How and Why

     In some ways I was smart. Still am. In others, dumb as a stump. Still am. I've heard consistency is a good thing. Also heard if you don't shake it up a bit once in a while, something will be waiting down the trail for its 10:47 AM snack to come traipsing along. That would be me. Being digested would speed up the composting though it might be painful. Vague though it might be, this is the starting point of this remembrance. So here goes:

     It's May, 1967. Near the end of my second year of college. Good year. Much better than my first that had me thankful for skin teeth. I was still hoofing, hitching and bussing my way around town. No license, no car. Un-American is what I was. Twenty years old and no car? '67 was the Summer of Love. Hippies, Be-ins, free love, anti-war, anti-normal. Yeah, hoofin', hitchin' and busin' fit right in. But, I was no hippie. Wasn't in fact much of anything but confused. Knew where I'd been but had no idea where I was going.
     Then it changed. My brother called and said there was a car for sale at the dealership where he worked. '59 VW, sunroof, custom, metallic gold paint job (lipstick on a pig). Also said I should buy it. So I did. A week later he called and said there was a job open at the same dealership running cars to and from the shop. Good summer job. Of course I still didn't have a license but got plenty of practice for the driver's test in other people's cars. Don't think that'd fly these days.
     The VW opened up my life. Still had no direction but when I chose one, there were wheels under me. American, open road and an automobile. Can't say I saw myself that way but that's the way I was. Somehow I made it through fall quarter okay then dropped out of school for the winter. Too much fun to be had by not hitting the books.
     Long story short, time passed, a little over a year after buying the VW I found myself broke, no college in the immediate future, in love and the relationship going nowhere unless I made a drastic leap to clear up all the deadweight in my life. Lacking a creative choice, I did what any number of short-sighted young men did back then, I volunteered for the draft. Yup, that was a stupid thing to do. Like begging to be put in the infantry and shipped off to Vietnam. 'Course I didn't see it that way. To me it was a liberation. In one fell swoop I solved lots of problems. And maybe created only one, a life and death one. I knew that was a possibility. Knew it so deep I was completely unaware of what I had gone and done. But one thing was for sure, I'd gone and done it.

     So that's the five hundred words or less as to why. What follows is the result:

     Back in 10th grade geometry, Mr. Petrovich - in '62, having a Russian name was a big deal. Cold War times. Commie spies infiltrating the PTA. Motherhood in danger. So his name always caught your ear. Mr. P's Christmas spiel, an effort no doubt to dispel the boring image earned by geometry teachers, was to translate his name back to Russian, Simon Simonovich Petrovich. Then back to English, Sam Samson Peterson. Not exactly side-splitting but it beat the pants off of theorems and postulates - laid a definition on us that's stuck with me for a half century. Simple enough but with a depth that descends as far as you'd care to dig. A point has no dimension, no length, no width. It's there, but it's not. Kinda like my attention span these days. Like a singularity in cosmology. Everything squeezed so tight it's almost not there. One more than infinity. In short, a point is as close to nothing as you can get. And nothing's gotta be plenty for me.
     The geometric point is not the kind I'm working toward but the definition fits perfectly. Life turns on points and you jump off into your future from them. Most of them are too subtle to be noticed. Some are haymakers. Shit hits the fan kind.
     Sigurd Olson wrote of jumping off places in Runes of the North as starting points. Heading into the unknown. He wrote that preparation, though important, didn't cover all possibilities. Water levels, wind, and illness can wreak havoc with any plans. Life is in constant flux. No river is ever the same. Second Cranberry Lake can be a glassed-out joy one way and comber-filled danger the other. Seems a starting point will get you somewhere, but where that somewhere is, is never certain.
     Sittin' at the keyboard in 2011, I can lay out with some accuracy some of the starting and turning points of my life. The luxury of retrospect makes it all seem so obvious and inevitable. Predestination as a constant. Couldn't be any other way. But from the other end, say '68 or '61, looking forward, it looked more like a free-will crap shoot. If you'd told me I'd end up here, at this moment, crow's feet from eye to chin, I'd have accepted that possibility. Or any of a thousand others.
      Possibility sure is a fine word. I like seeing a lot of open doors in front of me. And don't like to close the ones I've passed through. There's an inevitable finality down the road, it's a humdinger and fills all my finality needs in one stop. So I guess, full circle wise, finality and nothing are about the same. At least from my point of view. I'll let you chew on that. Raise your hands when ready to move on.
     Took twenty-one years of turning points for me to reach a dead-end. Stone wall. No way around. That was before I realized every fork in the road has an invisible third path. Most times when you don't know which way to turn it's because both directions are wrong. The third choice, the right one, comes by way of inspiration. Like your life wants you to head in an altogether new direction. Dump the old path. Clear the slate. At least that's how I see it from forty-three years in the future. Maybe I had those same eyes back then. Hidden deep. Powerful, unseen hand deep. Something like we're our own time machine. We can feel the future and see the past. Like where we'll end up is there waiting for us and shaping our flow so we get there on time.
     So there was a third way. The draft was an inevitability. My immediate future had nothing going for it. What the hell, why not? Be done with it. Headed for the closest recruiting office. Seeing as how I wasn't interested in a three year enlistment, they directed me to my local draft board. Land of the Living Dead. Now those were some seriously old dudes. Like walking into a nursing home that had the power of life and death over young whippersnappers like me. They were licking their chops when I walked through that door. Fresh meat. One of 'em shot in a fresh layer of Polident so his false teeth wouldn't come loose when he set to gnawing my bones. I was the best thing they'd had to eat all week. Walked out a volunteered man. A dedicated man. Took a while before it really sunk in as to what I was now dedicated for.
     Two weeks passed. The President of the United States sent me greetings. Nice of him to do so seeing as how he was a sitting duck. He headed back to the ranch two months before I headed to the tropics. Thanks Lyndon! A month later, after a fine going away party thrown by my mom on Sunday, Lois drove me to a six a.m. Monday meeting at the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis. That building still gives me the heebie-jeebies. There they gave me a free Bible, safety razor, looked up my ass in hope of finding enlightenment and said I was now their man for the next two years. I was beginning to have my doubts as to the wisdom of what I'd gone and done. Scared down to my shoes.
     An entry or two ago I brought up the story of how Zilch got his name. Lord knows what his real name was. No doubt something normal. He was a little guy. Not easy to notice even in the small crowd of Minnesota's finest in the oath-taking room. But on the bus ride to the airport he stood out like the Star of Bethlehem. Seeing as how it's almost Christmas that seasonal analogy popped up in my brain like, well, kind of like the Star of Bethlehem. While we rumbled through downtown in a school bus, little old Zilch hung his whole body out the window, shaggy long hair flapping in the breeze. And proceeded to yell at every passer-by. Called them all zilches, and accompanied each zilch with a creative modifier. Didn't know there were that many different kind of zilches in the world. And what he claimed he'd do to a grey-haired lady I don't care to remember. Seemed Zilch was missing his calling in life. He'd have made a fine shepherd. Would never have suffered a lonely night. Or day for that matter.
     Now Zilch was not a handsome man. Not even close. You'd have thought his scraggily hair wasn't doing him any favors in the looks department. I know I did. But a couple of days later when we all got our head shaving and walked around for the next couple of hours stroking our skulls, the reason for his long hair became apparent. My, oh my. Some things are better off partially hidden. Don't know what ever happened to him. If he died in Vietnam, they must have used his real name on that wall in Washington D.C. Not a zilch to be found there. I don't mean to be doin' the man any wrong with this memory. What I wrote is hand-in-glove with the truth. Gotta give him credit. Took our minds off where we were heading for a few minutes.
     S'pose I should warn the few of you out there who read this gibberish that my side ramble may go on for a while. So if you want to move onto better things, go for it. Mostly I do this 'cause I like to write. And, since I'm retired, having the time's no problem. You write about what you know and seeing as how I'm too lazy to do a bunch of research, I've got me to write about. As for my time in the Army, having forty plus years of separation sheds a lot of light on the joke that it was. No one knows for sure how many people died laughing in the fiasco that was Vietnam. But it was a lot. Funny war indeed.
     Should also warn you that in the middle of all that humor, I was miserable most of the time. Seems a shame to have had the opportunity to go hiking in Asia free of charge and then stumbled around wanting to be elsewhere. Didn't take the time to smell the napalm and burning shit. Poor me. And to think, we even got clean clothes and cheap, canned beer when we were in on stand-down. So, looking back on it, I think I'll lean on the lighter side of war. As to the misery part, if you ain't been there, you probably don't much give a damn anyhow. Such is life. I didn't much give a damn myself until I voluntarily stuck my head in the wringer.
     Got my first airplane ride that day, October 28, 1968. And it was on a jet. Zoomed all the way to St. Louis. To show you how dumb the Army was back then, I was put in charge of the group. Have no idea why. Maybe because I wore glasses. In the world of the Army that made me an intellectual. Guess I looked like someone who'd wrecked his eyes by reading serious literature. The kind that has no three page centerfold. They were willing to judge me by my cover. Also, I already knew all about being in charge of a bunch of civilian clothed inductees. Both read the book and seen the movie, No Time for Sergeants. Held onto the folder of induction papers and kept my mouth shut. Didn't mess with anyone. Didn't call anybody a plowboy. Didn't want to get in trouble with nobody. Covered my ass.
     In St. Louis, we began a process that set the tone for air transport in the Army. The smaller the craft, the more miserable the destination. The one we hopped aboard in St. Louis had propellers. That was fine with me. I was in no hurry to get anywhere. If it took two years getting to Fort Campbell, I could turn right around and head home, my hitch done. Yee-hah! 'Course I wouldn't be able to brag about how I helped save the world from the Red Peril or attend military reunions and get stinking drunk while bragging about how we all helped save the world from the Red Peril. But seeing as how I avoid that kind of stuff anyhow, I wouldn't have missed a thing.
     Might have been around 2:30 in the morning when we landed and got on a bus, this one not orange, for the home of the 101st Airborne. Screaming Eagles. Didn't know that at the time. And like I said earlier, I didn't care. Knew we were going somewhere and when we arrived, that's where we'd be. The driver was a PFC who had an attitude problem. And a damn fine job. Coulda been up in the Au Shau Valley near the DMZ , out on an ambush and hoping to not pee his pants should anyone come down the trail. Seemed his function in military life was to cut all the right hand turns as tight as possible so as to hit the stop signs with his side mirror. And let out a whoop when he did. Gotta hand it to the guy. He definitely had a skill. And with a little luck, he's still behind the wheel in some great metropolitan area, terrorizing immigrants and the poor.
     It's after 3:00 when we're delivered to an ancient clapboard-sided building. There we were greeted by an eleven-year-old corporal and told to find a seat at any of the school desks scattered about. That was followed by a passing out of forms and pencils. The man knew for a fact that we'd screw the process up no matter how loud he yelled. But he went ahead and yelled anyway. And just to show him he was right, we did our best to do everything he told us not to. At 3:15 in the morning, what we didn't mess up accidentally, we messed up on purpose. He also knew from past experience that at least a third of the pencils would disappear. Recovery would require a full body search including every cavity. Not on his list of things to do in the dark. Even though the government paid its usual cost plus seven thousand percent for each pencil, the corporal figured it wasn't his problem. In truth about the only thing of necessity was for us to put down our last name first, first name last, and middle initial somewhere on the form. So they had a list of who'd showed up. They knew for a fact we weren't going anywhere except to Vietnam or the stockade. The choice was ours from the moment we got on the bus in Minneapolis. Some choice, eh? One down and seven hundred, twenty-nine to go.
     Once all the forms were handed in, we were herded off to an abandoned barracks. Now, the barracks at Fort Campbell were some seriously old buildings. Read somewhere they'd been built in a hurry to accommodate the flood of GI's in WWII. Temporary was what they called them. Might have been the driest wood in the western hemisphere. Burn to the ground in a heartbeat. At 4 a.m. we weren't complaining. Unfolded the thin mattresses, grabbed a blanket, flicked off a couple of dead cockroaches and it was beddie-bye time in Kentucky.
     The bunks were double-deckers. Me and a bulldog built guy ended up at the same rack. I took one look at fat boy, exhaled a pitying sigh, said I'd take the top bunk. Gotta tell you, I was a saint. Fat boy shook his head no. Who was I to argue? Moved to the side so's he wouldn't crush my sorry ass should he gain some height. Well, he commenced to grabbin' the frame like it was his intention to fold the whole shebang up. Bring the mountain to Mohammed. Most everybody turned to look when the building shook as he clambered up. Turned out Denny was a power lifter. Wasn't so much a fat boy as a bulky boy. Also Minnesota push-up champ. Spent most of his time in Basic Training whinin' about not gettin' enough exercise. Finally the Drill Sergeants took pity on the man. Let him go to the gym for an hour after the training day.
     Sun rose in the morning as we began our slow descent into military life. For uniforms we were given olive-drab baseball hats to go with our single set of civilian clothes. Crumpled, beat-up, broken-visored caps, perfect wear for bozos like us. All of those caps seemed way too small till we were taken to the barbers where we got our first military head shaving. Razor set to an eighth of an inch. Twelve passes over the skull. Couldn't help but lovingly stroke your head when you walked out. Twenty seconds plus a buck and a quarter sure made my head feel closer to my hand. Kinda good actually. Rub, rub, rub.
      Followed that with three days of testin', inspectin', uniformin', and injection. One line to another. Raggedy marching from stop to stop. Once in a while we'd pass by a training company marching just like in the movies. Singing chants about wanting to kill Viet Cong. Figured for sure we'd end up looking like those boys in a few weeks. Precise and all. Didn't know so much that I wanted to kill anybody or go anywhere the killing was going on. Killing just never sounded all that healthy to me. But sure wanted to look as fancy paradin' down the street learnin' our lefts from our rights.
     The injections were something else. We were all men. That is if being at least eighteen made us men. Wasn't gonna let no needle in the arm get a whimper out of us. Plus the Army didn't use needles anymore. Fired the stuff in us with air guns. Piece of cake. But the sight of blood running down each and every arm did set me to thinking that the medics doing the injecting were a bunch of sadistic sons-a-bitches. Also had the ability to blow the cap off your head by cracking open an ammonia ampule under your nose. I can personally vouch for that. Never did that again.
     Somewhere along the way we took a battery of tests. Must have been at least a half dozen of them. There was one called a Personality Profile Evaluation. This was where my time in the Boundary Waters got me in serious trouble. Gimme a break. Can't help it that I had a good time up there. I didn't know what the hell they were driving at. I was just a dumb, inexperienced fool who figured the government and every branch of it was on my side. On everybody's side. We elected them and they were doin' the best danged job they could. So when they asked me questions like:
     Do you like the outdoors?
     Ain't camping great?
     How'd you like to take long hikes through the jungle with a shitload of weight on your back?
     Them Commies sure are an evil bunch of sumnabucks, ain't they?
     I answered them all truthfully, to the best of my ability, in total ignorance and complete stupidity. Truth was, I shoulda seen where they were goin' and where they wanted me to be goin'.
     About the last hour of the last day of processing, we all got a talk with The Man. The Man had two gold bars on each shoulder. About four rows of ribbons on his chest, crease in his pants that could slice bread and the voice of a man who could sell you a four door Rambler and make you thank him. Seems he functioned as a direction changer. Took two year draftees and turned 'em into three year future lifers. And he had a powerful argument helping him out. I didn't know all this till I was shown into the man's office. He smiled all fatherly at me and commenced,
     "Have a seat son. No need to get formal with me. I'm here to help you out. Set you straight. Maybe even save your life. Let's see. Looks like you broke the Post record for the Infantry test. Damn, I've never seen a score anywhere near that high. You're a regular Einstein of future grunts. Now, you know what a grunt is, don't you son? A score like that and I could probably send you right off to Vietnam. Don't hardly need any training at all. But the law - damned law - says we can't do that. It's a natural born shame too. Half a dozen killers like you and we'd have those Reds on the run inside a week. 
     Tell you what. Gotta be honest. Someone of your high minded patriotism's bound to get his ass shot off sooner or later. And your mom sure ain't gonna like you comin' home in a body bag. Mothers, God bless 'em, just don't take to their kids being killed in a shit hole like Vietnam.
     So here's the deal. I discharge you right now. And you're a free man. So long as you immediately enlist for three years as a Regular Army hero. Let you sign up for some other specialty besides infantry. We'll train you. Give you a skill that'll stand you in good stead should you ever re-enter civilian life."
     Then he pulled out a brochure listing all the specialties I could sign up for. Right off, my eye landed on The Pershing Missile School. We were still in the Space Age. I was hip to that. "Where do I sign, Cap'n? I been into rockets since Sputnik I." Guess he'd been through this drill before. "No can do kid, you're color blind. Says so right on your physical. Gotta be able to tell red from green so's you push the right button."
     Damnation! From the fun of rockets I sank a couple of steps down the ladder toward practical, the Electronics School. "I'd like to help ya son but that one's all full up. Been full up since that sampan tried to ram one of our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Dumb-ass gooks didn't know what they were lettin' themselves in for. Think about it boy. If a body has half a brain they'll grab onto all the pretty straws first off. Most everything's full up. Ain't nothin' left but Quartermaster and Infantry."
     I ask him what Quartermaster be. He says, "Supply. You know, handin' out stuff like guns and underwear." That sure had no appeal for me. Already dealt with those jerks for the last three days. So I'm stuck between stayin' as I am, infantry, Vietnam and two years. Or infantry, Vietnam and three years. Somehow, an extra year for the same crap didn't seem to make much sense to my way of thinking. So I kindly thanked the Man and silently wished I had the guts to tell him to stuff this whole Army business up his ass. But didn't think it'll all fit up there and quietly walked out the door.
     Now here's the rub. Irony with a capital I. Over the two years I came to discover that the Army travels on its irony. Travel on medals and stomachs once in a while but irony, all but every other Thursday. In Vietnam I came to meet up with a couple of GI's who signed up for Quartermaster. Only they were turned into grunts in the field just like me. Seems they didn't read the fine print before they signed. Oh, they were gonna get their underwear training alright. But not till after they survived a foot tour in The Nam. Hoo-hah! 'Course, if they got themselves killed or maimed the only training they could hope for was re-hab. Gotta love that.
     Four days passed and we found ourselves in something resembling a company formation. In baggy-assed uniforms sittin' on brand new stuffed-to-the-gills, duffel bags, scared looking faces, going somewhere that we intuitively knew wasn't gonna be anything close to fun. End of the road for processing. Waiting for busses taking us to our next eight weeks. Myself, I wasn't thinking one bit about ending up in Vietnam. Wasn't actually thinking about anything but wanting to be somewhere else, anywhere else but where we were going. Inevitably the busses came. And we got on board like good little boys, just like our mommies and daddies taught us.