what company I was with and then marched me up to the company commander. My commander offered the explanation that was along the lines of saying this is just the kind of shit this guy does all the time. Feel free to do what you can.

The officer stormed out of the office and I was released back into the wild, since, as I knew there wasn’t much that they could do to me since I denied saying anything but “have a good day, sir” and not “FTA, sir”, so he must have been hearing things and my jacket was protected under the constitution that we had vowed to protect, so, have a nice day.

Some days later I was called into the Post Commanders office. General so –and-so spoke to me with a sense of familiarity. It makes logical sense that back when my company commander saw the problem he had on his hands early on that he probably notified and even asked for the Post commanders input. I’ll say that his tone was firm but kind of friendly inasmuch as I remember it going somewhat like;

“Baker, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get out of the army.”

“Why don’t you just get your discharge and go instead of going through all of this?”

“Well, because I’ve invested too much of my time and energy into your army. Plus I was told when I joined that I could get out after a certain amount of time with my benefits intact, and I want that to happen.”

“Well, son, I admire your tenacity, but that isn’t going to happen.”

“Sir, I understand that, but I’m committed to it and I’m not giving up, or giving in.”

“Alright, son, it’s your funeral. Don’t let me see you in front of me again. Dismissed”

But it probably really went like:

“Baker I’m tired of your shit and I’m just waiting for you to make enough of a mistake to fry your ass.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now get outta here, you make me sick.”

Nothing came from it, aside from a very short story in a blog 50 years later.