Hog Hunt

The other day I read that funny letter “written” by a farm kid who had just joined the Marines, urging the family back home to enlist immediately. Marine life was apparently a cake walk compared to the daily farm chores, hike to the rural mailbox, shooting the night’s dinner, or wrestling with the neighbor boys (or oxen). Even the food was okay, especially since you could eat the city boys’ leftovers in addition to your own tray. The writer just knew the other siblings would also excel at this soft life, with easy-to-please drill sergeants, and easy-to-avoid officers. Dad started chuckling at the first paragraph, was guffawing by the third, and when the letter was revealed to be written by the farmers’ daughter, he howled.

An actual letter home, from my dad to his.

Once the mirth subsided, he shared with me a tale from his Navy days in New Jersey. He was part of a group of men from his base chosen for Class C avionics electrical training in Florida. Dad was one of the few enlisted men on base with a car, so they pooled their money for gas and headed south on a road trip. Along the way, they decided to stop in South Carolina, at the home of one of the young Seaman from the group.

Dad has fond memories of their Southern hospitality. The couple was awfully impressed that Dad would give their son a ride to Florida—and back! They were very warm and welcoming, taking the entire group into their home, and feeding them up right. And there was entertainment. While they were there, the young men were invited to help put food on the table by joining in a hog hunt.

Feral pigs. Wild boar.

Makes me think of medieval hunts and ferocious, scarred-back, long-tusked menaces that must be killed to save the communities they terrorized. Of high feasts, accompanied by a bardic tale of the epic hunt, the prey brought down by large groups of fearless men on stalwart steeds, equipped with barbed spears and mighty crossbows, the boar then served for supper well-roasted, with an apple in its mouth. Brave deeds and heroic efforts. Trumpets. Crowns. And stuff.

The reality is that South Carolina has wild pigs rooting around across the entire state, and it’s always open season. The hogs are a menace, in that they steal food from the native wildlife, damage farmlands and infrastructure, spread disease to livestock, and attack people.  They are mean, stubborn, and not at all inclined to be eaten. They also tend to fight amongst themselves.

When they fight, they use their tusks to scrape along their opponent’s side and back. As these wounds heal, they create a tough layer of scar tissue that seems impenetrable, even to bullets. Not knowing this, Dad was all set to take a hunting rifle and head out the door, but he was stopped and told you never just take a rifle alone. Hunt in a group, he asked? No, take a .45 in a holster, as well.

“What do I need that for?” he wanted to know.

“Because once you’re out there, and that animal gets you treed, he’s there. He stays there till the day he dies. He won’t let you down from that tree. You may have shot at him with the rifle at the start, but you think you gonna get a rifle shot off from that tree? No way. Before you know it, there might be two or three of them there. So, you take that .45, and shoot ‘em in the head.”

Dad wouldn’t give me details of the hunt, and I leave it to you to decide whether the two-gun wisdom was shared before or after the hog hunt, but dinner the next night was a right tasty side of pork.

(I will tell you this: he was invited on a deer hunt when the family lived in Pennsylvania. He got up in the trees, sighted a likely buck with his rifle, took a good long look into the deer’s eyes, and lowered his gun. He just couldn’t shoot it.)