Book

     This site now appears in book form, available as Draftee: A Buffoon in Vietnam. 

Buffoon

     April 6 marked fifty years since the Easter Sunday I left for Vietnam. Time flies.

Experts, One and All

     It snowed a lot in January and then continued on into February. Forty-nine inches of white was a January record as I recall. Down in the main fort the snow melted near as quick as it hit the ground. Not so much in the back country. There it piled up and was pretty as could be. The cold made eating in the field a rush to finish while whatever the stuff that came to us from the mess hall was still warm. However, gobbling it down was a danger. Cut the roof of my mouth on a piece of crispy liver. Yup, that was some crispy all right.

     The day we learned to operate and fire the LAW was a lesson in how quick hands could go numb at a humid ten above. Figured it at about forty-five seconds, give or take. Would've been nice if the cold had made our ears numb also.

     We were hepped up to fire that little, cardboard, rocket launchin' baby. Damnation, it was like a little bazooka and we all knew about bazookas. The name was cool and every set of the green, toy, plastic soldiers had more than a few tiny GI Joe's with one of those tubes perched atop a shoulder. Plus we'd all seen the war movies. Yup, we were excited. Sat there in the bleachers while the Sergeant up front droned on and on about how to set it up, aim and squeeze the trigger. Then blithered on and explained in detail all the bad things that could happen should you be in line of the back blast or set it off while peering down the tube. Blah, blah blah.

     A volunteer was called for. A hundred, forty-two hands shot up (would've been two more but they were on sick call. Unlucky bastards). One was chosen and he strutted down from the bleachers and up to the man. There was shown how to squeeze the trigger and use the aiming sight. Then was directed to an all blown to hell tank about a quarter mile away. You could see the strain on the man's face as he bore down on the trigger with all his might. Then it fired. Holy-crapamundo was it loud! Like a stick of dynamite being being lit off on his shoulder. Surprised me his head was still hitched on when that baby launched. Then there was the rocket, floating slow motion toward the tank; first and only projectile I ever saw move through the air (couple of months later we became familiar with the shower of red and green tracers greeting us in an ambush but we only saw the trail of light, not the bullet). Lucky sucker actually hit the tank, where we were told it would knock a hole in the side, fire ball bearings through the opening then bounce around inside at high speed till they were stopped by something soft like a teddy bear or an eyeball.
     Of course we all got to fire one. Don't know what they cost back then but nothing the government bought was cheap, so us boys in green no doubt ran up quite a tab for our hour's play. Seemed like everyone hit the tank, even me. I looked real close, figuring there must be a wire or something guiding the rocket but saw nothing. To that point, it was the finest show of sharp shooting I'd ever seen. But there was an even better moment a week later.
     Over the weeks we fired pretty much everything the Army had to offer a grunt, grenade launcher, thirty caliber machine gun and finally, the fifty caliber. All I have to say about the fifty is the Army didn't make good enough ear plugs. I was deaf for two days and still can't hear worth a damn.
     Finally came the day we fired for record with the M16. We did ourselves proud and set a post, Army, Western Hemisphere, world and solar system record. Came real close to the galaxy record but fell one target short of a company from somewhere in the bowl of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor for you nit pickers). Truth is I can't say how good we actually were. You'll see what I mean.
     The range was uphill a dozen or so miles from the main fort. Right up there where winter reigned in all its majestic whiteness. Once off the bus and into the bleachers, our weapons squeaky clean and oiled to the gills, the sergeant in charge let us know the company that was supposed to arrive and individually mark our scores, couldn't make it. The man said it had to do with the weather. My thought was, "we'd made it, why couldn't they?" Made no sense at all.
     Next, the man let us know that about half the pop-up targets were buried under a couple of feet of snow and would stay that way no matter what he did. Then added we'd have to score ourselves,
"There will be no cheating! I repeat, no cheating! You'll just have to figure out what to do when there's nothing to shoot at! Also, the maximum score is one hundred and eight, I repeat, one hundred and eight! No one, but no one will score more than one hundred and eight!! Understood!!!"
     Yeah, we understood all right. Understood how good that Expert's badge would look on our dress uniforms.
     As I recall, three of our self-scored marksmen did in fact score higher than one hundred and eight. That was to offset those of us who barely broke one oh five. From what I learned later on in combat, how good you could shoot didn't matter a whole lot when you were firing at someone you couldn't see. So maybe those pop-up targets that didn't pop up made a lot of sense. 

Letters

     Mail call was a big deal. Letters from home were treasured and read many times. The written word was the only way to keep in contact with those who cared enough to take a few minutes to put their thoughts on paper. I can still recall the people who posted me an envelope now and then. My mother wrote every month. Each came as a pleasant surprise. When I read them my mental voice took on her tones and my memories painted in her face. Not so much the others who took the time. There weren't many of them. Probably no more than three or four.
     Then there was Lois. Can't say that she wrote every day but she might have. Not always much to say but I didn't care. Her words conjured her image. Started a mental conversation that found its way through ink, paper and the mail back to her. In the Army our mail wasn't a regular, everyday stream. Not sure why but when there are two government agencies between people, like the U.S. mail and Army, unexplained things happen. 'Bout all you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on. Some days I'd get nothing. On others, maybe three. Regardless of flow, no one received more mail than me. Thank God for Lois.
     Mid-cycle we found ourselves in the snow and woods of the Rainier foothills, camped out in tents and praising the Lord for Army sleeping bags. Wasn't Minnesota cold at Fort Lewis but ten above'll hunker most any man deep in the protection of down and cotton. As usual, it was Earl and me under those joined shelter halves. Yeah, the Army didn't call them pup tents but that's what they were. No floor, front and back flaps, all held up by a pair of steel-tipped sticks. Earl brought a couple of cans of Sterno to burn with the idea a little fire would warm us up nicely. Can't say that it did but the blue flame sure was pretty. For decoration I brought the Dylan poster that came with his Greatest Hits album. Warmed us up about the same as the Sterno. Might have worked better had we burned the poster.
     I figured the reason behind our four-day bivouac had to do with acclimating us to field life. Of course I was wrong. Had it been a military training exercise you'd have thought no one would've been driven from the field to pull KP. Well, that's what I'd have thought but somehow I found myself on the back of a deuce and a half one dark, four a.m. morning and on the way back to B-4-3. Also wasn't one bit unhappy about it.
     Even in the field we received our mail. The day before my KP, I got a couple of letters from Lois. In one of them was her response to a question I'd asked her several times before induction. She said yes, she'd marry me and added we could hitch up when I was on my pre-Vietnam leave. Instantly turned me into a happy camper. When I told Earl his face formed that squinty-eyed look he always got when he was in the presence of stupidity. Though I explained to him I'd already popped the question and it'd taken Lois a few months to respond, he just didn't see it that way. Kept saying, "Women don't ask men to marry them; men do the asking. You got it all backwards Peters." I didn't care. All I knew was, come morning I was pulling KP and would have access to the pay phone hanging on the pole outside of the mess hall. So that's why I was on the back of a deuce and a half with a smile on my face.
     All I recall from the times I pulled KP was, expect the worst and you won't be disappointed. That and being thankful for the eight o'clock de-greasing shower. Anyhow, ten a.m. found me outside the mess hall with a pocketful of change. Boy was I excited. That lasted no longer than it took for me to dial the phone and Lois to say that she'd had a talk with her father. He was a WWII medic in the recapture of the Philippines and knew the score about combat. Didn't take him long to paint a picture of me in a body bag and her a widow with no more than a few days under her belt as a wife. Maybe a baby also. That was the long and short of it, heavy on the short. Oh well, I still had pots and pans to drown my sorrows in.

Attitude Adjustment

     There were two things going on at the same time in our version of infantry training. Could be we weren't unusual in that regard. There was the level you could see, learning weaponry and walkin' a lot of miles, and on the other side, the things you couldn't. Mostly that was attitude. As in Basic Training we always yelled out our company slogan when taking seats. Not sure where that came from, we knew who we were and no one else gave a damn. Why should they? Outside of a few close relatives and a loved one or two, no one really cared what happened to any of us. Maybe that's just my opinion but it's the only one I've got, so I'll stick with it.
     Anyhow, in Basic the yell was, "Alphagators! The best by test! Grrr!" Not a one of us had any say in writing those words and probably didn't care but we were told to yell them so that's what we did.
Our days in Infantry Training changed that, at least the author part. You could say our take on our new yell reflected a change in attitude, a change the Army seemed to accept though it had several levels of meaning. At first our instructed yell was "B-4-3! Rough and tough! Hard to bluff! We don't mess with no one!" Not grammatically correct but seein' as how we weren't being trained as editors, I doubt it mattered. Next phase a couple of weeks later, the yell evolved into, "B-4-3! Rough and tough! Hard to bluff! We don't really care!" Finally, at the suggestion of an outsider, it became, "B-4-3! Rough and tough! Hard to bluff! We don't give a f***!" Yup, there was something to that last one that spoke to the soul. I figure the Army saw it as an expression of aggression. Maybe. Could also be an expression of depression. Or resignation to our fate.
     Don't know if it was that way with those dog soldiers in WWII, looked to me like they had a cause worth fighting for. As for us, it was different. Darkly different. I can't speak for everyone of us grunts in the making but I was sure sinking into a hole. Not that I gave it much conscious thought. I knew where I was going and that place was someplace I didn't want to be. People died there. Were maimed there. And for reasons based on opinion, not fact. So I did what I figured most of us were doing; tried my best to not think about it. Take it one step at a time. As for our company yell, it was about the same as our attitude toward punishment; what're they gonna do, stick us in the infantry and send us to Vietnam? Maybe our fates weren't the worst they could do but it had to be close.
     I recall it being the seventh week of training. Maybe about five in the afternoon of a spring day. Our training company was divided into four platoons, three infantry, one mortar. The mortar boys found themselves at the far end of a long line of tradition, that of being loose cannons with bad attitudes and generally free with their language. Not sure where that came from, out of having to carry heavy chunks of metal and ammo around just for the fun of it. The way I see it, the Army figured them the lowest of the low when it came to talent. Lower than cooks, even lower than us grunts. When shit flowed downhill it was cleaned up by the mortar platoon. Yeah, us grunts had bad attitudes but we were nothing compared with the mortar boys; they'd dragged attitude down into the realm of art. Even poetry.
     We often added chants to our marching. Helped pass the time and keep us in step. Most of those chants were passed onto us from above though we sometimes were allowed to add a word or two. Not always better words but it was nice being included as human beings now and then. So it was that on that afternoon the mortar boys approached the company area with a jingle of their own. A good one, real good one. Brought us grunts to the windows just to bask in the radiance of their words.
     Let me step back one more time. FTA. Those letters meant a lot back then. For us it simply meant F*** The Army. Not that we could or even was physically possible but somehow saying or thinking those words made some of us feel a little better. Not much you can do when you're impotent. We did what we were told but didn't have to be happy about it.
     On the flip side there was some kind of traveling, Hollywood freak show of a carnival headed by Jane Fonda, called Free The Army. Personally I didn't see that happening anytime soon. Though I felt their intentions were good, I found them pretty much as impotent as us boys in green. Also had much less chance of having their shit blown to the winds. To my way of thinking, softening the word F*** to Free was dishonest, fearful and something of an insult to us grunts. Maybe being able to stay at home in the peace of the Hollywood hills just didn't give them attitude enough.
     Back to the mortar platoon. Softening light of sunset behind them. Idyllic scene of repose in the foothills of Mount Rainier. Our heroes striding out in unison, doing their country proud and even more so us teary-eyed grunts at the windows as they called out the Delayed Cadence Count (beginning of course on the left foot as all things in the Army did that involved boots in motion. One word per stride). Sheer poetry.

One, f*** the Army.
Two, f*** the Army.
Three, f*** the Army.
Four, f*** the Army.

One, f***-it,
Two, f***-it,
Three, f***-it,
Four, f***-it.

One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.

F 
T
A

     We heard them through two cycles of the chant. There may have been more. There may have been many more. In my warped, little mind danced visions of the mortar platoon parading through residential neighborhoods and schoolyards, mothers and teachers running in terror, covering the innocent ears of children in hopes they not hear such vile language. Yeah, such thoughts made my grin even wider.
     Once in the company area they were met by one of our drill sergeants. As though that mattered to our heroes. We rarely saw our Drill Sergeants. We were guided to the field by trainee squad leaders and shake 'n bake sergeants (seemed a lot of buck sergeants were being picked off in Vietnam so the Army came up with a six-week school to transform trainees into leaders of men). There he yelled for all to hear (in what we thought of as a Philippino accent),
     "No one f*** with the Army in two hundred years, you not be the first!"
     That was about it for punishment. What could they do to them, stick 'em in the mortar platoon and ship 'em off to Vietnam?

Other People's Money

     Don't recall how it started. Could be due to age though in most ways my gray matter's in good shape though I have to be careful how hard I blow my nose. Got a head cold a few months back and I blew most of Fourth Grade into a strip of toilet paper. What remained told me I'd not lost much of value. A fair amount of my school day back then was spent after class repenting my evil ways. In 1950s parochial school it didn't take much to be evil. The road to hell was paved by my maturing sense of humor or so the ladies in black said.

     Could be it was Earl who led the way down to the bunk at the far end of the barracks. There we formed a group of Saturday afternoon regulars who whiled away the hours with nickels, dimes and a deck of Cincinnati made playing cards. Our idea was entertainment and that no one be financially ruined. When you're pullin' down ninety bucks a month ruination doesn't take much. Yup, we kept it simple and innocent till the day Russ spoke up and introduced us to the rite called Guts. Guts added spice to our lives and emptied a few pockets along the way.

     It was a simple game, two cards only and was a cause for a man to look deeply into his soul to see what was there. Most times when the pot grew exponentially, I saw a coward looking back at me. Also a mathematician. Guts was a game suited to a knowledge of odds and a fit Russ' knowledge of numbers just fine. Like I'd said earlier, Russ knew 'em backwards, forwards and upside-down. At least he did till alcohol befuddled his thinking. I took to it like a slug to the bottom side of a garden rock. Maybe not a pleasant image but you get the idea.

     Let's say there are six men in green sitting around the bunk. Me being one of them. Winter sun beaming its way through the window over my right shoulder. We each ante a nickel. The dealer, he be two hands to the counter-clock side of me, shuffles and runs the circle twice, each man gettin' two cards. The rules were simple, straight poker, no flushes, no straights, pair of aces was the best you could hold. I look at my hand of ace, ten. Not great but has potential. For a change my mouth isn't running. Hell, there's money on the green-brown blanket. This is serious business. Not real serious seein' as how the pot's only thirty cents but business nonetheless. First man to the left of the dealer declares his intent; guts if he's in the game, folds if not. He folds. Next man's weighing his options and makes a bold statement, says he's got guts. My turn. I'm thinkin', my ace high with an ten kicker has to my way of thinking, a hair better than an even chance of winning even if my buddy to the right isn't bluffing, plus it's only a thirty cent pot, so I'm in, got guts. On it goes around the blanket. Men weighing chances and declaring. Turns out three of us are in. Also turns out the first man in ain't bluffing and shows a pair of fives. Good hand. Us two losers now have to pay up, match the pot, thirty cents each and now there's sixty cents on the GI wool. Deal passes and we go at it again.

     The beauty and also the devilishness arrives as the pot grows. Most often there's only the thirty cents but at times, thirty grows the sixty, then a buck twenty, two-forty and so on. The higher the pot the more you search your soul. Twice in the training cycle the pot built to over thirty dollars. Ten days pay. That'll get you thinking. I wanted badly to win those pots but both times I spectated. My game was close to the vest, an occasional bluff, rarely won big and even rarer, lost money. Most Saturdays found me five bucks ahead and having had a couple of hours of fun. Long story short, my nine weeks of training expenses were paid for by others. Not great but I had better uses for my pay down the road on leave.

     Earl was a different animal. Mid-way through the cycle he won three hundred dollars in a high stakes game, sent most of it home and bought himself a portable stereo at the PX. Smart man. Over the next few weeks he tried to interest me in joining the big games. He saw the way I played and figured me as a way to another big kill, I saw nothing but loss. Yeah, I was a small potatoes kind've man. Small ponds and lakes have always suited me best. Also figured those with rich tastes probably knew their odds better than us blanket gamblers and would find good uses for my fleece. Come the end of the cycle I had all two month's pay in my wallet and a half-dozen albums to boot. Of them, Earl said nothing when I fired up Dylan. Could be his revenge was wearing me down on the double Ray Charles album he'd been eyeballing at the PX but was beaten to the punch by his bunk mate. Hope he still has it and cherishes my memory each time he slips one of his ill-gotten LPs from its sleeve.

Four

     There were four of us. Sometimes fate throws people together, sometimes adjoining bunks. Can't say we thought alike but we seemed to share bad attitudes. Bad is good. Not a one of us was a reservist or national guardsman in the making. Yup, we all shared where we were going. Russ and Joe were bunk mates like me and Earl. Russ was married and sending every cent home to his wife. Joe was single and with his outlook on life looked like he'd be that way till he died in the old soldier's home. Earl was the son of an mortician in Memphis and the only black man of us four. Me, I was the German/Swede who'd fallen from grace.
     Joe had a French last name filled with silent letters that confused Drill Sergeants no end. Why us English speakers kept all those unsounded letters in imported words remains a mystery to this day (don't get me started on feng shui. Take my word for that). And it pissed Joe off no end that none with stripes even came close. That doesn't seem like all that big a deal till you give it some thought. Should a man have been paying attention while going through high school he'd have no doubt noticed there were a lot of French words mixed in our language. Also might have noticed some names aren't pronounced as they appear. Also might have learned to ask a man he was in charge of his name should it look unpronounceable. Joe took those things under consideration and came to the conclusion he was being led and trained by the incompetent and uncaring. Probably was right about that.
     As for Russ, he was always broke and appeared to be festering beneath the surface. Yeah, he was an unhappy man who saw no future where he was heading. More on him later.
     Earl seemed an outsider to both races on our floor. He saw aspects of white culture that didn't seem all that bad. Saw that the war in Vietnam put us all on the same footing which was mostly underfoot. Top that off with being willing to listen to Bob Dylan and as a result, took a fair amount of grief from the other brothers. Don't know how or why but the two of us hit it off.
     Me, I woke up every morning with my mouth set on high in the quiet of the barracks. Can't say that I was happy but I sure seemed to have a lot to say. I guess no longer being squad leader freed my mouth. One morning Earl took a look at me and said he was glad I wasn't his father. Added I most always had a stern, pissed-off look about me. I'd have checked his words out in a latrine mirror but by then I had a grin on my face 'cause I looked so mean. Me, mean? Ridiculous. Just didn't have that killer mentality. At least I didn't think I did and supposed the next year would let me know.
     Russ was from Minneapolis, and from what his brother told me years later, very intelligent in a calculus kind of way.  But he had his problems, 'specially when it came to being in the Army.  Could've been a case of depression, a fear of going to Vietnam, against the war and somehow was drafted into the infantry.  Whatever the reason I knew him as a quiet man who had the ability to come up with a beer or two at the EM Club most every night even though he had little or no money.  Gettin' tippled on other people's money seemed one of his talents.  Another asset was his affability, easy to like with nary a bad word for anyone.

     We agreed to get together on leave before heading to Vietnam.  And we did.  That afternoon I came to appreciate the man's tolerance for alcohol.  I showed up at his apartment mid-afternoon with a quart of Southern Comfort to go with the beer in his refrigerator.  Russ never said if he liked what I brought 'cause he was too busy puttin' it down to get a word out more than now and then.  We, I s'pose it wasn't a fifty-fifty kind of we, more of seventy-thirty kind of we, polished the bottle off but seein' as how he was still thirsty, Russ suggested we head to a local hangout, a workin' man's bar name of Pearson's, Home of the King-Sized Drink.  While Russ continued with what he seemed to do well, I payed a visit to the men's room.  There my body ejected as much excess alcohol as it could through my mouth and nose; not a pleasant experience even if the floor around the stool had been dry.

     By that time I was ready to head home and sleep for a day or two.  The problem was we'd invited his wife and Lois to meet us after they got off work.  Which they did.  And the three of them had a fine time while I sat in the corner of the booth doing my best to stay awake.
     During our afternoon's drinking and babbling Russ said he wasn't going to Vietnam.  At the time I paid no attention 'cause he was drunk.  Probably would've written it off even if he wasn't.  At one time or another the thought of not going must have passed though most of our consecrated, grunt heads.  My friend David G., who'd done a tour in Vietnam with the Marines, told me on the phone to head straight for Canada when he heard I was in the infantry.
     Also, during AIT, one of the trainees in our company went on a hunger strike for some reason or other.  I don't know if any of us knew exactly why though we suspected he was against taking part in the war.  And considering how bad the food was, we figured it might also be an excuse to not eat in the mess hall.  More or less he was shunned by the whole company even though some of us quietly agreed with him, each in our own way.  His strike went on for a week, then he was gone.  Poof!
     At one time or another the idea of not participating in something that might kill me had also passed through my head, so when Russ said he wasn't going, what could I say?  Probably something stupid like, "Me too."
     But, in the end, I went and Russ didn't.  Didn't find that out for twenty years until a cocktail party conversation with his brother Dennis.  Between those two times an article in the paper had caught my eye.  On a back page story that would've normally have passed by unseen, I saw Russ' name.  He'd died with his daughter in an apartment fire.  That he was living in an apartment at an age when most of us were homeowners got me wondering what road his life had traveled.
     His brother filled me in on the missing years.  Russ had remained AWOL for some time.  Whether the Army caught up with him or he turned himself in, I don't recall.  Regardless, Russ refused to serve in Vietnam, was court marshaled and spent six months in the stockade.  Time up, he still refused to go to Vietnam.  Six months more.  At that point the Army offered to change his MOS to Intelligence but still send him to Vietnam.  Again he refused and ended up finishing his two year hitch in the stockade.  The story as I recall it may not be perfectly correct but is close.
     Of the men I served with, Russ returns to my thoughts more often than any other.  No matter which side of the fence you sit on, it's obvious that the circumstances we faced during the Vietnam war caused many tragedies, Russ' among them.  His name is not on the Wall in Washington and never will be.  But, in my mind, Russ was a casualty of the war.
     Then there was Earl. Like I said before, Earl was black.  And also like I said, I'm a German-Swede  hybrid 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 as to 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 to end up to in 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 misspelling words).  During it we spent five days in the field operating under similar conditions to Vietnam except no one got killed, or maimed, had leeches crawlin' up their backsides and it was about fifty degrees cooler.  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 going to 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 nothing at all.
     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 as a pretend defensive position since Teddy Roosevelt was training 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 and 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 could've 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.
     As usual there were the others. Already mentioned Metcalf. He was sittin' on the other edge of my double-edged sword. Yeah, it had felt good giving up the squad leader job. Still did in most ways. But it did upset me some that Rich was now my boss. That's me all over. Been that way since day one and still am. I don't want to be the Man but whoever is the Man pisses me off no end unless they think just like me. I'd have made a fine hermit. As it was, Metcalf was just like a little puppy in his new role. Not that he peed himself, more that he was innocently enthusiastic. Hard not to get caught up in his idea of fun. Why not? Training was a game. No real bullets flying. I figure Rich knew that. IT was like a Boy Scout jamboree to him and he was out to get every badge in the place.
     Then there was the thunder storm in the upper bunk to my right. Good man till he fell asleep. And he could fall asleep faster than I could get my pillow fluffed just right. When the man dropped off, he was loud enough to loosen nails in the walls and ceiling. Moved bunks across the floor like one of those kid's electric football games moved players by vibration. Wasn't an every night occurrence. Some night's I figured he tossed and turned a bit fretting over all the sleep he was taking from the men around him. Maybe also wondering how many lives'd be lost with him sawing night position logs over in Vietnam.
     I don't take well to snoring and can be a first class prick when I feel my evening's repose is upset. Took it as my duty to shut the man up. Maybe stifle his snores with a firmly held pillow. One night it happened. His window rattling finally set me off. I dropped from my bunk. Soon as my feet touched the linoleum, he stopped. Son's-a-bitch. Climbed back atop my perch. Fluffed the pillow just so. 'Bout the time my sigh of happiness sounded so did the thunder. I dropped from my bunk. Soon as my feet touched the linoleum, he stopped again. I don't recall if I said anything out of frustration but if I did it probably bordered on death threats. More likely crossed the border over to no-man's-land. Then a voice sounded a few bunks away and was immediately joined by several others, all were of the opinion I was a bigger pain in the ass than the snorer. I climbed back atop my perch. Fluffed my pillow and could swear I heard a soft chuckle from the bunk to my left.

   
   
   

A Fool in Charge

     What was the Army thinking when it made me a squad leader? No doubt they could not see inside my head and the spider webs of confusion and consternation that reigned there. Being in a state of constant misery made my sole purpose in life to not add to it. Since my inside wasn't smiling I figured it in my best interest to keep those on the outside as happy as I was able.
     Near as I recall my job had two functions; lead and inspire my men to clean the upstairs latrine to the best of their God-given abilities and when in the field, inspire them with my intelligence and ability to adapt to circumstance. I'll give the latter a go first.
     Since we were training as infantrymen, we were taught many things. Some useful in civilian life, most not. Early on we were instructed in the use of the lensatic compass. Using in much the same way as the sights on a rifle the compass was a sure way to find your way home should you know where you were to begin with and also had an accurate map. Odds were slim that an infantryman would have either if he'd been separated from his unit (and senses).  
     Once instructed we broke up in squads and were given a sheet of paper with both starting point and headings. Our task was to find and write down the numbers on several stakes to be found off in the Washington woods somewhere. And would have proved something of a challenge had we not been able to follow the paths beaten into the soil by thousands of GI boots. Most would call them clues. We fired up the compass at each and every found point and agreed the paths were true. Finally, under the setting sun we stumbled our way out of the undergrowth to report our findings.
     We were third in line as I recall. What caught my ear while waiting was the report of the squad in front of us. They had the first five posts right as rain but missed on the last. Interesting that their findings matched ours to a tee. So I did what any right thinking American boy would do when our turn came. I lied. Changed our last finding even though I knew ours to be right. Didn't matter to me if the Sergeant in charge was wrong. What mattered was being in agreement with the man. Lo and behold being wrong in the right way turned out to be right, more or less. That's what leaders do, say what's necessary to get the boss's approval. There's a lesson in there somewhere and bein' a hypocrite, even in a little way, didn't sit right with me.
     The next moment came the second week and found us in the latrine, a place ripe for change. We were given fifteen minutes to spit shine the room from one end to the other. Not a problem for twelve men. After a few days I'd seen that we were done in ten and spent the last five looking busy. Keeping up appearances and our hands from helping out in the devil's workshop. To me it seemed a waste of effort and all that extra rubbing would wear down the nickel plating and enamel that much faster.
     Bein' a leader I gathered the men around me and let them know my take on the situation, "Men," I said in a commanding tone of voice, "Men, the way I see it, and no doubt you do as well, we can clean this latrine top to bottom and still have five minutes free to do with as we please so long as it doesn't involve messing up the latrine. Are we agreed on that?" Seemed we were and that's what we did.
     I recall it as being the second Tuesday of training that it happened. That's when our acting corporal, still waiting on orders, found us in the break phase of our duties. Even though he was still a private just like us and only wore pretend stripes, he had himself a fit and called me aside. There he asked me just what it was that was goin' on in the john. I understood his concern and explained the logic behind our actions. Somehow he didn't see it the same way as me and said how we were to clean the latrine from that day forward - or - I could just hang up the stripes I didn't have and he'd find someone who would. Have to admit my ire was up and told him finding another man was fine with me. So that's what he did. As it turned out Rich Metcalf was way more into the job than I was. The Army needed far more Metcalfs than they did fools like me. Rich took his job seriously. More on him later. In one way it kind of burned my butt a little that I was no longer in charge. In another it suited me just fine. Story of my life over the next fifteen years.

It Changes

     Yes, leave was good. Yes, I didn't miss the Army one bit. And yes, I felt like an outsider. Didn't help that I was scalped but the problem was deeper, on the other side of my skull. Also it didn't seem like those my age had much use for a soldier on leave. Us soldiers been squeezed out of society. My generation had been split between the going and not going. Shouldn't have been that way but that's the way it was. Half of me had changed, cut free from who I'd been. The other half came later in infantry training and more so in Vietnam.
     Twenty-one days after arriving home, Lois drove me to the airport where I boarded a plane half filled with GIs off to Fort Lewis, Washington and points east. Once again I was joined by my buddy misery and we shared a seat. Misery makes for a poor companion. Takes the fun out of most everything. At its base is loss and fear. And its memory dogs me to this day. I can conjure up that little beast any time I want. Doesn't take much effort as it sits just below the surface. Two years of misery's company sure did wear a wrinkle in my brain and has spawned an attitude that'll never go away. Best I can do is look the other way when it tries to make eye contact.
     It was raining in Seattle when we landed. Rained all the way past Tacoma and into Fort Lewis. Over the next nine weeks the only time it wasn't raining was when the temperatures dropped and it snowed. Once off the bus we were greeted by smiling sergeants holding up placards that read Future Grunts and Other Assorted Scum, This Way. Neatly printed but not a good sign of things to come. We shuffled off to our new homes at B-4-3. Once there I was sifted down to the fourth platoon, then re-sifted upstairs in another white, wooden, fire-trap of a temporary barracks.  There I met Earl Greene who'd been in my basic training company. Seems he remembered my boots, figured I was just the man to polish his and we became friends. A flip of the coin said it was my choice as to top or bottom bunk. Though I thought I preferred the bottom, Earl said I was wrong in my thinking. Being open to the possibility that I might be wrong, I took the upper. Earl smiled, no doubt out of joy that I'd gotten what I'd truly wanted and learned the error of my ways.
     First day in the barracks I was approached by an acting corporal. He'd already finished infantry training and was waiting on orders for NCO School. There he'd become a leader of men and hopefully'd make good decisions in combat so he'd not lead anyone to an early grave. Those things happen. As it was, I'd been chosen 'cause of my wonderful record in basic training to be a trainee squad leader. Immediately my mind traveled back to Williamson and his nightly mourning of his lost fifi bag. I hoped they'd been reunited behind military bars. Also to my trainee squad leader who'd been on guard when my boots'd gone AWOL. Figured to myself, "Damnation, there's no doubt I could do a better job than those two. Maybe also teach the Army the error of its ways and throw that in for free." Quickly I said, "Yowsah. I'm your man." Made my ego feel good. Yup, I had no idea what I was doing.

End and Beginning

     Not much more to say about Basic Training. Seemed more a game to me than reality. Kind of like we learned to play soldier. Learned to take orders, work somewhat as a team, fire an M-14 and dress the same. Maybe there was more to it but if there was I don't recall. No matter what, one thing was for sure, not a man of us was ready to go to war. Guess that came later.
     Finally, there's the legend of Tommy Brown. Can't say he was a legend in anyone's eyes but mine and maybe not a man-jack of the hundred and ninety-two of us in Alpha Company remembers the man but me and Pvt. Brown.
     As I recall, Tommy was a farmer. Also a big man with an accent that said he definitely wasn't from Minnesota. Could be wrong but my mind places him with the men who came from Eastern Tennessee where most every sentence's inflection always rises at the end. Like there's a hint of question left hanging in the air. When my mind speaks southern to me, it always sounds like it's from the western foothills of the Appalachians.
     Two things. When we sat on class, be it indoors or out, smoking was forbidden. As was chewing tobacco. The Army gave us five minutes each hour to satisfy our habits. No more, no less. Tommy wasn't a smoker. No sir, he chewed his nicotine. Memory serves me it was Redman in the green bag with red lettering and a drawing of an Indian on the front.
     My mind conjures this image: We were outdoors sitting in grayed bleachers learning something of vital military import. We'd passed though fifty-five minutes, mostly paid attention and tried our best to not fall asleep. We did good. One thing the Army taught us by example and not word, was no matter how tired we were or how boring our circumstance, wakefulness is important. Come break the Zippos came out, most of us fired up and briefly, we were happy.
     Our return to the bleachers was when the fun began. The Sergeant in charge singled out Tommy as having chewed his way through the previous hour. Not good. As punishment he was ordered to plug in a jumbo chaw, large enough to stretch the pores of his left cheek (that would be the cheek above his jaw line. Even the Army drew the line on taking your 'baccy in suppository form). That done, he was then ordered to not spit during the remainder of the class. Tommy did as told. Though the next hour was no doubt interesting as all get-out, my attention kept returning to the big Tennessee farmer and his dilemma. A man takes his interesting where he can.
     The class done, the Sergeant gave Brown permission to spit. And he did. A small pond's worth about the same color as his name. Followed that with, "Shee-it! Anybody can smoke cigarettes but it takes a man to chew tobacca." That was one of the highlights of my life and says a lot about where I've been and what I've done.
     A week or two later, Tommy Brown left us for the recalcitrant platoon. Last chance before whatever happens to draftees who don't have the makings of a soldier. Before leaving he told us he'd been a farmer before he was inducted and would be one after his time in the Army. Whatever kind of discharge he received was of no consequence to him. Yeah, it was that kind of world back then. We were in a war and not everyone had much interest in being a part of it.
     So, the day came, we cleaned the barracks, then dressed up in our finest, marched to a field, stood at attention and parade rest when told, and listened to a brief speech by our battalion commander. We were done and on leave. By now we'd received our orders as to future assignment. Mine said Fort Lewis, Washington and something about 11b, whatever that was, as did about half the training company. Those in the know said we were off to infantry training. As for me, I didn't care. What mattered was not having to be there for three weeks.

Learning To Be Stupid - V

     I'm a little slow on the uptake. Not surprising to those few who've read my words. And sometimes it's the little things that hold the key to a lot of stupid. Seems at times the world runs on stupid. That it's still in one piece hints there's a guiding hand behind the scenes or we've been on a million year lucky streak.

     The little thing that held the key was the way Alpha Company ran its PT test. For me, that was one end of the stupid. The other was waitin' on us on the backside of the planet.

     Earlier I'd mentioned that Alpha Company most always won the banner as training company of the cycle. And that next door the 3:30 AM, screamin' Drill Sergeant saw it as his God-given duty to change things by way of pain. What I came to learn was the man was wasting his rainbow of spit. Seemed the cadre of Alpha weren't so much better at what they did as they were smarter (or more devious).

     Who won that little ribbon was based on how well each company did on teaching us trainees the art of soldiering. There was the academic side, at least that's what the Army called it, and the physical side. The academic had to do with how well a trainee could follow commands to march, turn and stand. Also how well they could stick a bayonet in a dummy and how many silhouettes they could knock down with an M-14. I recall there being more to it but that's all I remember.

     It was the physical side that showed me the way. We took the PT test twice. Once for practice after about three weeks of training and once at the end of the cycle. The idea being to show the world how much we'd improved. And the more we'd improved, the better we'd been trained. Simple enough. Even made sense to me.

     As I recall, the test had five events: some kind've shuttle run and dodge through a bunch of gates, a man carry of fifty or so yards, low crawl on a canvas, mat-covered slab of concrete, the horizontal ladder we'd come to know and love before every meal, and the mile run. It was the run that lit my bulb.

     We ran every morning before breakfast. Couple of miles give or take. We ran it together in formation. Everyone at the same plodding pace. Can't say I enjoyed it but it sure did make that first cigarette afterward taste good and the smoke I inhaled sealed all the raw spots in my lungs that'd been burnt by fresh air and exertion. As to how good a shape I was in was a mystery.

     The first four events of the test done, we gathered on the track, one platoon at a time. When it was our turn Drill Sergeant Webb gave us a go and off we trotted. Didn't take but a few yards till I moved to the front in fear I'd trip over the plodders in front of me and slowly be pummeled to an early death. Made me wonder about the condition of the army we were sendin' overseas to protect the free world. Also held my effort back for fear that running too fast was somehow immoral or even un-American. Felt like I was crawling but a glance over my shoulder showed the other forty-seven boys in green to be quickly fading to my rear. Wasn't expecting that. Come the end of the first lap there was a solid fifty yards between me and the next man. Webb called out the lap time as being about a minute, thirty-five. Not fast by any means but cigarettes and combat boots go a long way to slowing a man down.

     Next lap, same time and better than a hundred yards of air between me and number two. Also was gaining on the stragglers to the front, and feelin' good. I picked it up a little. Third lap I was passing troops right and left and closing in on the man behind me. By now I knew I had a shot of maxing the run and scoring all hundred points, becoming an unsung hero and so picked it up even more. I recall my time as being around four, thirty-five. A minute and a half would get me the full hundred. Yee-haw, I cranked it out.

     Coming off the last turn, a glance told me second place was near three-quarters of a lap behind. All I wanted to know was, did I make it under six minutes and six seconds? At the line Webb called out, "Seven minutes, ten seconds." What the ...? I turned to Webb and said, "Drill Sergeant, that can't be right," and he gave me a look that said, "You'd best keep your mouth shut if you have a lick of sense." So that's what I did. I didn't know what the man's scheme was but didn't care enough to bring misery my way.

     Of course that's not the end of the story. We took our final PT test with a wind chill of ten below. Post record. Come the mile run the story was the same except two of the trainees from our platoon were missing. Seems they were running with another group. Now, these were boys I could've whupped with one leg tied behind my butt. Half lap or better. As it turned out my time was about ten seconds over max and again had lapped most of the rest of the platoon along the way. But that's not the point of this memory. The point was the two missing men who, as it turned out, had mysteriously gotten better than a minute faster and maxed the run. Could've been possible. More likely there was a ribbon involved and a cooperative hand on the stop watch. So, once again Alpha Company got the ribbon and the Drill Sergeant next door was to be found at the NCO Club scratching his head over a beer. Maybe figured the next cycle wouldn't get any sleep at all.

     So, what does that say? Says to me the Army was making and faking it up as it went along. Writing the story as they wanted it to read. Kind of like the body counts in Vietnam and the everlasting light at the end of the tunnel that never seemed to get any closer. Like all the battles we won and somehow still managed to lose the war. Like sinking in the mire of an unwinnable land war in Asia, dumping lives and money down that rat hole and telling the world we were doing it for all the right reasons.

     'Course that wasn't at the top of my list of things to care about on that day. Number one was going home on leave in a week. Yup, I was a tad short-sighted when it came to my future.

Learning to be Stupid - IV

                                                     Boots

     We walked. 'Course we called it marching as that sounded more military-like. Most times we took the backroads. Even cut across fields, all the while inch-worming behind Drill Sergeant Webb (that's what I recall the man's name as being. Could be I've confused it with the actor Jack Webb seeing as how he was the lead in a movie called The DI. Forgive my brain glitches. They have their reasons. A few decades back I was camped out in a little orange pup tent with my wife Lois and baby girl Anna. Next day was the Paavo Nuurmi Marathon up in Hurley, Wisconsin and I needed my sleep. Sleep doesn't come easy the night before a race. 'Specially when you've been carbohydrate loading and have grown gassier than usual. Anyhow, a storm rolled in that night. Thunderstorm. About ten or twelve feet behind the tent rose a white pine. Hundred footer. Tallest in the area. Moments before she was lit up by a billion volts, my hair stood on end, the gasses in the tent ionized and glowed a pretty blue-green, then she-bang! Anyhow, I figure that was when a bunch of the leads in my brain either shorted or crossed lines. So it's just possible I've misremembered the name. Lois and Annie spent the rest of the night in the car. Women are smarter than men)....
     Drill Sergeant Webb walked like a maniac whose sole function in life was to punish us trainees. Yes sir, the man set a pace. Had the boys up front been born of longer legged stock all might have been fine. But as it was, their stubby little legs couldn't keep up with the long striding Webb. They gave it their best and marched like good little troopers till they started to lag and had to trot to keep up. By the time their lack of pace reached us fourth platooners in the rear it'd turned into dog it a little, run like the wind a little. Inch-worming.
     Down below, where the sole rubber met the road, pounded our boots. Eight buck boots (I know that 'cause I had to buy a pair as replacements. The missing pair still shows up in my dreams. Symbol of not being prepared. More on that later). The Army gave us two pair, free of charge, then told us to keep them in good shape. Alternate them every day. Polish them. Love them. When your future lies as a grunt, your boots are your friends.
     Corporal Myrick liked our boots also and wanted them to live long, productive lives. It was he who told us to alternate our pairs. Even had us dab a spot of white paint on the rear of one pair so's he could tell if we doing as told. Then showed us how to shine them up with Kiwi boot polish and edge dressing. Make our boots look strack. The thing was, we only had to brush shine the boots. Make them glow, not shine. All well and good but in the back of my mind that just didn't seem like enough and knew for certain there had to be more. And the more was known as spit shine. Only I didn't know how to spit shine. I'd heard the words and liked the idea they hinted at. Then set to learning how. I figured someone out of the forty-eight in our barracks must hold the key to knowledge. Clue me in and set me on the path to becoming a Knight of the Spit-shine. And there was. I sat at his foot while he shared his method. Showed me the Way.
     Cotton balls, water, Kiwi and patience. Clean the boots, top to bottom. Scrub them with soap and water if necessary to remove every spot of dirt and grit. Brush shine them just like everyone else. Then begin to work the magic. At first it wasn't but toes and heels. Dab of polish on a cotton ball. Work the polish in with a circular motion till all but the tiniest hint of haze was gone. Then go at it again and again, applying layer after layer of Kiwi like a Japanese lacquer artist prepping a bowl for carving. And kept at it till the grain of the leather had smoothed, filled in with many layers of polish and the surface had transformed into a glassy oneness. Finally, dabbed a fresh cotton ball into clear water and worked off any remnant of haze. Oh me, oh my, I sat transfixed, as though coming out of the depths of meditation. Spit shining and I were made for each other.
     There was a problem. Damn Myrick problem. Didn't matter how pretty my boots, how many coats of Kiwi, come the next training day they were trashed. Our daily low crawl scuffed and killed the shine. Marching through dirt and mud messed 'em up something fierce. And there stood our little corporal checkin' out the boot racks each and every day. Or so I thought. Truth is, no one knew what Myrick did during the daylight hours. Some days we saw him, most days not. Come evenings he was to be found in his room alongside the stairwell. He was ever present in the evening hours, always smiling, always helpful. But did he know or care if we were wearing the right boots?
     By the fifth week I was deep into spit shining. Sunday found me taking my worship with cotton ball in hand. Not all day but for sure a couple of hours. Maybe more. Spit shined one pair from toe to boot top with the purest of intentions they'd not be befouled by earth, wind or fire. A week passed with not a word from Myrick about my transgression. Each night I added layer upon layer. The leather came to reflect light and color. I could see my face in the toe, a smiling, satisfied, knowing face. My boots were beautiful and came to be known throughout the company area. Trainees arrived from other platoons to gaze upon their glory.
     The day of days was nearing. Basic Training crested on the day we pulled guard duty. Earned what we called our bivouac badge. On guard duty we protected America's family jewels from prying, Commie hands. We were told it was an honor and were trained for hours on appropriate guard etiquette. "Halt! Who is there?" If they answered, "A friend!", that's what they were. Should the answer be "A comrade!,"we could shoot to kill. Guard duty was not a time for humor.
     However, what I had in mind was something else. The idea of marching in front of a chain link fence in the middle of the night just so nobody could steal the clutch pedal out of a Jeep held no appeal. And it was my boots that were the key to my game. Seems every trainee guard posting had an honor trainee, the strackest of the strack got to ride along with the Officer of the Day and maybe get a good night's sleep out of the deal. Yup, me and my boots were ridin' up front with the man. No doubt about it. Put a smile on both of my faces as I laid on a few extra coats of Kiwi. Hell, the man might take one look at my boots and discharge me on the spot. Send me home to friends and family where I belonged and laid on two more coats for good luck.
     Turned out there was a hitch. A good hitch but a hitch none the same. Back in the days when I broke the post record on the infantry test I pretty much did the same on the driving one. Confused the Army so much they didn't know where my future laid, on foot or behind the wheel. Anyhow, my score led me to takin' the military driver's test. Now that was some fine test of skill. Took longer to climb in and out of the deuce and a half than to do the drivin' part. Turn the key and fire it up, double-clutch her into reverse, back up two feet, double-clutch her into first, pull back to where I started, turn the key off. Done.
     Never made it to guard inspection. Turned out I was to be a driver and no one ever saw my boots. Pissed my boots off something fierce. Every time my glow in the dark boots saw the OD they started cursin' the man up and down. Told him to do things with himself that'd lead me to a dishonorable discharge and no doubt bring shame on the man for the rest of his life. Had to shush their foul mouthin' before I found my sorry ass in the stockade. The Lieutenant, he gave me a one-eyed look every time I set to shushing, like there might be something wrong with me. Better that than jail was how I saw it.
     As it turned out, driving was a full step up from walking a post. Just me and the OD up front and his job was to stay awake and point direction. That and letting me know it was okay to run the red lights. "Just keep going. You're big and'll be given the right of way." So that's what I did. Don't know whose ass would've been in a wringer had we been stopped by the MPs. Not much of a problem as I learned a year or so later. By two in the morning the all the post MPs had found places to hide and nap. Guess the OD knew that and we bat-out-of-helled it from one end of our route to the other with sack time high on our minds.
     Of course that wasn't the end of this spit shine story. Next to last week of training us Alphagators had a talent show. As I recall, it was the Army's way of turning the other cheek, let us see the human side. "Yeah, we can be nice guys for two hours one evening. Two hours and not one second more. Keep that in mind and don't be gettin' any big ideas we're your buddies."
     Our talent consisted of a four piece rock combo that did one number and three trainees who made fun of our Drill Sergeants. Not a lot of talent but we did get two free beers to lower our expectations. All-in-all we were happy campers. I was also, till we returned to the barracks. There I found my glorious boots had gone AWOL. We'd left a barracks guard but he seemed to know nothing about any missing boots. Didn't have them either. I doubted anyone snuck past him unless it was a someone with stripes who had the power to say, "Keep your mouth shut and we'll see what Peters does."
     Peters gave it a moment's thought and his brain said, "Myrick." Also said, "If it's Myrick and I ask him about it, my Johnson is in danger and my shit's in the wind. Don't know what that danger might be and my Johnson says to keep quiet." So I did the only thing that made sense and punched the wall alongside the bulletin board. About the moment my knuckles joined the wood, the bone between my little finger knuckle and wrist said, "Maybe you shouldn't have ought to have done that." Son's-a-bitch it hurt.
     That's how I found myself the next morning sitting in a chair with a doctor tugging for all he was worth trying to set the bone. X-ray said it was broken. First try had no effect. Nor the second. Seeing as how I'd gone white from the pain we gave it a rest. The man was puzzled and asked me, "You ever break this bone before?"
     "Yes, sir," I said, "but not on a wall. First time was on a floor, it was carpeted though I suppose that doesn't matter a whole lot." On the upside I got six aspirin, free of charge, and was sent back to duty.
                                               
 

   

Learning to be Stupid - III

                                                         Pushups

Learning to be Stupid - II

   
                                                          Starch

     Where was I when I left off five years ago? Seems to me I recall Sgt. Richar standin' there, all snaggily-toothed, with a grin on his snarly, face and barking, "Your future may be better than mine city boy, but your present sucks to high heaven and I'm here to make sure it does."
     Seemed to me from my bottom-of-the ladder perch that Richar and all the DIs were personally responsible for starch being a growth industry back in '68. What with a war on and over two million men in uniform, one look at those boys in the Smokey Bear hats said where all that stiffener was going. Hell, each and every one of the screamers in green had knife-edge, ironing creases in everything they wore. Made you wonder about their drawers and t-shirts. Not that I dwelled on that picture at the time but the thought did cross my mind. All that starch must have chafed them something awful. Wore hair off their bodies. Could be that's what gave them their eternal case of the ass.
     Us trainees were a mobile force. Walked or double-timed everywhere. Yelled when were were told to yell, kept quiet as mice the rest of the time. Spent most of our daylight hours off to and from classes on foot. Can't say I recall them being all that academic. Even had one where they handed out the answer sheet before we took the test. 'Course, the Army being as fair as fair can be, had to have a few flunk the test. Wouldn't've seemed right had everybody passed. Long story short, I flunked. Had to take it again, this time without the cheat sheet. Yeah, I aced it. There's a moral in there somewhere, though it may be an immoral moral. Over the eight weeks we even marched to and from classes where we learned to march. Struck me as odd back then; strikes me that way now.
     But that's the way the Army was in the age of Aquarius. Even more back in the old, old days. The Army's point being gettin' a man used to doin' things that seemed stupid and maybe just a little dangerous just 'cause you were told to do it. Can't be havin' no sass or backtalk when push comes to shove. When the man on the horse says, "I want all you boys to get in a neat line. Be quick about it! Now, look down at your feet. Are your boots polished? Ask yourself, do I have fresh undies on? If you answered no to either of those questions, skedaddle off to your tent and make yourself presentable. The rest of us'll wait right here till you sashay on back."
     Three minutes passed. All was ready. "Attention! Straighten that line up! And you will keep it neat and orderly every step of the way. Listen up! This is the plan! We will assault yonder hill and pave the way for those who follow so they may be victorious. The Rebs at the top are dug in deep and have their field cannons filled to the gills with chain, nails and axe heads. They're aimin' to kill each and everyone of us boys in blue. But we won't let them, will we boys? No sir, five or six of you will only be hideously maimed and it'll be up to you cripples to drag all our glorious dead, or at least as much of what's left of them that you can find, back here so I can get an accurate body count. Now let's go get them Godless Rebs! For Motherhood and Apple Pie! Charge!"
     'Course, our war in the next set of '60s was a whole lot different. At least that's what I was hopin'. Me, I had expectations of comin' home in one, mostly screwed-up, piece. Be honest with you here, I wasn't giving the war in Vietnam much thought during Basic Training. My thoughts traveled no farther than chow and sliding through the day with as few ass chewings as possible. Don't know why I was that way. Could be a part of me knew for a fact where my future stood waiting on me, cigarette dangling from its lower lip, flipping the coin of fate, in no hurry at all 'cause three months down the road we'd be off together to the far east. Short-sighted? You bet.
   

Learning to be Stupid

         They were there waiting for us. A half dozen of them. It was the young snarlers who came to the bus doors, screamin' and foamin' at the mouth. Their flood of foul language slammed us like like a tidal wave. Odd though. There wasn't a four letter word in the bunch. Just that they had a way of spittin' words like maggot or scum bag like they were curses. Gave us a new outlook on foul language. And their words carried meaning. Like all true cussing should. Didn't exactly know what that meaning was but we all got the idea there was no fun in our immediate futures. That it was best to agree with them even if we really didn't.
     Mainly the snarlers wanted us off the buses. Fast. And what we considered fast didn't cut mustard with them. They were giving us our first lesson in never being fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, man enough, no matter what we did.
     Turned out they weren't forest rangers even though they were wearin' hats just like Smokey Bear. Weren't sergeants neither. I got clued into that real quick. All she took was one of the screamers to go nose to nose with a trainee and share a rainbow of saliva wrapped around "I ain't a sergeant you frickin' loser. I AM A DRILL SERGEANT!" Yup, that was a clue alright.
     So there we stood. Four wavy lines of fear, trying to not make eye contact with any of the demons. Trying to be invisible. Praying we'd be overlooked, passed by. All the while knowing someone was going to get singled out and killed, right there in front of us, as an example of what could happen for making a mistake. And the poor bugger not even knowing what the mistake was.
     However, at one point or another during this eternal, hour long introduction to hell, most everyone of us got the nose-to-nose, saliva sprayed description of our low-life selves, our complete uselessness, our failure at being men, our excellent chances of being left to rot and die in some leech-infested swamp. And followed that with a detailed description of what they would do with our girlfriends, wives or fiances now that the ladies finally had a chance to meet a real man, all while we were still in our body bags.
     One of the Drill Sergeants - the one who was married to the blonde lady in the new Mustang. She wasn't exactly old enough to be his mother, unless they met in Texas. You see, he went out of his way one day to point her out and let us know how old she was. Yeah, she was a fine looking woman. My guess was they had the ceremony where they met, in the NCO Club with Jim Beam as best man. But keep in mind I'm a judgmental northern boy who don't know any better - broke the four letter word ban. Couldn't blame him one bit 'cause he'd had two wisdom teeth pulled that morning. Bein' a man among men he probably didn't have any novocaine. Had 'em ripped out with a pair of rusted lineman's pliers. Now he was in a world of hurt and taking his mind off it by being nasty as hell. Only he called it "jumping dead in our shit." Over the next couple of months I heard that phrase a lot. Didn't take but one hearing to pick up its gist. Learned quickly I didn't want anybody messin' with my shit. No sir. Came to be as protective of my shit as the King of Hawaii. Wrote me a mental note: Be careful with my shit. 
     After our Welcome to Your New Home in the Army meeting we were divided up into four equal sized groups, alphabetically by last name. Seemed someone in the office was on the ball. Made me feel a little better there was some civilization nearby. Maybe keep a leash on the pit bulls in the Smokey Bear hats. Then we grabbed our duffles and set off screaming and running to the barracks buildings.
     You remember the buildings? The ones about which it be said if you put flame to both a cigarette and the barracks at the same time it'd be a close race to ash. My bunk was upstairs on the top. Jim Weldon had the bottom bunk as they were double-deckers. Up a flight of stairs, yeah they were wood stairs, don't think the Army had a handle on concrete back in 1940, and through the front door. Straight ahead was another set of stairs. To the left was the latrine. Above the latrine was Corporal Myrick's room. He was one seriously strack troop. Strack being a compliment. He put the spit in shine. Told us how to make a bunk. Arrange our foot and wall lockers, stand at attention, parade rest, where to hide our Johnsons. Mostly his job was keeping us from getting ourselves in a world of hurt. Figured that was because he wanted his life to flow as smoothly as possible. If we screwed up, his Johnson was in trouble. Not sure the pecking order of Johnson and shit. Not even sure what Johnson was. But you didn't want anyone stepping in or on your Johnson. Or your shit. Maybe they were the same?
    Upstairs our home consisted of a double row of bunks. The rows were separated down the middle by holy ground. The only time a Trainee - that's what we were - ever stepped there it was in stocking feet. And with scrub buckets, mops, floor wax and buffing rags in hand. Make that floor as clean and shiny as the Pope's soul. If you walked that linoleum in boots you best have at least three stripes on your sleeve.
     Along the walls were our lockers, olive drab green in color. Everything just so. Underwear folded just so. Socks rolled into perfect little footballs. Shaving brush and cup in just the right spot. Didn't know what the hell that was all about. Didn't anybody use that brush. Someone had a scam going on. But that's the kind of Army we were in. Nothing seemed to make much sense. And top that off with the Drill Sergeants bein' pissed off all the time. I mean all the time.
     At the top of the stairs sat two garbage cans. Didn't know at first what it was that made me uneasy when I first saw them. If I had any hair left on my head it'd been standin' on end when I walked by. Kind of a vortex of unseen power. Took a day or two before I learned the reason. Those cans were the barracks gods. Kinda on the level of a woods nymph. Not a whole lot of power but you didn't want to mess with them.
     So it's a regular kind of training day. Hum-tiddly-um, Winnie-the-Pooh kind. Nothin' special. But somehow a Trainee screws up. Trainees always screw up. Didn't even know he screwed up until he found his ass on the ground with a coupla DI's standin' above him and sprayin' spit all over the place. He be thinkin' it's all history after a minute of misery. But he be wrong. Corporal Myrick comes to pay him a visit after chow. Tells him to get his can of Brasso. Now Brasso is something a regular human being don't have much use for. But a trainee learns it's his best friend. Polishes buttons, belt buckles and gold tooth crowns. Also garbage cans. Like the ones at the top of the stairs. The ones worn smooth and thin after thousands of rubbings. Looked like stainless steel. Glowed in the dark. We all got intimate with those cans over the two months. On our knees, polishing and praying that when we be done Corporal Myrick will smile. Let us go back to our gear and get ready for morning. Happy with that lesser misery.
     The latrine was the closest thing we had to a happy place. Nobody with stripes comes in to actually jump in our shit when they had a spittin' chance. The room was divided in half by a wall. One side for crappin', peein' and shavin' as one big, happy family. You get to know someone real well when you can't hide from what they smell like on the inside. Don't nobody seem to smell good in there.
     The shower was a great place if you liked bein' in the middle of twenty naked men. Singing, tellin' tales and playing the ever popular, grab-ass. Can't tell you what grab-ass was. That's 'cause I don't know. Maybe we did. Best ask my big brother. He used to use those words a lot when talking 'bout his days in the beer Army of mid-50s Germany. Can't say that there was any actual ass grabbing goin' on even there. But who knows? There were a lot of lonely GIs in Germany with time on their hands, maybe also an ass or two, while they waited for the Russians to come storming over the border. Whatever the case, crappin' and being naked with your buddies went a long way towards making us an Army to be feared.
     Once I was assigned to a unit, I had an address. Since I had an address, people could write me letters. But first I had to send them one so's they'd know where I was. The new address was A/5/1, Fort Campbell, KY. With a zip code I've long since forgotten. Over the weeks and months I wrote to Lois nearly every day. That's 'cause we were in love. And she's the one I missed till I hurt something awful. Yup, I was a wimp. I don't want to include those letters. Kinda too personal in an embarrassing way. But I do want to include the one's I sent to others. Maybe they're not exactly how I wrote them. Lucky for me I can write what I want and remember it the way I'd like it to have been. Generally speaking they're the truth.

 Dear Mom,

     I don't know if being in the Army is better or worse than I expected. And ain't even sure what it was I expected. First off we get yelled at a lot. Seems the Drill Sergeants are always mad about something. No matter what we do it seems to be wrong. About the best I can hope for is to not be noticed. You don't get noticed by not screwing up. Guess that's what they're looking for.
     Right now I'm sittin' on my bunk upstairs in the Fourth Platoon barracks of Alpha Company. The cadre tell us we're Alphagators. Can't say for sure if that's intentional or not. From the way the Drill Sergeants talk, it might be a misspelling. I'd ask them but I'm not that stupid.
     On the first day we were set up with Trainee squad and platoon leaders. Kinda like fake sergeants. Seems they chose the guys who said they'd had ROTC. I suspect they intended that ROTC to have been in college. But some of them ain't but eighteen. Maybe they thought the Boy Scouts was the same thing. Anyway, I'm not one of them.
     Bein' young's all well and good but our Trainee Platoon Leader is a full-fledge psycho by the name of  Williamson. He is a throw back to the days of knuckle-draggers who's only use for hands, besides countin' that is, is to beat the living bejeezus out of most anyone who don't think the sun rises and sets out of his backside. Wouldn't be so bad if he was a little guy but he ain't. Six foot five and raw boned. Got a feel about him like he'd have a fine time workin' the rack in hell someday. Rumor has it he blinded a nun who passed between him and his paper bag wrapped bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 while he was layin' in the gutter and tryin' to remember where he'd left his pants.
     I steer clear of him but he do pose a temptation every night. Lays in his bunk after lights out and sets to moanin' about how horny he is. And how good he had it in prison with what he called his Fifi bag. Then go into a detailed description of how to make one. Figure the two of them coulda walked hand-in-hand off into the sunset.
     My temptation is to sneak up on his bunk after he falls asleep and hold a pillow over his face till he stops wiggling. I know I'd just get a whuppin' out of it, so I don't. But the thought gives me some comfort and I fall to sleep with a smile on my face.

Your son,
Mark

PS. His name ain't really Williamson but I figure if he ever sees this letter, that's all she wrote.

     We slept in double decker bunks. The Army had our best interests in mind when they had us in alternating directions. My head above Weldon's feet. Mostly I think the idea was to have our assholes to line up. Don't know why but in the over-all scheme of the way the Army does things, that's the part of the body that matters most. On the other hand, they told us it slowed down the spread of disease. Seemed to make sense. If they wanted our bodies killed, Vietnam called for far less explaining than Kentucky.
     Outside of Williamson most everybody was easy to get along with. 'Bout the only thing most of them seemed to want was to put this Army business behind them. Half of us were from Minnesota. The other from Tennessee. There was a bunch from Memphis and a whole lot of good old boys from the Smokies to the east. The guys from the hills had a way of talking that put you at ease. One of the nicest men I ever met was Elmer who said he was from Maryville. Only he softened the whole word up to Marraville. Then he'd say, "I ain't really from Maryville. Only you probably never heard of where I'm truly from." Truth was I'd never heard of Maryville.
     The best part about our first day was it being a Friday. As nasty as the Drill Sergeants seemed to be, they were probably in a good mood. To them the Army was a job. And like any job, TGIF. They had a whole weekend to rest up so they could be extra mean come Monday.
     Having a weekend right off was a good thing for us also. Time to get used to living in a bedroom with two dozen roommates. Learn that though each is different, we all fart. Couldn't go anywhere. We were confined to the Company area for the first six weeks. That was okay. I had no money and didn't know where to go if I did. The best part was having Corporal Myrick around. He taught us most everything we needed to know about the day to day basics. He was dark, medium tall, a whippet. Had more starch in his fatigues than cloth. They coulda stood by themselves. Wasn't a screamer so when he talked, we listened. From him we learned it was best to give a shit or we'd be in a world of hurt, no doubt give our Company Commander a case of the ass,  or have someone with stripes jump dead on our Johnsons. Good man.
     Growing up in Minnesota, the land of the liberal, I'd learned that the line between religion and government was never crossed. Even our Republicans were Democrats and believed in the separation strongly. So I was looking forward to Sunday and a chance to attend Mass. Army couldn't get me there. Can't say I was ever an out going or devout Catholic. But I never missed Mass. It was meditation time for me. A chance to think things over. Even drag God into the process. So, come Sunday morning, me and about twenty other of the lost hopped on the bus. A chance to sink deep inside and mull things over.
     Well, my Mass attending days lasted about three weeks. Had no problem with the religion part but the priest was another story. Turned out to be a kind of Drill Priest. Apparently our responses during service weren't loud enough. Gave him a case of the ass. He didn't come out and use that word 'cause in the Bible it only refers to donkeys. He did, however, boom out for us to sound off like we were in formation. Meditation didn't seem to fit in. Figuring on an infinite God, that's what the Baltimore Catechism taught us, I went looking elsewhere. And found the Supreme Being in the quiet of the Sunday morning barracks. Everyone pretty much stayed to themselves. Time to read, write letters home, organize your gear at a leisurely pace. Mosey around once in a while, quietly get to know everyone. Kinda more like what Jesus had in mind should He have been stuck in Basic Training during war time. Sundays became my happy place.
     Monday. Screamin' Monday. Hello world, where am I? Boot hits wooden stair. Door creaks open. Hand slaps lights. Rise and shine trainees! Assholes and elbows! Out of your fart sacks and on the street in fifteen minutes! Couldn't shake the cobwebs outta my head. Stumbled around thinkin' about assholes and elbows. Nothin' to be thinkin' about when there's a bunk to be made and uniform to put on. Move fast boy. No sooner do I grab my Johnson and put it in my pocket than that voice downstairs starts screamin' again. And twenty-four bodies trot down the stairs. Seems the Army ain't interested in stair trottin'. Flyin' is more their speed and they let us know. But for the moment they've got other fish for us to fry. Set us off to the main road, hang a right and go a couple of blocks to a big field where we do our morning two mile double time. Some of the boys try to drop out. Bad move. Coupla D.I.s pay them a visit and encourage them to rejoin us. Help 'em on their way with a spit-shined boot to the hind quarters. When they start flaggin' again it's up to us to drag them along. Make our lives miserable and build teamwork. More than anything it built an Us against Them attitude.
 

      Memory of those days is waning. My crutch is a memoir written a decade ago. Time flies. Memory rots. Top that off with where I'm sitting. Overlooking Perdido Bay in Alabama. Fourteenth floor. Seventy above in January. Sure not a courier or grunt place to be. Honestly embarrassing.
     Seems like I'm zig-zagging down the center line of a life full of contradictions. What I want is to be on the water. Without salt in it. My mind keeps drifting back to catching bass on a slip bobber rig last October. Late enough in the year to be surrounded by bare hardwoods and miles of silence so profound I could here the chattering of squirrels a half mile away. A pleasure. Even catching bass on a lake where they have a love of sacrifice was a hoot. But the best was being alone with my thoughts. A planet for them to roam uninterrupted. Letting my mind run free is what I do best. Start it up one direction then she runs off where she wants. Where she needs. Unseen hand in action. When I break free of the reverie there's the million dollar view.
     No need to hurry the day out there on the water. Goes fast enough on its own. Seems like no day is long enough. Always more to do. Always more time to waste.
     What happens after death is beyond my ken. There's a bucket full of theories on that. Some even say they know. But I kind of doubt that. As to knowledge of what's going on, in and beyond this universe, we don't know squat. Probably never will. But if I had my druthers after I bite the big one, sitting on a lake, all by myself, surrounded by the life of the northwoods and catching a fat largemouth once in a while, wouldn't be a bad place to spend eternity. Sure beats the hell outta layin' in a box with worms eatin' your innards. Like that's avoidable. Whatever it turns out to be, should be interesting. Or nada.


     'Course over the weeks our marching to and from the morning run got a lot better. We even began to look like real soldiers. But that gettin' up at 4 a.m. never got easy. After a week of it, wake up time became a part of me. Eyes would pop open. I'd say a little prayer, "Dear Lord please let it be no later than one. I need the sleep. How am I gonna kill Vietcong if I'm tired all the time?" But it'd always be 3:59:59 and then the boot would hit the stair.
     Guess we were lucky. Lights out was 8 p.m. The Army wanted us to get our eight hours sleep. Next door it was another story. Seems Alpha Company always won the ribbon as the best training company of our battalion. Cycle after cycle it was always the same. Had so many award ribbons on our guidon it looked like a pom-pon. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe good. Maybe our DI's had friends in high places. Whatever, the Senior Drill Sergeant of Bravo Company didn't much care. Had his boys up at 3:30 every training morning. Screamin' and a yellin' at the top of his lungs. How anyone could be so pissed off that early was beyond me. Look up the phrase "has the ass" in the Lexicon of Military Jargon and no doubt you'll see his picture. Made us feel like a bunch of candy-assed, prima donnas sleepin' to four o'clock.
     After the morning trot it was fall back into the barracks, clean it up and get our shit ready for the training day. All the while knowing there was bacon frying in the mess hall. Could smell it on the march back from the field. Smell it in the barracks. Can even smell it now. I smell bacon, I think Basic Training. Don't eat it much anymore but I'll smell it anytime. Mmm-mmm. Even the bad times have their good times.
     Breakfast in the mess hall wasn't nothin' like eating in a restaurant. Had to get there running and yelling. That's the way we went anywhere when out of the barracks. Runnin' and yellin'. The boys in the Smokey Bear hats liked to know where we were. Didn't want us sneakin' up on them. Scarin' them so's they dropped a load and ruined their fine starch jobs.
     Once at the mess hall it was an up and down the horizontal ladder. Couldn't get in line till you made it both ways. Then it was get in line time. Stand at parade rest. Total silence. Like monks. Unless you were a fat boy. Now I mean no disrespect toward the fat boys. Compared to the fat boys in the today's world, ours weren't but sightly oversized. But the Army didn't like any kind of fat boys back then. It was their joy to get them on the slant board to the side of the horizontal ladder. Doin' sit ups till the Drill Sergeant leaning over them got tired of being mean-mouthed. If they didn't lose weight fast enough they got sent to the fat farm. Not sure what that was like but I figure hunger was a big part.
     The food inside wasn't much as I recall. On the other hand we were so hungry it didn't matter a lot what they did to the food. All I wanted was more. Hungry all the time. Inside, wolfing down food, I had my first piece of corn bread. Creamed, chipped beef on toast. Known for decades as shit on a shingle. Didn't know what it was. Looked like oatmeal to me. Put milk and sugar on it. Never did that again.
     I'm a little worried those few of you who read this will think I'm going off the deep end as far as cursing. But that ain't true. Not calling creamed, chipped beef shit on a shingle would be doing the Army a disservice. Lose a piece of Americana. It's the way it was.
     In defense of the food, the best pork chop I ever ate was at Fort Campbell. Pulled an untouched one off a sergeant's plate rather than throw it in the garbage. Stood at the exit door cleaning trays and savoring that chop.
     The 4th Platoon didn't have a drill Sergeant. Not that we minded. Instead we had Sergeant Richar. He was our bad boy buddy. "Don't call me Drill Sergeant, I work for my money." As to off the wall, he was a case in point. Rumor had him being from Canada. Had a gruff bulldog voice. Not a big man but had a huge ego. God's gift to mankind. Man's man with a tendency toward alcohol and nicotine. Been in the Army for a dozen years and still a buck sergeant. Didn't know if he'd been up and down the rank ladder or just reached his level of incompetence. Liked to point at his Combat Infantryman's Badge and say, "You know what this says? Says I'm a paid killer." 'Course the bulk of us Trainees were a half year from saying the same.
     And that's where these entries are heading. Yeah, we were bozos in basic. Didn't know squat. Takin' it one day at a time. But there wasn't much danger of anyone dying at Fort Campbell. Can't say anybody I met along the way wanted to die. Didn't want to think about it either. The blessing of basic was that combat seemed so far in the future. Too far away to be real. Too far from the lives we'd led to be real. How the heck can war seem real to someone like a baby boomer. We were children. I was 21. Not too far over the average. The subtitle for Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five was The Children's Crusade. Not sure what you'd call Vietnam. On the average we were a year or two younger. Oops, there I go whinin' again. Didn't have to go, so I shouldn't complain.

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.