A Change of Guard

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Wednesday 6 October 2010

John Reichley: A short tale about sponsoring [a Cambodian] CGSC student


John Reichley

Leavenworth Times

Leavenworth, Kansas —The recent chilly weather caused folks to scramble for light jackets and caused me to reflect on an amusing anecdote from yesteryear.
Several years ago we sponsored the second Cambodian student at CGSC in my time there. I’ll call him Cho, not his real name. He was real tiny, about 5-feet-2 and less than 100 pounds. Along about this time of the year he came to my office and said he was getting cold.
When he was out of class that day I took him to the post thrift shop. Alas, even a U.S. Army small jacket was too big for him. When he wasn’t looking I saw a tiny jacket with a zipper in the women’s clothes.
He tried it on and it fit to a tee. He look sad and said “I think this must be a woman’s coat.” I said that with a zipper there was no way to tell, but if it had buttons they would be the reverse of a man’s. Since it was the only one in the shop that fit, and was sort of a greenish military color, he decided to take it so I bought it for him as a “welcome to winter” gift.
On the way back to his room he asked what he should tell his U.S. classmates if they asked him if it was a Cambodian army coat. I thought quickly and told him to listen closely and tell them the following story.
I said “You told me you’d gone to a military school in China when you were a lieutenant, didn’t you?” He said yes, he’d attended a Chinese army school for a few months in a class with other Southeast Asian students.
I told him to tell anyone who asked that no, this wasn’t a Cambodian army coat as it never gets cold, or even cool, in Cambodia and there is no need for a coat. Then tell whoever asks that as a lieutenant you went to a military school in China, where it does get very cold.
Tell them the Chinese knew the Southeast Asians didn’t have coats, and they were issued Chinese army coats. I told him not to say that this was a Chinese army coat, but to end his explanation at that point.
He had a keen sense of humor and said he’d remember the story. I got him a heavier military looking coat for December through February, and he again wore the “Chinese army” coat in March and April.
In the spring I asked if anyone had asked about his mystery coat. He grinned and said only one U.S. student asked about it in the coatroom one afternoon.
He related the story just as I’d told it to him, and the classmate took the bait. “Wow,” he said, I’ve never seen a Chinese coat before.” Of course, from Cho’s explanation, he never said the coat he was wearing was a Chinese army coat. But the student got the intent, and assumed it was a coat the Chinese had issued him and he’d kept. Wrong assumption.
The mystery is that when he graduated I never got the coat back to loan to another international student. I know he would never need it back home, but he must have taken it with him.
This year we sponsor Burkina Faso and Suriname, and neither has a winter coat. Nor has either been to a school in China, so that blows the Chinese army coat theory. Pretty soon we’ll have to get our heads together and determine what coat-wearing country they’ve been to, and then find a military looking coat from whatever country that might be.
Fortunately, both wear U.S. Army size medium, so I won’t have to look in the women’s coat area this time.
Ah, the rigors and trials of sponsorship. See what fun you non-sponsors out there are missing out on? Just wait, there’s another class coming in February.

John Reichley is a retired Army officer and retired Department of the Army civilian employee.

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