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?
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