There were three of us and we were walking, talking and laughing along the way. We had a standing, unspoken rule on base to not salute anyone under the rank of Major. There were just too many officers on our post and a guy could give himself carpel tunnel if he saluted every single Lieutenant and Captain he came upon. It was good for the officers and good for the enlisted men if we focused our saluting efforts just on field grade officers. Everyone seemed the better for it.

So we were walking down the street, ignoring our officer cadre as usual when a huge, burley real Army sergeant starts barking and yelling screaming at us to halt. We turned and looked at him incredulously. He ordered us to attention and began to explain the intricacies of Army protocol and demanded that we salute all the officers for the remainder of his stay on post. He also demanded that whenever we traveled in packs of three or more that we were to march in formation. He had us on a technicality. These were all protocols we were aware of since Basic Training but our HQ really had no wherewithal to follow them. Marching was a bit foreign to us. We had the 7Th US Army band on our post and it was a generally understood assumption that they would do all the marching for us, since they were in a marching band and all. A few times a week, while rehearsing for some performance around Germany, they would get all dressed up and march the three block square Army post - entertaining all of us along the way. That seemed like a much better use of marching. I did not bring this perfect example of efficiency and tradition up with the sergeant currently occupying the space five inches from my face.

So, we marched off to lunch

A few hours later I had the chance to tell the story to the Colonel, who laughed and said that until a real war comes around those soldiers on duty outside our building had to train and practice and this would all pass soon. I could only hope he was right.