Transfered Again

     Nigh onto two months with the MP's my day of glory arrived. Never ever figured I'd end up at the most famous stockade I'd ever read about, at least not workin' on the outside. But there I was at the one and only Schofield Barracks Stockade. If you've seen From Here to Eternity, you know the story. Frank Sinatra as Angelo Maggio is marched up to the First Sergeant's desk, that bein' the one with Ernest Borgnine as Fatso Judson sittin' behind. Fatso picks up his night stick, we called them batons, and doesn't say a word. You know for sure Angelo is in a world of hurt.
     The novel's somewhat different, a whole section devoted to life in the stockade. A lot of spoutin' about freedom and human rights and time in the hole. But the movie was made only a few years after the war and Hollywood didn't want to piss off the Army, so all the stockade scenes were left out.
     Now I didn't know squat about bein' a prison guard. And the cadre knew I didn't know squat so they stuck me on the outside as main gate guard. That was fine with me. The few times I was on the inside, I was fillin' in for someone on a lunch break. Bein' on the wrong side of that double chain link fence with the barb wire on top gave me the heebie-jeebies. The less time on inside the happier I was.
     No ifs, ands or buts about it, work at the stockade was the best I had in the Army. Had a good friend, that bein' Thomas C. Smith as opposed to either Thomas A. or Thomas E., all three were in Bravo Company back in the Nam, who was a lifeguard at the Shafter pool. Don't know how that came about. Maybe 'cause he was a surfer from California. You came from California back then and it was generally assumed you were on the swim team somewhere. He also lived in a tiny stilt house up near Rocky Point on the North Shore. Yeah, That North Shore, the one with Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay. Gotta admit, his time in the Army while in Hawaii was about as good as it got.
     You wouldn't think work in a jail, especially a military one, would be all that special. But we worked regular hours. Just like a civilian job. When we were pullin' twelve hour shifts it was six days on and three days off. Eight hour shifts turned to nine on and three off. When we were off, we were off. Simple as that. No one messed with our time off.
     Since I was the gate guard my duty consisted of frisking work details as they passed in and out, issuing weapons, no frills shotguns loaded with double ought buckshot, to the tower guards, and lettin' those with the right of entry, enter. More on the special duties later.