Sleeping Marine aces hearing test

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. — Marine Cpl. Brian Willis was found to have perfect hearing this week after sleeping through his annual hearing conservation test, according to medical officials.

“We realized Corporal Willis was three days overdue on his audiogram,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. David Sage, chief of naval medicine at Twentynine Palms. “This immediately became a readiness emergency.”

Sage said military medicine can occasionally tolerate delays involving chronic pain, specialty referrals and other minor concerns, but an overdue hearing test represents a direct threat to national security.

“We cannot have a Marine running around this installation with an expired green box in MRRS,” Sage said, referring to the Medical Readiness Reporting System.

Willis received a call from his staff sergeant at 9:35 p.m. ordering him to report for a hearing test “right fucking now.”

Unfortunately, the clinic had closed approximately four minutes after notifying his command that he was delinquent.

Medical personnel then initiated a contingency plan.

At 1:43 a.m., two Navy corpsmen entered Willis’ barracks room, placed headphones over his ears and administered the audiogram while he slept.

Willis failed to respond to every tone.

“Excellent consistency,” one corpsman wrote in the remarks section.

After confirming Willis had demonstrated no significant threshold shift, no significant movement of any kind and no apparent awareness that medical personnel were inside his bedroom, the corpsmen marked him medically ready.

They then packed up the equipment, took a beer from his refrigerator and left.

“Nobody likes doing house calls,” one corpsman said. “But readiness is readiness.”

Willis was not notified of his results because the test had already been successfully entered into the system.

“This was a flawless operation,” Sage said. “The important thing isn’t whether Corporal Willis can hear. The important thing is that the Marine Corps has documentation showing we checked.”

Willis appeared confused when informed of the procedure.

“Wait,” he said. “They broke into my room?”

Officials said Willis’ inability to hear two corpsmen entering his barracks room, assembling medical equipment beside his bed and placing headphones over his ears was not considered clinically relevant because his hearing requirement was now green.

At press time, U.S. Central Command had reportedly paused combat operations long enough for several hundred troops to complete overdue hearing conservation tests before returning to an environment specifically designed to destroy their hearing.