THE SPARROW

While resting in a living room chair my mind drifted to some books on the Roman Army I was reading and I thought my son Pete, in Maine would like them and I should take them with me when we go in August. Then I thought, he will want to know the author, who is a man by the name of Scarrow, this then led me to sparrow, which in turn led to a guy named Cerniglia who was in my OCS company at Fort Benning in 1942. Cerniglia was a loud-mouth who bragged of having been Brigadier General Teddy Roosevelt's (son of the President) driver in the 1st Infantry Division. My mind then drifted to a hot day at Fort Benning (how do I know it was hot--they were all hot!) in probably July, 1942, when at the end of a class, the instructor asked, as he was programmed to do, "Are there any questions?" Now, let it be known, that no GI in his right mind would ask a question at this time as that would eat into the ten minute break following the class, and particularly into the cigarette time (this was back in the days before cigarettes became harmful to your health). Nevertheless, staying in character, good ol" Cerniglia had a question.
The instructor listened politely, then said the following: "This puts me in mind of a story. There was a little sparrow who lived in Boston and back when there were a lot of horses he lived a good life as there was plenty of food on the street. But then the auto came and times were rough. One day he's teetering on the curb almost dead, when a horse came by and dumped a meal right in front of him. The sparrow tottered into the street and gorged himself, then got back up on the curb and began to sing, at which point a cat came by and gobbled him up. The moral of this story
is-'when your full of s--t, don't open your mouth'. From that point on Cerniglia was known as Sparrow, and the name followed him throughout the war, and perhaps after. Why did I write all of this--I don't know, it just seemed like a good idea and it does show how the mind follows a train of thought, and besides it's a good story and a true one.