WASHINGTON — Researchers at the Primate Language Institute were stunned this week when their latest subject, a 400-pound silverback gorilla named “Dookie,” not only mastered American Sign Language but immediately began informing everyone within range that he was a West Point graduate.
“We expected simple phrases like ‘banana good’ or ‘Dookie love trainer,’” said Dr. Melissa Hardcastle, the institute’s lead researcher. “But instead, the very first thing he signed was, ‘Dookie, Sir, West Point, Sir!’”
Dookie’s signing quickly escalated from basic self-identification to unsolicited leadership lectures. According to handlers, he now spends most of his day correcting posture, enforcing facing movements, and insisting that all food must be consumed at the position of attention with no more than five chews per spoonful.
“He won’t even eat a mango unless it’s pre-cut and stacked neatly in a perfect four-inch square on a tray,” said lab assistant James Wilkes. “And he refuses to drink water unless it’s from a CamelBak full of RipIts labeled ‘Hydrate or Die.’”
Dookie has been assigned an honorary commission as a lieutenant colonel by the zoo as a way to appease him and support his development, although he insists that he is already a full-bird colonel and is currently awaiting the results of his brigadier general selection board.
“He just stares at his blank chest plate and sighs,” said one zoo official. “I think he expected to be wearing at least three rows of ribbons by now. He’s at least got the high-and-tight, though.”
Dookie has wasted no time enforcing strict military standards among his fellow primates. Reports from the zoo indicate that he has implemented mandatory room inspections, forced lower-ranking apes to sign “Beat Navy” in unison, and has started giving corrective training to “lazy” chimpanzees for sitting on the same horizontal surface as members of the opposite sex.
