JACKRABBITS

After I had finished a fast and strenuous basic training
in Wichita Falls, Texas, I was sent to Lareda for gunnery
training. I hadn't wanted to be a gunner thinking that I
could be a company carpenter in some camp and put my building
talents to work that I had honed (I thought) to a fine edge
in the CCC the year before in the mountains of Nevada in a
road camp. That is another story in itself.
While in gunnery school, I earned myself quite a
reputation. While I was a little better than average gunner,
that was not what I got the title of "Dead Eye" for. The
ground gunnery range was about twenty miles from camp, so we
road G.I. trucks out there to practice our skills with 12
gauge shot guns, .22 caliber rifles and of course .30 caliber
machine guns mounted on stands to shoot at targets or
anything else that happened to cross that range. We took a
break one day for lunch and of course had the standard lunch
in our mess kits that had been hauled out on trucks from the
main base camp.
After lunch some of the boys were telling jokes,
shooting dice and playing cards even though gambling was
forbidden. This old Texas boy didn't care much for these
forms of entertainment so I picked up two round rocks about
the size of baseballs and walked about ten yards from the
rest of the men. A big jackrabbit stuck his head up and so as
luck would have it I hit him behind the ears and picked up a
well stunned rabbit. Walking on about another five yards, up
stood another that could have been his twin so I nailed him
also. Picking up the second and walking back to the crew, as
I was out of rocks, I had a great time telling them all,
mostly Yankees, that this was the way we hunted in Texas.
We fed those rabbits to the rattlesnakes some old
Seargent had in a coop there at the gunnery range.

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