Life at the Stockade

     Back in Vietnam all of us new MP's to be were taught how to frisk a man. Not an easy thing to to. Runnin' your hands up and down another man's body wasn't something we, or most any red blooded American 1960s male, took to easily. But we giggled, did what we were shown, then ran around punchin' each other in the arm and discussin' which cologne fragrance went best with the color of our eyes. Mostly we figured it was something we'd never have to do again.
     Bein' gate guard at the stockade taught me to feel no shame. On a typical duty day, a work crew of twenty or so prisoners passed in and out of the gate twice. Morning and afternoon. It was the gate guard's job to frisk each and every one of their young supple bodies four times each day. Don't think I could do that anymore.
     A proper frisk ain't that pat job usually seen in the movies. It's a double hand rubbin' over the whole body. Call it a personal invasion of the first order. But us guards did it and didn't think anything of it. Even ignored the razzin' we got from the prisoners. All we had to say was, "Better I be on the outside giving you a feelin' than the other way around."
     Not a lot of real bad boys in this stockade. Some were honor prisoners from LBJ, that's the Long Binh Jail over in Vietnam. I suspect they were in the stockade for the same reason the prisoners from Hawaii were, dope smokers who got caught. Smokin' the devil's weed ran rampant at Schofield. Not among the lifers mind you, they stuck to Jim Beam and brew. On the other hand, draftees seemed drawn to pot tryin' with the idea of makin' a bad time in their lives a little bit happier.
     Kinda odd how Vietnam backfired on America. A few hundred thousand cleaned up American boys were recruited by mail to head overseas and help keep the free world free. A whole lot of 'em came back mentally and physically messed up, also with a taste for grass. Helped create a big market for Mexican and Columbian dope growers. If there was drug testing back in '69 and '70, half of Schofield woulda been in the stockade. But there wasn't, so we only had around ninety inmates.
     Story had it there were two types of soldiers in Schofield, those in the stockade and those who hadn't yet been caught. As a whole, the prisoners were harmless. Life as a prison guard was pretty easy. No real worry of gettin' your ass whipped by some hard core maniac.