What Goes Around Comes Around

At Ft. Riley, Kansas, during my time there as chaplain, we had thirty chaplains and thirty-two Chaplain Activity Specialists (CAS).  (During my term there the U. S. Army changed the name of the CASes to the current term, Chaplain Assistants, which better denotes their duties.)

The senior CAS for my first year there was an NCO in the rank of E7, Master Sergeant Samuels.  He was a no-nonsense African-American NCO, and as ranking CAS had the duty of training the other CASes as well as several other duties connected with the total chaplaincy program on post.  In other words, he was the highest ranking enlisted soldier with the MOS of 56A or CAS.  His desk was in the Post Chaplain’s office area.

This is a story he personally told me.  It had been a long month since the last payday, so he and a friend decided to go fishing at night and try to catch some fish for their families to eat.  Food supplies were running low, and it was a few days before the next payday.  They went to one of the picnic areas on Milford Lake which is near the post and a popular recreation area.  (Milford Lake is a large lake formed by damning up the Republican River which runs by Ft. Riley and Junction City.)  While there fishing from the bank, two white guys robbed them at gunpoint.  The robbers got less than one-hundred dollars from them.

After it was over they went from being scared to being mad.  Money was short and now what they did have was taken by two thieves!  They decided to not report the incident to the Military Police nor to the county patrol, for they were pretty sure the two robbers were soldiers from Ft. Riley.  They figured that if the men robbed them then they would probably be back to rob others.

So Sergeant Samuels and his sergeant friend went back to the lake every Friday evening for a few weeks, visiting several of the picnic areas looking for the robbers.  Each time they took loaded shotguns with them.  On the fourth or fifth visit they spotted the two men who had robbed them, pointed their shotguns at them, told them they were going to shoot them and cut them up into little pieces and feed them to the fish, took all their money, had them undress, threw their clothes, shoes, pistols, and car keys into the lake and forced them to march naked in front of their car in the headlights back to the main road and left them there standing naked by the side of the main road.

Our NCO says that after that from time to time he would see one of the men on post who would promptly cross the street or change direction rather than meet him face to face.  He said the positive thing was that “we doubled our money!”

(NOTE:  I have not used his real name, but the story is accurate.)