An Interview with Sheriff Will Diaz – Part 17 – MPI School

A continuation of the interview with Sheriff Will Diaz. Will Diaz is the central character in the four novels that make up The Lawman Series. The fifth book is expected out about Christmas of 2025.

Richard Muniz – MPI school? What was that?

Sheriff Will Diaz – Military Police Investigation school. It was an inter-service school at Ft. McClellan, Alabama.

Muniz – inter-service?

Sheriff Diaz – People from the various branches attended. When I went, we had Army, Air Force, and a single Marine. The school itself wasn’t that hard.

Muniz – It wasn’t hard for you, you mean.

Sheriff Diaz – Correct. I’ve gone through a dozen courses like this. And I’d already handled murders and robberies. But it was a good refresher course, and I learned to use the Identikit there.

Muniz – What’s that?

Sheriff Diaz – It’s a box full of different templates to make faces of suspect from. I’d never used one.

Muniz – How was life there?

Sheriff Diaz – Good. Max and Jonesy were my roomies. That’s when I discovered Jonesy snores.

Muniz – You’ve mentioned that, But how was living there.

Sheriff Diaz – It was a little weird in one respect. The mess hall we were to use was a half-hour walk away. So, we had access to a microwave, and each room had a fridge. Ate a lot of sandwiches. And that’s where I earned my title, the Raman King!

Muniz – Why?

Sheriff Diaz – Because lived on the stuff. It was cheap, stored easily, and all I really needed to spice it up was a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Muniz – So what did you do to entertain yourself?

Sheriff Diaz – I ran a lot. I started running when I was with DST. I just really started extending the mileage. It wasn’t uncommon to do a dozen miles a day.

Muniz – Why?

Sheriff Diaz – I didn’t realize it, but I was having some real anger issues. Running was how I dealt with it.

Muniz – Why anger?

Sheriff Diaz – Why not. I’d shoved so much crap onto the back burner to deal with; I just wasn’t dealing with it effectively anymore. I needed an outlet, and the roads of Ft. McClellan provided that.

Why don’t we circle around to that later?

Muniz – Okay. But you had some fun.

Sheriff Diaz – (Chuckles) Oh yeah. But it was at someone else’s expense. Ever heard of Baby Bains?

Muniz – Yeah.

Sheriff Diaz – Well, here’s the most fun I had.

I did a lot of running. Baby Bains and Bains Gap were almost always on my list. We cursed it in Basic and AIT. Not now. Running it hadn’t gotten any easier. I was just stronger and in better shape. I\d learned how to run hills..

Muniz – Why did you run hills?

Sheriff Diaz – Running hills to a runner is like a sand trap to a golfer. They make you better. What I learned about running hills is a life application called “Mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

Muniz – Cool.

Sheriff Diaz – Thought you’d say that.

Now, to the story. When we first got to MPI school, there was a specialist who was permanent party at the school. He was cool. While we were there, he made sergeant. Sometimes, when that happens, you can get an instant ass.

He got so stinking bad, we decided to fix his little red wagon. Max was an excellent runner, too. We both hated running with the pack and we always ran road guard. This young ass of an NCO always ran with us, directing us which way to go. That was cool and afforded us the perfect chance to teach him a lesson.

We learned we were running Baby Bains the following morning. That was the perfect opportunity to knock him down a notch or three.

So, we sat down the evening before and hatched the perfect plan.

Muniz – Plan?

Sheriff Diaz – Yes. we were going to get him to cool his engines. You see, to get to the top of Baby Bains is fun to say the least. I don’t know what the grade is, but sometimes it feels like you’re running up a wall.

Muniz – So what happened.

Sheriff Diaz – The next morning, the company falls out and we start running. We’re leading the way with that NCO running with us. We knew he wasn’t a runner, and he played right into our scheme. Max and I set a blistering pace to begin with, and soon we were well ahead of the rest of the company. He’s hanging with us, but it’s taking all he’s got to do it.

Then we hit the bottom of Baby Bains. I looked at Max and said, “Race you to the top!”

“You’re on.”

And we threw our bodies into warp drive. We’re giving this everything we got, our legs eating up the yardage, our lungs protesting as we sucked in air, and our hearts going what are you doing to me?

This isn’t a casual run. We were running like the honor of our respective service depended on it. Kit was like Olympic Gold and a kiss from Miss America waited for us at the finish line.

This flat-out, warp eight run to the top is killing two men in prime condition.

And this guy is dumb enough to try to hang with us.

Within twenty yards, he starts stumbling. In fifty, he’d dropped to his knees, but to his credit, he’s still moving. He sounds like an emphysema patient on his last legs. He’s staggering up the hill.

Max and I easily beat him. And to show you what total jerks we were, Max starts doing jumping jacks while I dropped and started knocking out pushups.

The young sergeant makes it to the top of the hill, drops on his back and stares up at the sky like any minute now he’s headed home to Jesus.

We got him back on his feet and took it easy on him as we headed back to the company.

Later, he asked us if we’d done that deliberately. Having figured it out, I admitted we did.

“Why?”

“Because when we got here, you were cool. You get promoted and you became an ass. Being a leader means leading, not being a bully.”

I guess he got the picture. He started leading.