Sunday Funnies, Vol. 2, early edition.

It was a Sunday – the only day when all tenant commands at Camp Las Pulgas (“The Fleas;” the sub-camp at Camp Pendleton farthest from civilization) stood down. I was pulling duty at the dispensary. Just after lunch, a cocky young butter bar (Marine 2nd Lt.) showed up for sick call. He stated that he had been “toughing out” a bad case of his recurrent tonsillitis for about a week over at the “combat village.” However, he related that just after swallowing a mouth full of green beans over at the chow hall, his symptoms had taken a sudden and marked turn for the worse. He stated that he had suddenly experienced a “scratchy feeling” in his throat. Attempts to clear his throat only exacerbated the “sharp, prickly” sensations. After duly noting all of this on his SF-89, I began my physical exam. Yep - febrile with exquisite tenderness and swelling of anterior cervical lymph nodes, bilat, as expected. Then , he said “Ahh.” I was definitely not expecting the foreign object clinging firmly to his swollen, erythematous, exudate – covered left tonsil. Maintaining my practiced, clinically detached straight face, I uttered the classic, ambiguously uninformative words, “Uh huh!” I stepped over to the nearby stainless and glass cupboard where I retrieved a seldom-used, large pair of forceps (picture a foot-long pair of tweezers.) Almost as an afterthought, I picked up an emesis basin on my way back to the standing lieutenant. I told him to hold the basin under his chin and open wide. He complied – eyes fixed firmly upon the humongous forceps. I reached in and deftly detached the clinging foreign object. Still firmly clasped in the forceps, I brought the object out far enough from the intrepid lieutenant’s nose for him to be able to bring it into clear focus. Trust me – you really didn’t have to be an entomology grad student to recognize it immediately as, no doubt, the largest, most heavily spurred, intact, American cockroach hind leg either of us had ever seen. The foresight to grab the emesis basin turned out to have been prescient.