My first summer at the City of Dallas Park Department I went from riding on a crew of lawn mower pushes to being assigned a riding lawn mower. My section took care of the State Fair Park as well as some adjacent parks. Many of them were in the African American neighborhoods around Fair Park. As the summer grew closer, the days grew unbearably hot. I would sometimes run the mower through a sprinkler spray to cool off. Living only a couple miles from Fair Park, I would often go home at lunch and jump in the apartment pool.
There were a lot of black guys and Mexican guys in the crews that worked out of the Fair Park Service Center. The big Cotton Bowl always loomed in the background. I had been in the Army in often stressful work situations with a variety of ethnicities so this latest diversity was of little consequence to me. Years later I would laugh to myself in college diversity and cross culture classes as the textbook and professors preached about a new era of diversity. I had already lived it for decades.
I would become friends with a guy named Charles Cotton. He liked to chide me about never having seen a black man until I got to boot camp. "Shake-a-leg-professor," we called him. There was little he could not pontificate about. And pontificate he did.
My main supervisor coincidently was from Wisconsin. His name was Marvin. He had a Master's in horticulture. He was a thin looking fellow actually. Ol' Marvin always wore a cowboy hat. Perhaps it gave him some panache. One summer they tried to mainstream some mentally handicapped kids into the work crews. They were in their late teens. They also slid in some deaf kids to work on the labor crews. One day after work we had a meeting in the service barn. Marvin stood up front and rambled on about some municipal matter. Suddenly one of the mentally handicapped kids came out of the tool room with an ax. He was balancing it upright by the handle in the palm of his hand.
"Hey, Cowboy Marvin. Cowboy Marvin look at my ax," he said as he maneuvered in and out of the trucks and amongst the crowd of tired workers. Everyone began to flee. "Hey Cowboy Marvin," he said over and over. He had a maniacal grin on his face. The ax would tilt and he would lunge forward to correct its balance, scattering stunned workers as he went. The deaf kids talked amongst themselves and did not even notice the commotion until the ax-wielding kid ran through their circle.
Big Max who often spoke in rhyme said, "I think today, I will be fashionably gay," and with arms folded and legs apart, glowered at Marvin. My friend The Rabbit Man giggled as he said, "Hey, maybe he will cut Marvin's head off." These two odd side bars caused some people to laugh while they ran.
Cotton hollered at me, "Run for your life white boy." I had already started sliding toward an exit. Another friend of mine was already screeching out of the drive way in his Trans Am. Ol' Shop Andy, the shop mechanic floored his old truck and howled out after him - fenders shaking and gravel flying in all directions.
We all left in various unceremonious manors during the fracas. The next day we all slunk in wondering if we would find a bloody mess. The Rabbit Man said in his usual affect, "Hey, someone see if Marvin's severed head is on his desk," and then he giggled.
Without fanfare, the young man's mom came and picked up his belongings. Apparently Marvin had somehow reeled him in the night before. No thanks to any of us. None of us knew how Marvin had done it - we had all run for our lives. After that fateful event, Marvin never seemed to wear his cowboy hat with the same moxie.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Brent T. Vroman, 21, of Oshkosh. He was a riflemen on a foot patrol when attacked by an improvised explosive device fired from a vehicle in Babil Province, Iraq. Brent was in 1st Platoon, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment Expeditionary Unit, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve. His company consists of about 185 Marines and was based in Yusufiya, Iraq. The unit includes Golf Company from Madison. The 2nd battalion was activated in May of 2004 and then deployed to Camp Pendleton, California. They arrived in Iraq in September for a tentative seven month tour of duty. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Vroman was a 2001 graduate of Omro High School and has a twin brother, Brian. Brent was an accomplished wrestler and he was a four-year letter winner and conference champion in his senior year. Private First Class Vroman was Wisconsin's 31 soldier killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
3,863 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
461 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
28,451 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,754 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
82 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
6 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
123 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
