Oh, who with pierced ears hasn’t had a kid or kitten grab the jewelry?

Udo may be totally startled and confused, but his old basic-training Military Fear kicks right in and he jumps to obey orders.

When General Coates retired from Madigan Hospital, all the doctors, nurses and peons were dragged out into the field for a parade.

We thought it was awfully funny, standing there kinda in formation on a beautiful fall day. It had been years in some cases since any of us had marched anywhere. Wait until the old farts in scrambled eggs and fruit salad on the reviewing stand got a gander at us wandering all over the field doing anything but stay in step. Any wandering Tacoma journalist would get a very goofy picture.

Then the first beat of the drum resounded, and we snapped into formation, and marched forward in step. Even as we performed our maneuvers to commands we thought we’d forgotten, we were dipped in horror at our own pavlovian submission to enforced training.

This shit never goes away.  Ever.