FOUR FEET HIGH & RISING

There is an old, Johnny Cash song about relentless rain and rising flood water; ‘Four Feet High & Rising.’ I liked it then, I like it now. In his liner notes he alluded to a life lesson he learned early about adversity. The flood stressed out the family and the farm with damage to the buildings and loss of crops. But floods have a way of replenishing the land with new sediment and nutrients; they had the best crops ever the next year. ‘Four Feet High & Rising’, the unavoidable metaphor is about growing, coming out on the other end of adversity. The irony here is that the obvious often gives way to the dubious. As much as I like the song, the hook reminds me of crazy days in the army. In 1960-61 I was a parachute rigger assigned to Supply Company, 2/503 Battle Group, Sukiran, Okinawa. There must have been 45-50 riggers, our platoon sergeant’s name was James Crow, from Alabama. Can you believe it, Jim Crow? 

In peacetime you train for war but without an imminent threat, we were a pretty laid back collection. Leadership consisted of leftovers from the Korean conflict and WW2, waiting for the next war to come along. Not much in the way of promotion when there is no fighting. The lower enlisted ranks were draftees and kids who had nothing better to do than a tour in the army. There was an unwritten attitude that went, ‘The incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary.’ Sergeant First Class Crow, probably 40, on a good day standing tall was a stocky 5’4” with a buzz haircut and beady eyes. He never showed interest in me and I liked it that way. His undivided attention was fixed on looking good in the eyes of our platoon leader, 1st Lieutenant Russell and our company commander, Captain Swank. He wanted very much to get another strip on his sleeve, to make master sergeant. In the privacy of our own company, low rank enlisted called him, ‘Four Feet High & Rising’. 

By the time we got to Okinawa in 1960 we had all been in long enough to know if it was a career option or not. If you considered it, doing a good job wasn’t enough, you had to suck up. Sgt. Crow had a bit of swagger and spoke with an air of self indulging arrogance. I was impressed with two phrases that he used frequently. There I was a barely graduated high schooler with no pretense of academic interest but I listened well. The language you use is a pretty good measure of your smarts. When he didn’t want to approve or disapprove of someone’s something he meant to say, “That’s your prerogative.” But it came out with a raspy Alabama accent, “That’s your pragative.” Pragative, it got to where I could anticipate it. In formation, his captive audience, any time of day, he would give us advice or options and follow with his “pragative” jewel. When he was upset with people who complained or worried about what someone else might do, he used his best, forward leaning, head bobbing put down, with perfect diction; “I could ‘#!!*^#’ care less about . . .” The ‘care less’ was always preceded by an unfettered explicative and every time I wondered, ‘If he could care less, that means he must care to begin with.’ Me, I couldn’t care less, I didn’t care at all. But nobody answered to me and my disposition was of no consequence. 

Forty days before I was scheduled to fly stateside and be separated from the service, Sgt. Crow called me out of formation, shook my hand and announced that I had been promoted to Specialist 4th Class. Then he recommended me for reenlistment. A couple of days later when I reported to the Battle Group reenlistment officer for my pre-separation interview, he noticed that I still had PFC stripes. I side stepped his probes about my intentions to reenlist, saying I hadn't decided  yet and he sent me back to the company. As I walked into the parachute loft Sgt. Crow yelled at me across the room, “Stevens, if you don’t have your rank on your sleeve tomorrow I’ll take it away from you.” Funny how your own news gets home before you do. So I sewed some old Sp4 patches on my sleeves that night. 

That jacket survived years of neglect in one trunk or another, only to resurface when I moved or threw out clothes that no longer served a purpose. I found it again the other day. I can’t say that I couldn’t care less, it served me through the speed bumps and near missis of my youth and I remember the lessons I learned from the incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary. Five short years later they got their war and their promotions. I was preoccupied with biology and philosophy classes, football practice and with some luck a chance to get in the game on Saturday.

How high’s the water mama,

Four feet high and rising.

Well the rails are washed out north of town,

We’ve got to head for higher ground.

We can’t come back til the water comes down,

Four feet high and rising.