Jim Ballentine and I had gone through several Army courses at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Gordon, Georgia. When I arrived at the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, I found Jim in an adjoining unit right in back of our 265th Radio Research Company. Jim's unit serviced organic divisional units within the 101st Airborne Division. Since we were not in the 101st Airborne command structure, we were not serviced by Jim's maintenance unit; however, Jim and I developed an informal support structure where we would often help each other with repair parts and maintenance overload support.
Jim's 801st Maintenance Battalion had a motor pool whose mechanics had a sophisticated sense of humor. They had adopted as their mascot a vagrant dog which made his home in Jim's unit. Like most other men in Jim's unit, I, too, would take some food from the mess hall to their dog. The mechanics named their mascot 'Lugnut', a reference to the lug nuts on wheels of the trucks and jeeps they supported. Lugnut did not have a middle or last name. It was not required.
One boring day and over a few beers, someone suggested that despite Lugnut being the smartest member of the maintenance battalion, Lugnut still needed a formal education. Someone scoffed at the idea saying, "Now, you know damn well we'll never find a dog training course in this hellhole! But we could write our folks back home and have them search for a dog training correspondence course."
"Now that's about the stupidest idea I've heard yet!" another suggested. "You'll need training materials that we don't have, and that'll never work, I'm telling you."
Yet another in the group maintained that instead of screwing around trying to find a dog training correspondence course, he was actually smart enough to enroll as a human in a college degree correspondence program. "Just have to find the right college that offers correspondence courses," said someone. Each would then take turns helping Lugnut with the college correspondence course. It was generally agreed that Lugnut would enroll in college as a human. Lugnut did not seem to care either way.
Someone in the group volunteered to solicit college applications from his family in Ohio. Some days later I learned the University of Ohio was the chosen college program for Lugnut, but they had no correspondence program, so it was decided that Lugnut would enroll as an on-campus student. In a conference session over a few beers, everyone contributed to fabricating a profile for Lugnut. We all knew Lugnut would not get the customs clearance and student visa to actually attend the University of Ohio but decided to see just how far we could go with this. Everyone agreed.
With a good plan worked out and the application complete, Lugnut still needed a middle initial and last name. After kicking around some wild ideas on what would be accepted by the university and what might seem obviously fake, it was decided that Lugnut's middle initial would be 'D' and his last name would be 'Dogg'. Lugnut D. Dogg's application with his creatively made-up student profile was mailed that next morning.
Since we were not a big-enough unit to warrant our own messhall, we shared 801st Maintenance Battalion's messhall. Some weeks after Lugnut's college application to the University of Ohio had been mailed, I walked into the messhall, got my super dry and tough roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy with sugarless lukewarm iced tea (ice not available). I sat at my usual table to find Jim and others beaming and congratulating each other. Lugnut D. Dogg, it seems, had been accepted as a provisional full-time student at the University of Ohio. Since he was a foreign student, he would be required to pass his English comprehension skills test and submit a high school transcript to the university. I left the 101st Airborne before Lugnut D. Dogg could ship out to the University of Ohio, but I wished him well. Soldiers can be innovative and genuinely nurturing when they feel strongly about advancing another's life - even a vagrant dog's.
There is no wealth like knowledge, and no poverty like ignorance- Buddha
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