Who's your TI?

November 1971: about 90 recruits in shorts and T-shirts on the pavement for calisthenics. The exercise: push-ups.
The guy next to me was not the brightest star in our flight. Assigned to the bunk adjacent to mine, he needed and received quite a bit of assistance to get through basic training. Slow to understand concepts and verbal directions, he was, nevertheless, a nice kid.
Among the many TI's monitoring our efforts this otherwise semi-pleasant morning was a rather hefty young MSgt in uniform, leaning over to bellow at those who needed his individual encouragement. He hovered over this struggling young recruit, and finally yelled in his ear, "who is your TI?"
The kid was born flustered, and so instead of the proper answering procedure, merely eked out the word "Bancroft." No sir, no rank, just "Bancroft."
This massive NCO, who I could see out of the corner of my eye, raised up in shock and awe and yelled out halfway across the base, in the highest voice I have ever heard, "Baaaaaaan-croft?" "Baaaaaaaaan-croft?" About six of us immediately collapsed on our faces, scraping our noses and bleeding onto our shirts. I was so weak from laughing it took me half a minute to re-start.

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