Sunday, March 31, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Makin' Tracks on the Edge of the Box - dissatisfied but done
When not in a war zone the Army plays games. Those games run on a set of rules that don't have a whole lot to do with reality. Unless that reality is keepin' idle hands from becomin' the devil's workshop. Now that I think about it, that's not a bad idea seein' as how those hands have guns in them now and then. Don't want their game slippin' over into the realm of life and death any more than necessary.
Took me a while to see the game aspect. Maybe that's why sergeant's yell a lot and there's always a stockade somewhere on the post. Keep the fear level up and the thinking level down. Take it seriously like it's a matter of life and death. Smoke and mirrors to hide the truth of what you've gotten yourself into. Afterwards, decades on the job hammered that lesson home. But back in the early part of AIT I was just becomin' familiar with the concept. You'll see what the result was.
I suspect I could always see the game aspect but I've got a memory problem. Learn something one minute, forget it the next. And there's always the wall of supposed truth and the consequences of goin' against the grain that gets thrown at you in the process of growin' up. Short and sweet, I feared buckin' the system outta fear of them buckin' back. And no doubt they bucked better.
You see, one side of the coin has rules stamped onto it about the way things are supposed to be. On the flip side, there's the reality of the situation, the basics of food, clothing, shelter, and if you're lucky, love. To see the whole picture you've gotta step back a bit, get outside the rule structure for a moment and take a look at what's goin' on.
Religion works a lot like the Army. There's a whole bunch of rules you're supposed to follow. Some of 'em make sense, some don't. Just ask all those Catholics in hell 'cause they ate meat on a Friday before the rule changed. Bummer dudes.
On the Army side of life a guy with brass on his shoulder comes up in a war game and tells you you're dead. The Army says you are, but you really aren't, just out of the game. See what I mean?
However, you've gotta be careful about steppin' outside the rules. Usually it's only a between the ears thing. You see why the rule exists, the reason behind it, the good of it. No one can see what you're thinkin', so you're safe. But when your body takes part, you better be careful. It's best to pick and choose your battles like your future depends on it. 'Cause it does.
Earl had a lot to do with me seein' the light. He lit that bulb around the sixth week in AIT. We were out in the field, deep in the woods, and bein' told all about Escape and Evasion should a soldier become captured by the enemy or be in danger of capture. Mostly it kinda went in one of my ears and out the other. A couple of blah-blahs here and a whole lot of yadda-yaddas there.
Not that I wanted to be captured by the Red Menace, just that I figured I'd deal with that possibility should it ever come up. My idea was that I wouldn't actually know what I'd do until those bamboo splinters slid under my finger nails. Name, rank, and serial humber or would I blubber like a baby? No doubt my sense of humor would've gotten my ass in a sling. Be wearin' black pants and livin' in Hanoi today. Or be walkin' around like John McCain, sometimes here and sometimes off in the ozone, always pontificatin' on the six o'clock news..
The point was that I wasn't gettin' the point of all the talk about maybe becoming a prisoner of war till after a fine meal of dead cat and marsh grass c-rations. Before I had the chance to even work up a civilized amount of methane and sulfur dioxide in my stomach we were all herded off to a small clearing. There we were given instructions on how our evening, possibly late night, or even early morning would be spent.
Seemed we were now GIs behind the lines, cut off from our units in an area teemin' with the enemy who were after our Johnsons. Our job was to not get captured and hauled off to a POW camp where we'd be tortured, within limits, till we peed ourselves.
Besides avoiding capture, we were to try and make it back to the safety or our lines. Somewhere, off to yonder - here the sergeant pointed to his right, our left - about two or three miles, we'd come upon a campfire. Behind the fire there'd be a bus that'd take us back to the comfort of the barracks where our blankies and teddie bears would already be tucked in and waiting.
Me, all I could think about was a Mars Bar. I was addicted to them. And wasn't alone. My platoon was deep into the MB craze at the time. Not sure why. But we'd discovered them, ate 'em on a regular basis and craved them like a drug. Back at the barracks, at that very moment, I had a couple of those bad boys in my wall locker waitin' for me. Had I been smart I'd have taken off on a dead trot in the direction the man was pointin' and not slowed down till I was on the bus to chocolate heaven.
Amid muses on the nature of gettin' this evening the hell to my rear, we were suddenly showered with artillery simulators, overstuffed firecrackers designed to get us into the wooded darkness in total confusion. Joinin' me and Earl on our sprint into the unknown, ran two other soldiers, Joe LeClerque, and Russ LaFrance. We usually hung together as disgruntled outcasts. And we were gonna head down the course together, come what may. Our plan was to head off as a quartet and figure out a plan eventually. In other words, we had no plan at all.
Weren't but five minutes of trottin' into the dark of a Pacific Northwest forest when we heard voices off to our left. Or maybe our right. We immediately went into phase one of the plan we didn't have and dove head over teakettle into a cluster of bushes. Woulda made more sense had we not chosen a cluster with a neon sign pointing down into it that flashed, "They're in here!" Didn't actually have such a sign but might as well have. Six minutes into Evasion and we'd moved into the Escape phase 'cause we were now POWs. Oh me, oh my.
From the bushes we were herded off to a gravel road check point to be picked up by the POW Camp Express Truck. Once there and waitin', the four of us were left in the care of a single troop with an M-16 loaded to the gills with blanks (or maybe nothin'). Now, this evil, enemy troop wasn't nothin' but another AIT sucker just like us who'd had his sleep ruined so he could play bad boy in the woods. In his mind, just like in ours, priority one was to have his miserable night go by as smoothly and quickly as possible.
The five of us stood there for a while. Then a while longer. Seemed like the Express was runnin' a tad late. Earl got a little fidgety. Started grumbin' about how it was pure torture waitin' on the torture truck. And how if it didn't show up right away he was outta there.
Our guard wasn't havin' nothin' to do with that kind of sassy talk. And went on about how he had the gun and Earl couldn't just walk off 'cause the rules said he couldn't just walk off and to not forget he had the gun.
All the while my mind was churnin' over the fact that the man's gun meant nothin' 'cause it wasn't loaded with real bullets. No matter how much our guard shouted bang! bang! if we ran off, it wouldn't hurt a bit. Then Earl walked off.
That left us three white boys. But one of us white boys was done with the rules, at least the rules of the game we were now playin'. The answer was easy as pie. Felt exhileratin' and a little nervy at the same time. Earl walkin' away like he did had added courage to my convictions.
I turned to the other two, "I've got a plan and it's foolproof. So I'm leavin'. Stick with me and we're home free."
Russ followed and Joe stayed, sayin' there was no way he was takin' a chance and break the rules like a total fool and somehow get in more unforeseen trouble than he was already in. How right now, at that very moment, a squad of MPs might be on his parents doorstep back in Chicago with the idea of breakin' down the door and tellin' his mom that her only son Joe was actin' like a free-thinker back in the foothill woods near Mount Rainier. So, by God, come what may, he, for one, was gonna let a team of sadistic sergeants stuff him in a barrel for the night.
Maybe ignorin' the rules was the lesson we were supposed to learn that night. Should we ever be captured, all the rules were off the board. The point woulda been to stay alive followin' whatever tactic worked.
So Russ and I headed into the darkness followed by a torrent of cursin' from the worried guard.
My plan was simple. Don't try to hide. Keep in the open. Since we couldn't make ourselves invisible, the best we could do was to make the enemy boys as visible as possible and take advantage of their impotence. My eyes were adapted to the dark and could pick out things that stood alone. Like another person with an M-16 and an attitude that knew the use of a gun butt should the need arise. Stayin' in the shadows was askin' for trouble. Couldn't tell what was a tree, bush, or troop till it was too late.
As I recall, the woods we were in wasn't solid forest. In the darkness it appeared to be a series of hundred yard deep tree lines separated by two hundred yard wide meadows. Striped like a huge football field in an organic way. Out in the open, should we see anyone, we'd run away. No problem. Unless they could throw an M-16 a hundred yards and hit a moving target.
We weren't across the first clearing when I got another idea. Felt so good I almost dislocated my shoulder pattin' myself on the back. Back at the briefing we'd been told a series of railroad tracks formed one side of the course. Should we cross them we'd be out of bounds. My brain said to screw that noise. Instead, I saw the tracks as our path to a warm bunk. Stairway to heaven. So we ignored the woods, hung a right and headed for steel rail freedom.
Sure enough, they were exactly where they were supposed to be. As I recall, a roadway consisting of two lanes of track with a clearin' to either side. So wide open it was a perfect place to hide. Felt cocky enough after a few minutes we even lit up smokes. But kept our ears open and eyes peeled figurin' we weren't home free till we were on the bus.
Twenty minutes into makin' tracks down the tracks with a thin tree line between us and the course, we came on a line of small campfires in the distance to our left. End of the course? The sergeant had said there'd be a single fire and we were lookin' at about eight or ten little blazes. So we passed them by. A hundred yards or so. Then crept back through the trees and onto the course. Time to dance with the devil.
Resist temptation? Not me. A second's thought and I was off and sneakin' toward the closest fire. To either side of it sat a coupla trainees, shootin' the breeze and tryin' to stay awake. So long as I moved slowly and quietly there was nothing to fear. There was no reason in the world why any of the trainees should turn and look in our direction. We were supposed to be comin' the other way. And if we were past their line, we'd be fools to take a chance and come up on them from behind.
That's the way my brain was workin' anyhow as I crept closer, with Russ trailin' behind. And there, leanin' against a tree ten feet to the enemy trainees rear was an M-16. Tsk-tsk. Major mistake. Bein' separated from your weapon was an infantryman's sin of the first order, two steps worse than drippy dick. At about five strides from the weapon I stopped pussy footin' and rushed the rifle. And there I stood, gun in hand, with the drop on the bad boys. Hello and good evening.
It seemed they couldn't see beyond the rules 'cause they had looks of surprise on their faces that said, "Goodbye mom, hello stockade." Not that they had a worry. I'd already run the movie through my head about takin' them prisoner. Then commandeerin' the express truck for a ride to the camp where me and Russ would turn the tables and free everyone. Put sergeants in barrels, throw officers in the moat, end the war and create an everlastin' world peace. Somehow that didn't seem realistic. Instead, all I asked for was a can of coke and directions to the real exit point. Then the four of us sat around the fire and shot the breeze for ten minutes. Odd moment. We thanked the boys, handed the weapon back and left.
Another fifteen minutes found Russ and me in a parking lot by the real bonfire, waitin' on our bus. Wasn't even ten o'clock.
Just before turnin' in I unlocked my wall locker. Was it the best Mars Bar I'd ever eaten? It's hard to put a number on ecstasy. I'll simply give the experience two rolled-back eye whites, a lip quiver and three drools.
Earl showed up sometime in the early morning hours after a tour of the swamp. A few of the other boys were rescued after sun-up from the same swamp. Joe spent his night in a barrel and blackly accepting a few other minor tortures as just another downturn in his naturally downturned life. Didn't change his outlook on existence one bit as he already was deeply into being impotently pissed off all the time and absolutely sure the only thing the future held for him was the worst possible outcome.
Without a doubt the best story of the evening was worthy of a medal but could never be officially told. Our hero knew the Fort Lewis area well. Immediately after the artillery simulators fired off he high-tailed it to the same tracks Russ and I took. Unlike us, he hung a right out to a county road and hitchhiked to a bar in the town of Roy. There he downed a few beers before getting a motel room for the night. Come morning he hitched back to the tracks and completed the course. Could be he made to story up. In fact, probably did, but why mess up a good tale like that with a dull truth?
Took me a while to see the game aspect. Maybe that's why sergeant's yell a lot and there's always a stockade somewhere on the post. Keep the fear level up and the thinking level down. Take it seriously like it's a matter of life and death. Smoke and mirrors to hide the truth of what you've gotten yourself into. Afterwards, decades on the job hammered that lesson home. But back in the early part of AIT I was just becomin' familiar with the concept. You'll see what the result was.
I suspect I could always see the game aspect but I've got a memory problem. Learn something one minute, forget it the next. And there's always the wall of supposed truth and the consequences of goin' against the grain that gets thrown at you in the process of growin' up. Short and sweet, I feared buckin' the system outta fear of them buckin' back. And no doubt they bucked better.
You see, one side of the coin has rules stamped onto it about the way things are supposed to be. On the flip side, there's the reality of the situation, the basics of food, clothing, shelter, and if you're lucky, love. To see the whole picture you've gotta step back a bit, get outside the rule structure for a moment and take a look at what's goin' on.
Religion works a lot like the Army. There's a whole bunch of rules you're supposed to follow. Some of 'em make sense, some don't. Just ask all those Catholics in hell 'cause they ate meat on a Friday before the rule changed. Bummer dudes.
On the Army side of life a guy with brass on his shoulder comes up in a war game and tells you you're dead. The Army says you are, but you really aren't, just out of the game. See what I mean?
However, you've gotta be careful about steppin' outside the rules. Usually it's only a between the ears thing. You see why the rule exists, the reason behind it, the good of it. No one can see what you're thinkin', so you're safe. But when your body takes part, you better be careful. It's best to pick and choose your battles like your future depends on it. 'Cause it does.
Earl had a lot to do with me seein' the light. He lit that bulb around the sixth week in AIT. We were out in the field, deep in the woods, and bein' told all about Escape and Evasion should a soldier become captured by the enemy or be in danger of capture. Mostly it kinda went in one of my ears and out the other. A couple of blah-blahs here and a whole lot of yadda-yaddas there.
Not that I wanted to be captured by the Red Menace, just that I figured I'd deal with that possibility should it ever come up. My idea was that I wouldn't actually know what I'd do until those bamboo splinters slid under my finger nails. Name, rank, and serial humber or would I blubber like a baby? No doubt my sense of humor would've gotten my ass in a sling. Be wearin' black pants and livin' in Hanoi today. Or be walkin' around like John McCain, sometimes here and sometimes off in the ozone, always pontificatin' on the six o'clock news..
The point was that I wasn't gettin' the point of all the talk about maybe becoming a prisoner of war till after a fine meal of dead cat and marsh grass c-rations. Before I had the chance to even work up a civilized amount of methane and sulfur dioxide in my stomach we were all herded off to a small clearing. There we were given instructions on how our evening, possibly late night, or even early morning would be spent.
Seemed we were now GIs behind the lines, cut off from our units in an area teemin' with the enemy who were after our Johnsons. Our job was to not get captured and hauled off to a POW camp where we'd be tortured, within limits, till we peed ourselves.
Besides avoiding capture, we were to try and make it back to the safety or our lines. Somewhere, off to yonder - here the sergeant pointed to his right, our left - about two or three miles, we'd come upon a campfire. Behind the fire there'd be a bus that'd take us back to the comfort of the barracks where our blankies and teddie bears would already be tucked in and waiting.
Me, all I could think about was a Mars Bar. I was addicted to them. And wasn't alone. My platoon was deep into the MB craze at the time. Not sure why. But we'd discovered them, ate 'em on a regular basis and craved them like a drug. Back at the barracks, at that very moment, I had a couple of those bad boys in my wall locker waitin' for me. Had I been smart I'd have taken off on a dead trot in the direction the man was pointin' and not slowed down till I was on the bus to chocolate heaven.
Amid muses on the nature of gettin' this evening the hell to my rear, we were suddenly showered with artillery simulators, overstuffed firecrackers designed to get us into the wooded darkness in total confusion. Joinin' me and Earl on our sprint into the unknown, ran two other soldiers, Joe LeClerque, and Russ LaFrance. We usually hung together as disgruntled outcasts. And we were gonna head down the course together, come what may. Our plan was to head off as a quartet and figure out a plan eventually. In other words, we had no plan at all.
Weren't but five minutes of trottin' into the dark of a Pacific Northwest forest when we heard voices off to our left. Or maybe our right. We immediately went into phase one of the plan we didn't have and dove head over teakettle into a cluster of bushes. Woulda made more sense had we not chosen a cluster with a neon sign pointing down into it that flashed, "They're in here!" Didn't actually have such a sign but might as well have. Six minutes into Evasion and we'd moved into the Escape phase 'cause we were now POWs. Oh me, oh my.
From the bushes we were herded off to a gravel road check point to be picked up by the POW Camp Express Truck. Once there and waitin', the four of us were left in the care of a single troop with an M-16 loaded to the gills with blanks (or maybe nothin'). Now, this evil, enemy troop wasn't nothin' but another AIT sucker just like us who'd had his sleep ruined so he could play bad boy in the woods. In his mind, just like in ours, priority one was to have his miserable night go by as smoothly and quickly as possible.
The five of us stood there for a while. Then a while longer. Seemed like the Express was runnin' a tad late. Earl got a little fidgety. Started grumbin' about how it was pure torture waitin' on the torture truck. And how if it didn't show up right away he was outta there.
Our guard wasn't havin' nothin' to do with that kind of sassy talk. And went on about how he had the gun and Earl couldn't just walk off 'cause the rules said he couldn't just walk off and to not forget he had the gun.
All the while my mind was churnin' over the fact that the man's gun meant nothin' 'cause it wasn't loaded with real bullets. No matter how much our guard shouted bang! bang! if we ran off, it wouldn't hurt a bit. Then Earl walked off.
That left us three white boys. But one of us white boys was done with the rules, at least the rules of the game we were now playin'. The answer was easy as pie. Felt exhileratin' and a little nervy at the same time. Earl walkin' away like he did had added courage to my convictions.
I turned to the other two, "I've got a plan and it's foolproof. So I'm leavin'. Stick with me and we're home free."
Russ followed and Joe stayed, sayin' there was no way he was takin' a chance and break the rules like a total fool and somehow get in more unforeseen trouble than he was already in. How right now, at that very moment, a squad of MPs might be on his parents doorstep back in Chicago with the idea of breakin' down the door and tellin' his mom that her only son Joe was actin' like a free-thinker back in the foothill woods near Mount Rainier. So, by God, come what may, he, for one, was gonna let a team of sadistic sergeants stuff him in a barrel for the night.
Maybe ignorin' the rules was the lesson we were supposed to learn that night. Should we ever be captured, all the rules were off the board. The point woulda been to stay alive followin' whatever tactic worked.
So Russ and I headed into the darkness followed by a torrent of cursin' from the worried guard.
My plan was simple. Don't try to hide. Keep in the open. Since we couldn't make ourselves invisible, the best we could do was to make the enemy boys as visible as possible and take advantage of their impotence. My eyes were adapted to the dark and could pick out things that stood alone. Like another person with an M-16 and an attitude that knew the use of a gun butt should the need arise. Stayin' in the shadows was askin' for trouble. Couldn't tell what was a tree, bush, or troop till it was too late.
As I recall, the woods we were in wasn't solid forest. In the darkness it appeared to be a series of hundred yard deep tree lines separated by two hundred yard wide meadows. Striped like a huge football field in an organic way. Out in the open, should we see anyone, we'd run away. No problem. Unless they could throw an M-16 a hundred yards and hit a moving target.
We weren't across the first clearing when I got another idea. Felt so good I almost dislocated my shoulder pattin' myself on the back. Back at the briefing we'd been told a series of railroad tracks formed one side of the course. Should we cross them we'd be out of bounds. My brain said to screw that noise. Instead, I saw the tracks as our path to a warm bunk. Stairway to heaven. So we ignored the woods, hung a right and headed for steel rail freedom.
Sure enough, they were exactly where they were supposed to be. As I recall, a roadway consisting of two lanes of track with a clearin' to either side. So wide open it was a perfect place to hide. Felt cocky enough after a few minutes we even lit up smokes. But kept our ears open and eyes peeled figurin' we weren't home free till we were on the bus.
Twenty minutes into makin' tracks down the tracks with a thin tree line between us and the course, we came on a line of small campfires in the distance to our left. End of the course? The sergeant had said there'd be a single fire and we were lookin' at about eight or ten little blazes. So we passed them by. A hundred yards or so. Then crept back through the trees and onto the course. Time to dance with the devil.
Resist temptation? Not me. A second's thought and I was off and sneakin' toward the closest fire. To either side of it sat a coupla trainees, shootin' the breeze and tryin' to stay awake. So long as I moved slowly and quietly there was nothing to fear. There was no reason in the world why any of the trainees should turn and look in our direction. We were supposed to be comin' the other way. And if we were past their line, we'd be fools to take a chance and come up on them from behind.
That's the way my brain was workin' anyhow as I crept closer, with Russ trailin' behind. And there, leanin' against a tree ten feet to the enemy trainees rear was an M-16. Tsk-tsk. Major mistake. Bein' separated from your weapon was an infantryman's sin of the first order, two steps worse than drippy dick. At about five strides from the weapon I stopped pussy footin' and rushed the rifle. And there I stood, gun in hand, with the drop on the bad boys. Hello and good evening.
It seemed they couldn't see beyond the rules 'cause they had looks of surprise on their faces that said, "Goodbye mom, hello stockade." Not that they had a worry. I'd already run the movie through my head about takin' them prisoner. Then commandeerin' the express truck for a ride to the camp where me and Russ would turn the tables and free everyone. Put sergeants in barrels, throw officers in the moat, end the war and create an everlastin' world peace. Somehow that didn't seem realistic. Instead, all I asked for was a can of coke and directions to the real exit point. Then the four of us sat around the fire and shot the breeze for ten minutes. Odd moment. We thanked the boys, handed the weapon back and left.
Another fifteen minutes found Russ and me in a parking lot by the real bonfire, waitin' on our bus. Wasn't even ten o'clock.
Just before turnin' in I unlocked my wall locker. Was it the best Mars Bar I'd ever eaten? It's hard to put a number on ecstasy. I'll simply give the experience two rolled-back eye whites, a lip quiver and three drools.
Earl showed up sometime in the early morning hours after a tour of the swamp. A few of the other boys were rescued after sun-up from the same swamp. Joe spent his night in a barrel and blackly accepting a few other minor tortures as just another downturn in his naturally downturned life. Didn't change his outlook on existence one bit as he already was deeply into being impotently pissed off all the time and absolutely sure the only thing the future held for him was the worst possible outcome.
Without a doubt the best story of the evening was worthy of a medal but could never be officially told. Our hero knew the Fort Lewis area well. Immediately after the artillery simulators fired off he high-tailed it to the same tracks Russ and I took. Unlike us, he hung a right out to a county road and hitchhiked to a bar in the town of Roy. There he downed a few beers before getting a motel room for the night. Come morning he hitched back to the tracks and completed the course. Could be he made to story up. In fact, probably did, but why mess up a good tale like that with a dull truth?
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Black Humor from a White Boy
Think I'll skip to the end then go back in time for an extended anecdote:
Really, there was no point at all to our graduation ceremony. Seemed fitting there was no point considering the circumstances. Nothin' about what we were doin' or where we were goin' seemed to have a point anymore.
Barracks were cleaned and we were spiffed up. Dress uniforms and ties, marchin' in formation for the last time on the way to an auditorium so some honcho with a metal leaf on his shoulder could tell us to do mom proud by headin' to the jungles and killin' some red, gook bastards who were out to steal our apple pies and deflower maidens down at Main Street and Vine.
Leadin' the way back in the third row to the left side was the Zen Soldier. We all marched at a hundred-twenty strides per minute, just like Uncle Sam said we should (I think that's even in the bible). Zen popped along to his own one-seventeen per minute drummer (sinner man). Fascinatin'. I couldn't help but stare at his Garrison (name we actually called it withheld out of common decency) Cap as he weaved in and out of step. One of the most subtle and pleasing sights of silent protest this old boy has ever seen. In my mind it beat lightin' yourself on fire in front of the newsboys for a Kodak moment by a country mile. Probably hurt a lot less also.
Once in the auditorium we all took seats when ordered. Then sat there for a while till The Man in the hat with the braid on the bill came out. While waitin' in the silent dark, my mouth popped open a coupla times. Strangely enough I even knew what I was gonna say before I actually said it. Had given it some thought. Both times.
The first set of words was the warmup, "Just think guys, in only seventeen days we'll be on our way to Vietnam." That got the grumblin' goin'. Didn't know what their problem was. All I'd said was the truth. Hmm. Maybe they didn't want to think about that. Was I the only one who saw the humor?
A half minute later, "I wonder what size body bag I take?" Figured that was sure to crack them up.
Instead, all I got was a, "Shut the F*** up Peters!" By now I was confused. What kind of spoil sport GI was this Army sendin' overseas anyhow? Were we worthy of napalming babies? Somewhere in the past I summed it up this way: If you can't find the humor in killin' a coupla million people for no reason whatsoever, just what do you find funny? Or something like that.
Yup, the whole situation sucked to high heaven. Havin' The Man come out and tell us we were diamonds in the rough that only needed the polishing of combat to make us gleam, didn't help a bit. Wouldn't have followed that man anywhere, much less the hell on earth he was promisin' us, or the one waitin' down at the end of the final road.
Finally, my plan became to just not think about it. Suck it up and shut the brain down till the next three hundred, eighty-two days passed, one at a time. And not get killed along the way.
Really, there was no point at all to our graduation ceremony. Seemed fitting there was no point considering the circumstances. Nothin' about what we were doin' or where we were goin' seemed to have a point anymore.
Barracks were cleaned and we were spiffed up. Dress uniforms and ties, marchin' in formation for the last time on the way to an auditorium so some honcho with a metal leaf on his shoulder could tell us to do mom proud by headin' to the jungles and killin' some red, gook bastards who were out to steal our apple pies and deflower maidens down at Main Street and Vine.
Leadin' the way back in the third row to the left side was the Zen Soldier. We all marched at a hundred-twenty strides per minute, just like Uncle Sam said we should (I think that's even in the bible). Zen popped along to his own one-seventeen per minute drummer (sinner man). Fascinatin'. I couldn't help but stare at his Garrison (name we actually called it withheld out of common decency) Cap as he weaved in and out of step. One of the most subtle and pleasing sights of silent protest this old boy has ever seen. In my mind it beat lightin' yourself on fire in front of the newsboys for a Kodak moment by a country mile. Probably hurt a lot less also.
Once in the auditorium we all took seats when ordered. Then sat there for a while till The Man in the hat with the braid on the bill came out. While waitin' in the silent dark, my mouth popped open a coupla times. Strangely enough I even knew what I was gonna say before I actually said it. Had given it some thought. Both times.
The first set of words was the warmup, "Just think guys, in only seventeen days we'll be on our way to Vietnam." That got the grumblin' goin'. Didn't know what their problem was. All I'd said was the truth. Hmm. Maybe they didn't want to think about that. Was I the only one who saw the humor?
A half minute later, "I wonder what size body bag I take?" Figured that was sure to crack them up.
Instead, all I got was a, "Shut the F*** up Peters!" By now I was confused. What kind of spoil sport GI was this Army sendin' overseas anyhow? Were we worthy of napalming babies? Somewhere in the past I summed it up this way: If you can't find the humor in killin' a coupla million people for no reason whatsoever, just what do you find funny? Or something like that.
Yup, the whole situation sucked to high heaven. Havin' The Man come out and tell us we were diamonds in the rough that only needed the polishing of combat to make us gleam, didn't help a bit. Wouldn't have followed that man anywhere, much less the hell on earth he was promisin' us, or the one waitin' down at the end of the final road.
Finally, my plan became to just not think about it. Suck it up and shut the brain down till the next three hundred, eighty-two days passed, one at a time. And not get killed along the way.
Dear John
Nothin' adds an endearing touch to, "Honey, I've been drafted, see you in a coupla years," like the followup from the honey, "Dear John, I don't ever want to see you again."
Basic Training was fertile ground for those letters. All the way from Mike Ring who balled his eyes out to Dick Sweet - not kiddin' that was his name - who got two in one day, laughed, and posted them on the bulletin board. A dozen or so of them in one week led to one of the Trainee Squad Leaders, Connie as I recall, bellowin' out one evening, "Dear F###in' John, Don't write me no f###in' more." Nothin' more need be said on the subject (except, once again I'm havin' problems with the F in FTA).
Till AIT when another Trainee Squad Leader gave the reverse. His version of a Dear Joan. He'd been home on leave over Christmas and goin' through the outs with his wife who he didn't seem to like much anymore. Seemed she was in a lovin' mood one day and he was havin' nothing to do with her affections. His words, "Well, you know where it is. Please wash it off when you're done."
A man just can't make that kind of stuff up. Well, I could but there's no need. As to the guy who spoke the words, who knows?
For whatever reason, by the time troops reached Vietnam, those kind of letters ended. Guess all the weedin' out was done in the first coupla months. Besides, it wouldn't have been deemed proper for a stateside lady to dump a guy who was in combat. Just not nice.
Basic Training was fertile ground for those letters. All the way from Mike Ring who balled his eyes out to Dick Sweet - not kiddin' that was his name - who got two in one day, laughed, and posted them on the bulletin board. A dozen or so of them in one week led to one of the Trainee Squad Leaders, Connie as I recall, bellowin' out one evening, "Dear F###in' John, Don't write me no f###in' more." Nothin' more need be said on the subject (except, once again I'm havin' problems with the F in FTA).
Till AIT when another Trainee Squad Leader gave the reverse. His version of a Dear Joan. He'd been home on leave over Christmas and goin' through the outs with his wife who he didn't seem to like much anymore. Seemed she was in a lovin' mood one day and he was havin' nothing to do with her affections. His words, "Well, you know where it is. Please wash it off when you're done."
A man just can't make that kind of stuff up. Well, I could but there's no need. As to the guy who spoke the words, who knows?
For whatever reason, by the time troops reached Vietnam, those kind of letters ended. Guess all the weedin' out was done in the first coupla months. Besides, it wouldn't have been deemed proper for a stateside lady to dump a guy who was in combat. Just not nice.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Earl and Me
We knew each other from a distance back in Basic. We were on opposite sides of the street in different barracks buildings. Havin' that strip of asphalt out there was like havin' an ocean between us. Kinda odd ain't it how that street did a better job than the Pacific Ocean at keepin' people apart? Strange world we live in where killing trumps potential friendship.
Don't remember how it came about but at Fort Lewis we became bunk mates. Not that we shared the same bunk. Not that we needed to be told, but the Army officially frowned on such high-jinx. As it was, Earl got the bottom bunk, I got the top. Might have been his fear of heights coupled with my naturally magnanimous soul that brought that arrangement about. Or his inability to give in when he wanted something,
Oh yeah, almost forgot, Earl was black. And if I haven't mentioned it yet, I'm white. A German-Swede from Minnesota. That's about as white as an American can get unless they're an albino Norwegian-Swede from North Dakota within ten miles of the Canadian border and not only can polka, but actually like the dance, 'specially when there's a concertina in the band (did I miss anything?). As for size, we were about the same, height and weight. He was a good lookin' man. Had I been black, I'd have been outstandin'.
I'm not sure why we hit it off but bein' in the same boat at the bottom of the military peckin' order might have had something to do with it. We dressed the same, ate the same foods, played poker together and were goin' to the same place (probably in the hereafter also since we shared some left-leanin' views). Under the circumstances, race didn't seem to matter to us. But there was still a line we didn't cross, one way or the other. Call it mutual respect or maybe a wartime truce.
'Bout the only time he was pissed at me was during our FTX, Field Training eXercise (seems the Army was pushin' the envelope when it came to purposely misspellin' words). During it we spent five days in the field operatin' under similar conditions to Vietnam except no one got killed, or maimed, or had leeches crawlin' up their backsides. The two of us were buddied up as usual. That meant we each carried half of the canvas tent, with poles, and a sleepin' bag, neither of which we were gonna use. Why we carried them didn't make a lot of sense. Didn't use 'em at Fort Lewis and sure as hell didn't in Vietnam. But we were sharin' the twenty pounds of it and sleepin' bags. Act of love, buddy-buddy, made it seem like nothin'.
Till the Man came up and said, "Peters, you be the ace of aces when it came to larnin' up the PRC25 radio. I want you to be my man and carry that twenty five pound baby. Give your tent stuff and bag to Greene - that be Earl - over there and come follow me."
So that left Earl with an extra ten pounds and he wasn't happy. Also he was odd man out when it came to pullin' watch at night. Instead of gettin' a half night's sleep he got, well, I don't know exactly how much sleep he got. But seein' as how he was the definition of resourceful, I figured he turned it to his advantage. Me, I got the twenty-five pound box and slept with the command group.
Night on the FTX was good practice for Vietnam. Got us good and tired, zombie like, from a day's worth of walkin' around over hill and dale with a load on our backs. And dirty. Got so we smelled and looked like the ground around us with a little sweat mixed in.
Every so often Earl and I would get together for a minute. He sure looked tired. And he let me know what he thought of me havin' a share of the good life. Like I had any control over that.
Come our last night the Lieutenant left us for a shower and a beer. Now in charge was a two tour, Sergeant First Class who ran the outfit like he knew what he was doing. 'Cause he did.
The plan for the night was to hunker down on the top of a hill. Made sense seein' as how it'd been used for that same purpose since Teddy Roosevelt was trainin' his Rough Riders. Fox holes were already dug and the hillside prepped for Metcalf to head down and work his anal-retentive magic with trip flares and barbed wire. And the boy did us proud. Spider webbed the slopes for the attack that was on the schedule for 2:47am. Seemed the Army was just as anal as Metcalf.
Our Sergeant had a plan for the night. He wanted to be warm and not disturbed by any idiot infiltrators who might be comin' up the hill. Metcalf's trip flares and barbed wire took care of that. Gave us a show to watch as the little torches were accidentally set off one by one followed by soft cursin' that was music to Rich's ears. Keepin' the Man warm was my job. And he said I should get a partner to help out. That's where Earl came in. The two of us kept a blaze atop the rise that coulda been seen for miles, infiltrators be damned. We slept good that night even though we didn't sleep much. Warm side to the fire, cold side to the dark. Rotate once in a while to even out the scorch and freeze, stoke the fire and cozy down.
The last time I saw Earl was at the 90th Replacement Unit in Bien Hoa, Vietnam. I'd just arrived and he was on his way to the 101st Airborne Division. Not a happy lad to be goin' up there where the NVA was waitin' to ruin his day.
Earl Greene was from Memphis, Tennessee. Born and raised. Over the years I've spent a few days there 'cause I worked for FedEx and Memphis was home ground for them. Each time I tried to find him through the internet or phone listings with no luck. Even tried to see if his name was on The Wall in Washington, DC. All tries came up empty. Wherever you are Earl, I hope your's has been a good life.
Friday, March 22, 2013
False Start Quickly Corrected
Basic Training had been like a game. Buncha guys doin' stuff in the outdoors, learnin' to shoot and march, and takin' showers together. I was good at it. Not quite gung-ho good, more on the line of runnin' a foot race good. Got promoted at the end of the cycle from dead bottom of the ranks to next to dead bottom. I recall the promotion as an extra five bucks a month. Nothin' more.
I hadn't give a thought as to where any of us were gonna finally end up till orders came down for advanced training. Seemed nearly all of us draftees were off to winter in Washington State so as to get us ready for the sweltering tropics of Southeast Asia. 'Bout the only similarity I could see between the two places was the Pacific Ocean in-between. You'd think an ocean was a big enough separation to keep us on our own side of the water but we were livin' in a world that was too small for that. And gettin' smaller every day.
Even on the plane to Fort Lewis not a one of us woulda said he was goin' to Vietnam. We knew deep down combat was our destiny but wouldn't have admitted it out loud to anyone, much less ourselves. Except maybe Metcalfe whose idea of fun was readin' books on the history of the war. Lotta good it did him. He was killed in January 1970 up north with the 101st Airborne. Bye-bye Rich.
But there was a part of me that was startin' to see the light shortly after I walked into the barracks of B-4-1 at Fort Lewis. Right off the bat an acting corporal sought me out to let me know I was chosen by the powers that be as a Trainee Squad Leader. My ego was all aflutter. Little ol' me, in charge of men on their way to combat. A little logic woulda found that to be proof positive the Army had its head up its south side.
Long story short, my tenure as a leader of men didn't last long. After two weeks me and the Army decided we didn't see eye-to-eye. Their eye trumped my eye and I was back in the ranks where I belonged. A grunt among grunts. Maybe not the best place to be but at least an honorable one.
Long story short, my tenure as a leader of men didn't last long. After two weeks me and the Army decided we didn't see eye-to-eye. Their eye trumped my eye and I was back in the ranks where I belonged. A grunt among grunts. Maybe not the best place to be but at least an honorable one.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Restart Redux - Attitude is Everything
Where to begin? Can't say rehashing all the training days interests me much. So I'll start where I start. Let my fingers to the talking. The order will be set by the way it comes into my head and that head ain't as good as it once was and keep in mind it's the head of a drug crazed Vietnam Vet (maniacal laughter) whose suffering soul sees life through the flames of hell (more maniacal laughter).
Once we reached Fort Lewis for AIT the handwriting was already on the wall. January '69 was near the peak of the peak of troop commitment in the Nam. Gettin' a draft notice was a one way ticket to play with the big boys while carryin' a combat MOS. And the odds pretty much dictated that specialty would be 11b (light arms infantry, grunt, paddy pounder, leg, dog soldier). Didn't matter what we were called or what we called ourselves, we were goin' and had a one in ten chance of not comin' back. Happy crew? What do you think?
The order of mental drill, at least for me, was to not dwell on where we were going. Stuff it down, think about life as it was before the wearin' of the green. Lost love and family back home. S'pose it might well have been those repressed feelings of forebode, bubbling away down below and rotting my mental innards, that eventually found their way into the light as gallows humor. We had a saying that went kinda like this, "To hell with 'em. What're they gonna do? Stick us in the infantry and ship us off to Vietnam? Oh yeah, that's right. They're already doin' that."
None said it better than our mortar platoon on one lazy, overcast as usual, in the foothills of Mount Rainier, where the sun didn't shine but three days the whole winter we were there, late afternoon.
First off you've gotta have some background. Maybe a lot of background. The late '60s was a whole 'nuther world from the one we live in today. Attitudes were more raw, baby boomers were younger and not at all afraid to speak their minds. Our right wingers weren't as right wing or short minded as the one's today and there was a rainbow's end somewhere just up ahead with a pot of world peace and brotherhood/sisterhood/racial integrationhood/love and happinesshood for every boy and girl I might have missed in the hoods.
Even in the Army. Standin' face to face with the hopes we might have had before we were accepted and inducted, was the reality of where we were at the moment, and gonna be for the next twenty-one months. That the Army had us by the short hairs didn't help our attitudes one bit. 'Specially in the mortar platoon. Maybe it was 'cause they had to hump around with big pieces of steel and ammunition on their backs that led to their special way of lookin' at things. Whatever the reason, mortar boys had a reputation as loose cannons, a heavy left side to their brains, crazy as bed bugs one and all. And they took serious pride in it. They might not have known their real role in the Army before they hit Fort Lewis but once they were clued in by who knows who, they accepted it, lock, stock and barrel.
Our true role in the Army wasn't something the boys with the stripes or the bars on their shoulders taught us. No sir. One day a PFC sleeping in the barracks waitin' on his orders to come down, let us know what the previous cycle yelled when they took seats in a class. And it sure wasn't anything our Philippino drill sergeant taught us. But we liked it and stored the words away till the time we were gutsy, or desperate, enough to yell them out. When that time came, we sure did. Loud and clear. I'll get back to that sometime later. For now I'll simply say time spent in the Army was the same as in the outside world, all contingent on attitude.
As to the mortar platoon, they'd no doubt picked up their swagger from the unofficial, whispered voices just like us grunts. Their moment of glory came late in the cycle and amplified three letters most every trainee knew as well as their serial number, FTA.
Around that same time a pack of Hollywood yahoos organized a '60s style, anti-establishment, get to the heart of things and maybe change the world in the process, called something like the FTA tour. They said those letters meant Free The Army. And they sure as hell didn't. Now I didn't, and don't, have anything against the misplaced intentions of those Tinseltown types. Just that, as I recall, the closest any of them came to actual combat was seein' it on the news. No offense to them, bein' anti-war if you ain't goin', or ain't been, just doesn't carry the same weight as it does if you are or were.
One more aside. We had this march chant call the Delayed Cadence March. It was real snappy, kept us in step, and helped pass the time as we went from here to there. By and large we liked it. Beat the pants off spoutin' to the world how we wanted to go to Vietnam to kill Vietcong in the middle of blood and danger. I won't go into details as to how it went but you'll get the idea when I write the spin our mortar boys put on it.
Also, it's a different world now than it was back then and I want daddies to be able to read this chant out loud to their babes in arms. But they can't if I write it as it actually was 'cause it's got a seriously nasty word in it, many times in it, that nambie-pambies would claim is beyond potty mouth. Back in my Army days it was The Word, probably not on a par with The Word as it appears in the gospel of St. John, but our The Word covered a lot of ground for us killers in green.
The word I'm referrin' to is the F one at the beginning of the FTA. And since I don't want to offend anyone, I won't use it. Instead, I'll replace it with another that might have something to do with an American hero who avoided gettin' drafted by pullin' strings in high places so as to jump to the top of the waitin' list and end up in the Air Force Reserve where he was safe from most everything but a hangover. I'll call him George.
Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against men who didn't go or didn't serve in the military. A good buddy of mine was a CO and did alternate service in the Peace Corps. Some were against the war and left the country or went to jail. Each of them made a difficult, moral, life commitment choice. All honorable in my book. The man I'm talkin' about doesn't seem to be anti-war to me. Even started a couple later in life. The way I see it, he cheated. Someone went in the place he would have occupied in the Army and, like I said, there's a one in ten chance that man died. Such is life in an unfair world.
On that fateful end of the day, as us grunts were in the barracks cleanin' our gear and gettin' ready for chow, off in the distance, comin' louder and louder by the second, was the Mortar Platoon. To a man, we walked to the windows kinda like the scene in From Here To Eternity where Prewitt is playing taps for the dead Maggio, and we heard the following (each word represents a single boot strike, left stride first):
Count cadence, delayed cadence, count cadence, count,
One, George the Army.
Two, George the Army.
Three, George the Army.
Four, George the Army.
One, George-it,
Two, George-it,
Three, George-it,
Four, George-it.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four,
F, T, A.
How long they'd been chantin' was anybody's guess. How many heard it, the same. But for sure our Philippino Senior Drill Instructor had and he was there on the Company Street to greet them in his unique, marginal English manner,
"Nobody George the Army in two hundred years! You not be the first!"
As I recall that was about the end of it. What were they gonna do to them? Stick 'em in a mortar platoon and ship 'em off to Vietnam?
Once we reached Fort Lewis for AIT the handwriting was already on the wall. January '69 was near the peak of the peak of troop commitment in the Nam. Gettin' a draft notice was a one way ticket to play with the big boys while carryin' a combat MOS. And the odds pretty much dictated that specialty would be 11b (light arms infantry, grunt, paddy pounder, leg, dog soldier). Didn't matter what we were called or what we called ourselves, we were goin' and had a one in ten chance of not comin' back. Happy crew? What do you think?
The order of mental drill, at least for me, was to not dwell on where we were going. Stuff it down, think about life as it was before the wearin' of the green. Lost love and family back home. S'pose it might well have been those repressed feelings of forebode, bubbling away down below and rotting my mental innards, that eventually found their way into the light as gallows humor. We had a saying that went kinda like this, "To hell with 'em. What're they gonna do? Stick us in the infantry and ship us off to Vietnam? Oh yeah, that's right. They're already doin' that."
None said it better than our mortar platoon on one lazy, overcast as usual, in the foothills of Mount Rainier, where the sun didn't shine but three days the whole winter we were there, late afternoon.
First off you've gotta have some background. Maybe a lot of background. The late '60s was a whole 'nuther world from the one we live in today. Attitudes were more raw, baby boomers were younger and not at all afraid to speak their minds. Our right wingers weren't as right wing or short minded as the one's today and there was a rainbow's end somewhere just up ahead with a pot of world peace and brotherhood/sisterhood/racial integrationhood/love and happinesshood for every boy and girl I might have missed in the hoods.
Even in the Army. Standin' face to face with the hopes we might have had before we were accepted and inducted, was the reality of where we were at the moment, and gonna be for the next twenty-one months. That the Army had us by the short hairs didn't help our attitudes one bit. 'Specially in the mortar platoon. Maybe it was 'cause they had to hump around with big pieces of steel and ammunition on their backs that led to their special way of lookin' at things. Whatever the reason, mortar boys had a reputation as loose cannons, a heavy left side to their brains, crazy as bed bugs one and all. And they took serious pride in it. They might not have known their real role in the Army before they hit Fort Lewis but once they were clued in by who knows who, they accepted it, lock, stock and barrel.
Our true role in the Army wasn't something the boys with the stripes or the bars on their shoulders taught us. No sir. One day a PFC sleeping in the barracks waitin' on his orders to come down, let us know what the previous cycle yelled when they took seats in a class. And it sure wasn't anything our Philippino drill sergeant taught us. But we liked it and stored the words away till the time we were gutsy, or desperate, enough to yell them out. When that time came, we sure did. Loud and clear. I'll get back to that sometime later. For now I'll simply say time spent in the Army was the same as in the outside world, all contingent on attitude.
As to the mortar platoon, they'd no doubt picked up their swagger from the unofficial, whispered voices just like us grunts. Their moment of glory came late in the cycle and amplified three letters most every trainee knew as well as their serial number, FTA.
Around that same time a pack of Hollywood yahoos organized a '60s style, anti-establishment, get to the heart of things and maybe change the world in the process, called something like the FTA tour. They said those letters meant Free The Army. And they sure as hell didn't. Now I didn't, and don't, have anything against the misplaced intentions of those Tinseltown types. Just that, as I recall, the closest any of them came to actual combat was seein' it on the news. No offense to them, bein' anti-war if you ain't goin', or ain't been, just doesn't carry the same weight as it does if you are or were.
One more aside. We had this march chant call the Delayed Cadence March. It was real snappy, kept us in step, and helped pass the time as we went from here to there. By and large we liked it. Beat the pants off spoutin' to the world how we wanted to go to Vietnam to kill Vietcong in the middle of blood and danger. I won't go into details as to how it went but you'll get the idea when I write the spin our mortar boys put on it.
Also, it's a different world now than it was back then and I want daddies to be able to read this chant out loud to their babes in arms. But they can't if I write it as it actually was 'cause it's got a seriously nasty word in it, many times in it, that nambie-pambies would claim is beyond potty mouth. Back in my Army days it was The Word, probably not on a par with The Word as it appears in the gospel of St. John, but our The Word covered a lot of ground for us killers in green.
The word I'm referrin' to is the F one at the beginning of the FTA. And since I don't want to offend anyone, I won't use it. Instead, I'll replace it with another that might have something to do with an American hero who avoided gettin' drafted by pullin' strings in high places so as to jump to the top of the waitin' list and end up in the Air Force Reserve where he was safe from most everything but a hangover. I'll call him George.
Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against men who didn't go or didn't serve in the military. A good buddy of mine was a CO and did alternate service in the Peace Corps. Some were against the war and left the country or went to jail. Each of them made a difficult, moral, life commitment choice. All honorable in my book. The man I'm talkin' about doesn't seem to be anti-war to me. Even started a couple later in life. The way I see it, he cheated. Someone went in the place he would have occupied in the Army and, like I said, there's a one in ten chance that man died. Such is life in an unfair world.
On that fateful end of the day, as us grunts were in the barracks cleanin' our gear and gettin' ready for chow, off in the distance, comin' louder and louder by the second, was the Mortar Platoon. To a man, we walked to the windows kinda like the scene in From Here To Eternity where Prewitt is playing taps for the dead Maggio, and we heard the following (each word represents a single boot strike, left stride first):
Count cadence, delayed cadence, count cadence, count,
One, George the Army.
Two, George the Army.
Three, George the Army.
Four, George the Army.
One, George-it,
Two, George-it,
Three, George-it,
Four, George-it.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four,
F, T, A.
How long they'd been chantin' was anybody's guess. How many heard it, the same. But for sure our Philippino Senior Drill Instructor had and he was there on the Company Street to greet them in his unique, marginal English manner,
"Nobody George the Army in two hundred years! You not be the first!"
As I recall that was about the end of it. What were they gonna do to them? Stick 'em in a mortar platoon and ship 'em off to Vietnam?
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Backslidin' ?
A few months back I wiped out all my blog entries concerning infantry training and time in Vietnam. Kind of a moral decision that may or may not have been a good idea. Not sure if I'll go back and haphazardly remember some of what happened or let it stand as is. Gotta let that fester for a while.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Forty-Three Years of Aftermath
Some things a man just can't leave alone and some things just won't leave a man alone. You serve a full tour as a grunt in Vietnam and have nightmares for the rest of your life. You get pulled out early and have to live with guilt. Seems like if you fight in a war, and I mean serve it as a grunt, you're damned. Simple as that.
When I returned and in all the years that followed I never seemed to fit in. I was anti-war. Even marched and demonstrated but was a member of no organization. Not a member of the Vets against the war, just wasn't my cup of tea. Attended a meeting or two with the old line protesters and they seemed to be arrogant assholes of the first order.
On the jobs I held I seemed to see life through a different peep hole than the people around me. Outspoken? You betcha. Always seemed to have my ass in a bind with management. But I went to work, did my job and did it well. That was a given. When you're stirrin' up shit you best cover all the flanks.
But all that is the subject for another story. Short and sweet, there was a time in my life when I had to do a lot of things I didn't want to do and had my life on the line for a half year. Unlike a lot of others, I was lucky, or blessed, and have had a good life. As I see it, not a one of us is a hero. We just do what we have to do and with a little luck, wake up the next morning and do it again. That doesn't really cover it all but it'll have to do for the moment.
Friday, March 8, 2013
End of Days
It'd been seventeen months since I'd last passed through Oakland Army Base. Woulda been a fine time for nostalgia but unlike the first passin' all I was looking forward to was my next stop. The place hadn't changed much, still a meat grinder of young flesh.
For the second time I had a welcome home t-bone steak and eggs breakfast. The Army musta thought the typical U.S. male didn't feel at home unless his stool was loose. I was feelin' kinda guilty about the hero treatment seein' as how my butt hadn't suffered much more danger than the perils of Waikiki. Not much I could do though but shut up, eat, get in line, and wait 'til my name was called at a half dozen places.
It was at one of those paperwork stops that all my leave time, plus the AWOL days, came to light. Eighty-four days, or thereabouts in a hitch of a few weeks under two years. The clerk with the papers said something to the effect of, "Ooooo-weeee, that must be some kind of record!" Like to make me blush bein' a possible record setter and all. Might not have been the most decorated GI in the Vietnam War but I was up there with the fewest days actually served in a two year hitch. On the flip side, to this day I carry this little prick in my head that keeps remindin' me of all the good fortune that was on my side. Guess it's true that there's no free lunch.
The upshot was instead of me gettin' a pocket full of musterin' out change in my jeans, plus airfare, all I got was airfare and a buck, twenty-seven. Piss on that noise, at the moment I didn't care. Actually, at the moment I could barely think. Something like a day and a half had passed since leavin' Schofield and I hadn't slept a wink. Ass be draggin'.
On the plane home the first thing I did was head to the bathroom and change from Army garb to Hawaiian hang ten shirt, bell bottoms and sandals. Soldier no more. Hah! Like that could ever happen. And it didn't.
At the airport I was given a welcome home by Lois, my sister Kay and all of her kids. That was greeting enough for any man back in the Vietnam War days.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Summin' It Up
Time to cut to the chase. The last month flew by. That's a joke son. In truth it dragged by from minute to minute as I awaited separation orders. The screw up concerning my accrued leave time continued 'til the Army insisted I had a full two weeks coming. Even though I knew I didn't, I jumped on the chance. Gave Lois and me a chance to tour the Big Island by camper. Couldn't pass up an opportunity like that.
On the day I returned to sign in from leave, there on the bulletin board, big as could be, sat my name on the list of troops to be given a three day pass. Soon as I signed in, I signed out. Only problem was the pass list was pure fiction. The Field MP Platoon was runnin' short handed and had been for a few months. Not enough warm bodies in the group to cover all the jobs assigned. No one was gettin' time off unless it was for accrued leave. Working six weeks without a day off was the way she was. But not on paper.
Army Regs said every man-jack had to be given time off on a regular basis. Every week when the schedule was drawn up, so was the rotating pass list that showed we were all bein' treated fairly and legally. But we all knew the drill and showed up every morning for duty.
When I signed out on pass the moment I walked in the door, I knew I was flirtin' with fire. And also knew there was nothin' the cadre could do about me walking out the door 'cause if they did their game woulda been up. Stripes torn off and an officer upbraided. But just 'cause I had 'em by the short hairs didn't stop me from sneakin' off at a high rate of speed. Good thing I was early and no one was in the office.
Can't say why I did things like that. I surely wasn't an intentional headbanger or any kind of revolutionary. When I walked in that door it was with the intention of spending the day. Wasn't out to make waves or taunt the Man. Then my mind chain went, "Maybe I can. I can. I'm gone (kind of a picayune vein, vidi, vici)". Mostly, I walked out that door without fully weighing the consequences. Over the years I did that kind of thing a lot. Wore my honor on my sleeve, spoke what I thought was right to say without plotting it out, chances be damned. Well, once in a while I did give it some forethought.
All that was by-the-by. My real sweat was waitin' for my separation orders to come down. You see, I'd put in for a drop so I could return to school in the Fall. Back in '70 the Army was beginning to wind down, on the road to a professional fighting force, gettin' rid of the pot head draftees. Since the war was bein' scaled back there wasn't as much need for cannon fodder, so they were shuckin' off bodies. The Army was lookin' to its future and didn't see the possibility of ever again doin' something as stupid as Vietnam. Until the first Iraq war that is. Or maybe the second one or that crap in Afghanistan.
Anyhow, they were offering early outs to GIs who wanted to pursue a higher education. Up to ninety days early out if the numbers lined up. Me, I was shootin' for about sixty but didn't hear a word until about ten days before my hoped for date. Took me over twenty years to stop dreamin' about waiting for those orders. Dreams bein' what they are, were tryin' to tell me something. Mostly that I was screwed up and waitin' for the Blue Fairy to make my future all super fantastic. It took that long for me to wake up and realize that fairy wasn't there, hidin' behind the drapes, gettin' ready to pop out at any moment and give me a bag of money. But one day those dreams stopped comin'. Might have been last Thursday.
The moment the orders came down I turned into a typical short-timer. Made fartin' noises and wise cracks durin' the Desk Sergeant's pre-shift meetings. Was told I just didn't have no respect. But I didn't care. When those papers were handed to me I had five days of duty left.
About then I moved back to the barracks 'cause the lease on our apartment was up and Lois had gone back to the world she'd been happy to leave. Honestly, the possibility of staying in Hawaii to finish college just never entered my head. Seems we all have a picture up between the ears of how our life is going to be. Then we work our tails off to make it happen just like the picture. Happy, happy, change the world, they're gonna write songs about me and all my wonderfulness, that kind of picture. Somehow it doesn't work out that way. Not that it should.
I always go back in my mind to rememberin' the story by Mark Twain about the guy who shows up at the Pearly Gate and asks St. Peter who the two greatest writers of all time were. St. Peter, he says Shakespeare and some man in Kentucky who never published a word. I figure that story wasn't so much about writers as it was about life in general. Just 'cause no one ever heard of you doesn't mean you didn't have a fine life. How that fits in with the picture in my head escapes me at the moment. But I did have that picture and it was all about going back to Minnesota. No palm trees in it at all. Such is life.
Back at the barracks, I wandered around for my allotted five days to process out of the 25th Infantry Division. No idea why it took five days except for having to get signatures on forms at a dozen locations that I had no idea existed. The walking around finding the places took about two hours each day. The rest was playing pinball on a machine with grooves worn in it and killin' time in general. Serious waste of time like most of my year and ten months.
My last claim to fame was havin' a talk with the Man, the Company Commander. We'd never met before. Never even seen each other. The point of the talk was a re-up pep talk. Why not? I already had the clothes and knew to start marchin' left foot first.
His job was to tell me what a fine upstandin' young man I was and how much the Army needed men like me and how I was on the threshold of a career with a wonderful retirement and the buckets of money the Army'd give me just to stay for another three years.
Well, I knocked and entered. Snapped to attention and fired off one fine salute. You know, total fake, I don't want no trouble, let's get this over as painlessly as possible, strack soldier routine.
He commenced to givin' his spiel about tough times on the outside, high unemployment and all that happy shit. While he's givin' his talk he's also glancin' at my personnel file, what little of it there is, sees I've been in Vietnam as a grunt, am still an 11Bravo (grunt) with a re-up bonus max of a thousand dollars, been busted to PFC, am married and half done with college. His voice trails off mid-sentence. Looks up and more or less says, "See yah dude. Have a nice life on the outside." I couldn't blame the man. He was smart enough to know his words were a waste of time.
I said me a "Thank you sir," fired off another class A salute and was outta there and on my way back to Oakland Army Base come the morning.
On the day I returned to sign in from leave, there on the bulletin board, big as could be, sat my name on the list of troops to be given a three day pass. Soon as I signed in, I signed out. Only problem was the pass list was pure fiction. The Field MP Platoon was runnin' short handed and had been for a few months. Not enough warm bodies in the group to cover all the jobs assigned. No one was gettin' time off unless it was for accrued leave. Working six weeks without a day off was the way she was. But not on paper.
Army Regs said every man-jack had to be given time off on a regular basis. Every week when the schedule was drawn up, so was the rotating pass list that showed we were all bein' treated fairly and legally. But we all knew the drill and showed up every morning for duty.
When I signed out on pass the moment I walked in the door, I knew I was flirtin' with fire. And also knew there was nothin' the cadre could do about me walking out the door 'cause if they did their game woulda been up. Stripes torn off and an officer upbraided. But just 'cause I had 'em by the short hairs didn't stop me from sneakin' off at a high rate of speed. Good thing I was early and no one was in the office.
Can't say why I did things like that. I surely wasn't an intentional headbanger or any kind of revolutionary. When I walked in that door it was with the intention of spending the day. Wasn't out to make waves or taunt the Man. Then my mind chain went, "Maybe I can. I can. I'm gone (kind of a picayune vein, vidi, vici)". Mostly, I walked out that door without fully weighing the consequences. Over the years I did that kind of thing a lot. Wore my honor on my sleeve, spoke what I thought was right to say without plotting it out, chances be damned. Well, once in a while I did give it some forethought.
All that was by-the-by. My real sweat was waitin' for my separation orders to come down. You see, I'd put in for a drop so I could return to school in the Fall. Back in '70 the Army was beginning to wind down, on the road to a professional fighting force, gettin' rid of the pot head draftees. Since the war was bein' scaled back there wasn't as much need for cannon fodder, so they were shuckin' off bodies. The Army was lookin' to its future and didn't see the possibility of ever again doin' something as stupid as Vietnam. Until the first Iraq war that is. Or maybe the second one or that crap in Afghanistan.
Anyhow, they were offering early outs to GIs who wanted to pursue a higher education. Up to ninety days early out if the numbers lined up. Me, I was shootin' for about sixty but didn't hear a word until about ten days before my hoped for date. Took me over twenty years to stop dreamin' about waiting for those orders. Dreams bein' what they are, were tryin' to tell me something. Mostly that I was screwed up and waitin' for the Blue Fairy to make my future all super fantastic. It took that long for me to wake up and realize that fairy wasn't there, hidin' behind the drapes, gettin' ready to pop out at any moment and give me a bag of money. But one day those dreams stopped comin'. Might have been last Thursday.
The moment the orders came down I turned into a typical short-timer. Made fartin' noises and wise cracks durin' the Desk Sergeant's pre-shift meetings. Was told I just didn't have no respect. But I didn't care. When those papers were handed to me I had five days of duty left.
About then I moved back to the barracks 'cause the lease on our apartment was up and Lois had gone back to the world she'd been happy to leave. Honestly, the possibility of staying in Hawaii to finish college just never entered my head. Seems we all have a picture up between the ears of how our life is going to be. Then we work our tails off to make it happen just like the picture. Happy, happy, change the world, they're gonna write songs about me and all my wonderfulness, that kind of picture. Somehow it doesn't work out that way. Not that it should.
I always go back in my mind to rememberin' the story by Mark Twain about the guy who shows up at the Pearly Gate and asks St. Peter who the two greatest writers of all time were. St. Peter, he says Shakespeare and some man in Kentucky who never published a word. I figure that story wasn't so much about writers as it was about life in general. Just 'cause no one ever heard of you doesn't mean you didn't have a fine life. How that fits in with the picture in my head escapes me at the moment. But I did have that picture and it was all about going back to Minnesota. No palm trees in it at all. Such is life.
Back at the barracks, I wandered around for my allotted five days to process out of the 25th Infantry Division. No idea why it took five days except for having to get signatures on forms at a dozen locations that I had no idea existed. The walking around finding the places took about two hours each day. The rest was playing pinball on a machine with grooves worn in it and killin' time in general. Serious waste of time like most of my year and ten months.
My last claim to fame was havin' a talk with the Man, the Company Commander. We'd never met before. Never even seen each other. The point of the talk was a re-up pep talk. Why not? I already had the clothes and knew to start marchin' left foot first.
His job was to tell me what a fine upstandin' young man I was and how much the Army needed men like me and how I was on the threshold of a career with a wonderful retirement and the buckets of money the Army'd give me just to stay for another three years.
Well, I knocked and entered. Snapped to attention and fired off one fine salute. You know, total fake, I don't want no trouble, let's get this over as painlessly as possible, strack soldier routine.
He commenced to givin' his spiel about tough times on the outside, high unemployment and all that happy shit. While he's givin' his talk he's also glancin' at my personnel file, what little of it there is, sees I've been in Vietnam as a grunt, am still an 11Bravo (grunt) with a re-up bonus max of a thousand dollars, been busted to PFC, am married and half done with college. His voice trails off mid-sentence. Looks up and more or less says, "See yah dude. Have a nice life on the outside." I couldn't blame the man. He was smart enough to know his words were a waste of time.
I said me a "Thank you sir," fired off another class A salute and was outta there and on my way back to Oakland Army Base come the morning.
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