“That marked turning point for me,” Tipper recalled. “Before Sobel’s raid I had disliked him but had not really hated the man. Afterward I decided Sobel was my personal enemy and I did not owe him loyalty or anything else. Everyone was incensed.’

There was talk about who was going to shoot Sobel when the company got into combat. Tipper thought it was just talk, but “on the other hand I was aware of a couple of guys in Company F who said little but who in my judgment were fully capable of killing Sobel if they got the chance.”

On the next field exercise, E Company was told that a number of its would be designated as simulated casualties so the medics could practice bandaging wounds, improvising casts and splints, evacuating men on litters and so forth. Sobel was told that he was a simulated casualty. The medics put him under a real anesthetic, pulled down his pants, made a real incision simulating an appendectomy. They sewed up incision and bound it up with bandages and surgical tape, then disappeared.

Sobel was furious, naturally enough, but he got nowhere in pressing for an investigation. Not a man in E Company could be found who could identify the guilty medics.