Private Fakes Crazy Discharge

I didn’t like Nelson from day one. He was about 28, mouthy, and kept bragging about how he lived close to some NASCAR drivers in North Carolina. While he was home during Christmas exodus, he decided it was a good time to file for divorce. He gets back to basic and tells drill sergeant that he needs to go on leave because he had a custody battle. Drill sergeant and commander tell him he just used his leave for Christmas exodus. So Nelson tells them he lied on his enlistment papers and is actually bipolar. They check it out and, sure as sh*t, he was.So now he thinks he’s got ’em all beat and is going home soon. He gets an hour every night to call his lawyer while his discharge was pending.Meanwhile, he’s bragging to other privates about how he’s won, gets all the phone time he wants, and gets unlimited “happy pills.” He’ll be home in just a few days, he says.But you know how this goes: his discharge is taking forever and he wants to go home like yesterday.

So then he gets desperate.

He started acting crazy, convulsing and sh*t in his bunk. Guys called the drill sergeant and he stopped the convulsing until he heard “AT EASE!” as DS walks in the bay. He looks up, sees drill sergeant, and starts convulsing again. Drill sergeant is pretty sure the guy is acting but makes us move Nelson’s bunk up to the fireguard desk so he can be watched at all times. Every single thing this guy tried was backfiring on him. Now he was sleeping in the only part of the bay lit up 24/7.The next night he got up and pissed in the shower. Then he went back and told the fireguard that he must be hallucinating because he thought the shower was the toilet. Still, his discharge is not being sped up, guys are treating him like sh*t, and he’s losing patience.The next night, a guy wakes me up for my fireguard shift and says ” . . . and there’s something you should know: Nelson pissed on Vaughn.”Vaughn bunked next to me and his bunk was stripped and empty. Now, this was no accident. Nelson had been upping the crazy ante for about a week and he and Vaughn did not get along. Everyone knew he pissed on Vaughn because he hated him and thought it would show he was crazy enough to be chaptered.The next morning we were getting ready to march out to our FTX site. I was talking to Vaughn about it and he said he woke up to Nelson pissing on his face. I asked he didn’t just beat the sh*t out of him and he said he thinks he was in shock.We go to check out our weapons, and DS hollers out for Nelson and Vaughn to report to the bay. Our senior DS told Nelson to wait in the day room. That’s when he told Vaughn that Nelson was a piece of sh*t and ordered him to “f*ck him up.”So our DS and SDS guarded the door while Nelson got the sh*t kicked out of him by Vaughn at our DS’s direction.We went out to FTX and CID showed up and took the DS, SDS, and Vaughn into custody for questioning. But they all had their story straight and they rejoined us the next day. I saw Nelson once after that. It was at sick call (I know) about three weeks later. His face was still f*cked up, he was on crutches, he had a cast on his arm, and he told me he had broken ribs. And I was okay with that.F*ck Nelson.