Memories, War Stories, and STANS (Shoot That Ain't Nothing)

By Oliver Hurt

If you grew up during the baby boomer years, you will enjoy reading this book, and if not, you will enjoy learning what it was like growing up in the late fifties. It will spark memories of your own childhood. OJ Hurt grew up instilled with a Christian faith and describes himself as "just a man living as best I know how and as taught me by my parents and grandparents." This book will take you into small-town memories and describe what it's like to be a police officer. As a police pilot, OJ will place you in the cockpit of a police helicopter and will make you feel as though you are in the cockpit flying with him. This book will describe what it's like being a federal investigator and will allow you some insight into investigative questioning techniques. OJ's three decades of investigative experience and his experience as an army counterintelligence officer is a career-rich in action and stories. OJ describes his leadership philosophy and how committed leadership can effect improvement. OJ describes what it's like as an army counterintelligence officer and developing a tough mindset as a leader of combat operations. Learn how he put together six intelligence teams from scratch and how tactical intelligence sources are determined and why one does not leave a footprint on an intelligence source. Enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681979861

Book preview

My Journey

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

—Jeremiah 29:11

I grew up in Clay Center, Kansas, where I completed some of my elementary education, middle school, and some high school. My mother was an elementary school teacher for forty years, and we had moved to Junction City, Kansas, and back on two occasions as she had obtained a teaching job there each time. We were living in Junction City when I graduated from high school. I enjoyed growing up in Clay Center, a mostly farm community. I was twelve years old when I got my first job there. I worked part-time after school at the local Wards sporting goods store and obtained a passion for knives working there. I still have a collection of high-end knives I’ve collected over the years. I was paid fifty cents an hour at the sporting goods store and bought my first knife there, a banana knife. I carried it about a week when it mysteriously disappeared. I liked that knife, and I enjoyed playing mumblety-peg at church camp with my friend Bobby George, currently a retired minister. We both became pretty good at it. When I received my next paycheck, I bought another. Banana knives were fun to play with as they have a longer blade than a normal pocketknife. At my fifty-cents-an-hour wage, paying six dollars for a knife took me over twelve hours to earn, plus tax. My second knife also disappeared. I later learned my mother had confiscated them both, thinking I would get in trouble with them. To this day, I still do not know what her thought process on this was. I was not a hooligan. As a young boy, I was always coming up with unique ways, in my opinion, to make pocket money. My father was a railroad worker, who brought home some metal packing strips one evening. He was going to use them for some project or other. The metal strip was about a half-inch wide, with a small punched hole an inch apart down the center of the strip. I learned that if you bent the metal strip every third hole, bent it in half, placed it in your mouth with one hole on top and one on the bottom, and blow—bada bing—you had a whistle, a loud one that you could hear for a little more than a city block. So I get a very bright idea. Make hundreds of these whistles, take them to school, and sell for twenty-five cents each. I toiled for several days until I thought I had made enough. I placed them neatly in a paper bag to take to school to sell the following day. Maybe make enough to buy a new bicycle. Overnight, they mysteriously disappeared. My mother had again done some midnight reconnaissance and confiscated them—again so I would not get in trouble. I have never figured that out. So ended my whistle business. When I was approximately fourteen years old, I got a job as a soda jerk, at Elliott’s Rexall Drug Store, at fifty cents an hour. I was soon given a raise to seventy-five cents an hour and was allowed to wait on customers in the store. I did enjoy making sodas. In fact, I got damn good at it. Chocolate Cokes, lime aides of all flavors, malts, and shakes of all flavors. I personally liked root beer malts.

My childhood was a happy one. Some of my best memories are of growing up in this small town. I grew up in a loving and very strict Christian home, one filled with love but knowing there were some things our family could not afford. But we always had what we needed, and that was enough. We attended church regularly every Sunday morning including Sunday school, every Sunday evening for evening service, and every Wednesday evening for weekly service. Wesleyan Methodist Services were long and sometimes loud to make a point by the preacher. They were sometimes what you might call fire and brimstone services. Our church had strict rules one should live by. I should mention here that my grandfather was a lay minister. I have an uncle who spent fifty years behind the United Methodist Pulpit, a cousin whose spouse is a pastor, and two high school friends who are now retired ministers. My wife also has several ministers on her side of the family. I figure the more people I have pray for me, I feel the good Lord may take kindly to me. When I was about eight or nine, my Sunday school teacher gave each of us a Bible verse to learn. Mine was John 3:16. I was a typical eight-year-old more interested in playing baseball in the evenings than learning a Bible verse. Well, Sunday school rolls around, and I have to recite my Bible verse I did not learn. When I could not recite it, the Sunday school teacher spanked me in front of the other children. It was a very humiliating experience for an eight- or nine-year-old and one I have not forgotten. I learned the verse later and recited it on another Sunday. Not because of being punished for not learning the verse but because I said I would learn it. I am still that way to this day. If I say I’m going to do something; take it to the bank. A handshake with me is like obtaining my signature. My word is my bond. When I was old enough, I stopped attending Sunday school altogether and have not done so to this day. Sunday school should be a learning experience, not one of punishment if you don’t learn. John 3:16 I think is one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. Put simply, if you believe in God, you will not perish. This same verse is put another way in Romans 10:9, which says: If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." As I got older and involved in combat, Psalms 91 became my second favorite. Psalms 91 was used extensively during World War II by Military Chaplains. Back on point, that’s not to say there was no fun involved attending church service. Boys will be boys.

I Become a Prankster

Church services became an experiment of BBs rolling upon a wooden floor, small paper-airplane flying, playing tic-tac-toe and hangman with my friend, and other assorted mischievous events. I became pretty good at making cap gun bombs. In the late fifties, early sixties, the Lone Ranger’s, Gene Autry’s, and Roy Rogers’s cowboy shows were very popular. Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, and later Gene Autry came out with cap pistols. Caps came on rolled paper that, at intervals of approximately an inch, had a small patch of enclosed gun powder. When this roll of cap paper was inserted in the toy revolver, you pulled the trigger, and the hammer struck the cap filled with the small amount of gun powder, making a popping noise. It was pretty big in those days. I made cap bombs from them. I took the roll of caps and cut or tore the caps so they became individual charges. I then wrapped them around BBs and bada bing, you got a cap bomb when thrown. I never threw them in a church service but had fun throwing them after service. Somehow, I was never caught, which was as much fun as my church shenanigans. I have a feeling they knew who was sneaking up behind them and throwing them at their feet.

Every August of every year, our church, the Wesleyan Methodist, along with other county churches, held a good-sized revival meeting in Miltonvale, Kansas. It was held at a two-year college (now defunct) campus that was empty during summer months. It was a three-day meeting church members looked forward to. They no longer have these now. They held meetings all day long, with meals served. My grandmother always volunteered as a cook for large amounts of people during these three days at noon meal. The revival meetings were held in the evenings in a large building that had no air-conditioning or ceiling fans. The sides of the building were such that they could be raised, therefore allowing air to flow through on hot summer nights. It was not uncommon to have over one hundred fifty parishioners in attendance. When I was about 10, my friend and I were allowed to play catch outside under property lights. That particular night, we had both brought our pea shooters. Pea shooters consisted of a plastic straw and came with a bag of small peas that one shot by blowing the peas through the straws. We had each paid fifteen cents for them at the local Woolworths store, now no longer in business. Woolworths was a five-and-dime similar to a general store. On the particular night in question, we had shot our bag of peas at each other and ran out of ammunition fairly quickly. We then got the bright idea to use toilet paper from the nearby men’s room, wet a small piece in a nearby drinking fountain, and shoot these at each other through the straws. Oh, oh. Then it hit us, why not sneak up in the back of the revival meeting and, from the outside, shoot these homemade spitballs for body count, then run, and hide in the dark. We made several of these shots that hit their mark, when it progressed to not using the straws to shoot the spitballs, to small wads of wet toilet paper wadded up, then thrown. They were pretty wet and deadly on target. We had hit our targets several times, when one of the men inside had had enough of our shenanigans and came outside to find the culprits. When we scalawags noticed this, we took off in the dark like Olympic track stars. We were never caught, but the guy did stop the spitball bombardment. Bless his