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.
No comments:
Post a Comment