Top Sergeant Vernon Williams

I should mention Top Sergeant Vernon Williams here. Williams was a 40-year old African-American, a Spec 8 with twenty-three years in the service. He'd done time in Korea and other hotspots, and had recently returned from a third tour of Vietnam, where he'd been wounded and commended for bravery under fire. He was a soldier's soldier: ramrod straight, uniform always immaculate and sharply pressed. His boots shone brighter than any I ever saw in a world where shiny boots are the undisputed badge of the fully actualized fighting man.

Top had his shit together. He had developed the Williams Method, a technique for shining boots that had no equal: It started out with the tried and true spit shine, a method of applying a mixture of boot polish and saliva with a soft cotton rag.  A tight circular polishing motion was employed to work the mixture into the leather. Practiced for hours at a time, spit-shining eventually yielded up a startlingly bright finish, but the diligent Sergeant had taken the process to new heights. He had determined that by alternately polishing the boots and baking them for ten minutes in a slow oven at 175 degrees, mere brightness became eye-blinding brilliance. Boot polishing amateurs were warned to wear sunglasses when staring directly at his boots. I remember us toiling for hours to raise a dull luster on our own footware; when Sgt. Williams arrived, no eye could ignore the blazing mirrors that adorned his toes. We begged him for the secret and sat adoringly at his knee as he revealed it.

Of all the men I met in the military, Top Sgt. Vernon Williams was the ablest, most effective leader I encountered. He won admiration and loyalty simply by being direct, kind and fair. Whether you were a conscientious objector or a Green Beret, he viewed you as a human being and he treated you with the respect he held for any soldier that might one day fight by his side. It was that simple. He was the first of several men I met during those years who showed me that even in that vast sea of inhumanity and ineptitude, there were fine people who maintained their personal dignity and, within the limits of the social order, their individuality and independence.