Military Madness: (3)- Good Cook-Bad Cook

Good Cook-

Bad Cook

Life in the barracks that first week was pretty chaotic, in an organized sort of way.  At Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, everything had its place, of course.  So, on the outside, everything looked neat and tidy, but under the surface, there were a lot of emotions swirling around, and a lot of ungrounded male energy trying to reestablish some sense of order in an otherwise haphazard  universe.

My own universe, anchored in Southern California my whole life, had shifted precipitously in the past few days, expanding its horizons to allow entry to a new parade of personalities, such as I encountered at Fort Leonard Wood.  To answer my own question, posed back in LA while sitting at AFEES, Leonard Wood, the man, achieved fame by earning the Medal of Honor in 1898, while involved in a military campaign against the Native, Geronimo.  Fort Leonard Wood itself was built at the start of WWII and expanded during the Korean War, so many components of the base reflected this era.  The Quonset hut we bunked in the first week was as ancient as it was sturdy.  The rounded design left it impervious to the incessant wind, and the openness of the bay allowed for heat and noise to circulate evenly.

Heat was good, noise mostly not so good.  I was awakened my second night there, shortly after lights out, having dropped off to sleep the second my head hit the pillow, out of shear exhaustion.  Having come in that morning at two AM from Kansas City, my day had been interminably long, and my prospects for the upcoming days, dim.  Being jarred awake by the sound of angry voices was seriously annoying.  I had had little time for social niceties in the previous sixteen chaotic hours, but I had gained a sense of the personalities surrounding me in this forty-man army suite. 

I knew I was in the presence of a more representative cross-section of Los Angeles than the little town of La Puente could provide.  Once we shifted from Reception to Basic, I would find myself in the midst of forty guys who comprised not only eight or so of the original transplants from LA, but representatives from every geographical neck of the American Woods, but for now, I was still with that bus load of fellow-recruits from LA AFEES. 

How surprised was I to note that the voice which had successfully punctured  my dream scape was that of Leon, he of the loud mouth on the bus trip to the airport?  Where was that thai stick when you really needed it?  Whereas I woke up groggy, I was jolted into the present by hearing an unfamiliar voice roar, “What did you say, my friend?” only the words “my friend” were actually not the ones I've written;  they did start with the same initials, but I think I'll stick to the tamer version for purposes of this narrative.

  

Leon held the course.  “I sed, 'yo mama ain't here to protek you.  Wassup?”

“Talkin' 'bout my Mama's wassup.  You don' be sayin' nuthin' 'bout my Mama, o' you be pickin' you teeth out a the gutter, after you pick yo'self up out a that same gutter.  Yo lisnen?”  The speaker was another brother from Central LA who had done nothing to draw any undue interest from me, except to note that he put up a forbidding front.

“I'm lisnen', but I'm jus' sayin' ya couldn't fight yo way out of a ole ladies' home, sorry sack o'...”  The last was muttered loud enough to be heard, but still more to the side for the sake of his captive audience, than for the sake of the angry dude, now confronting him.  That was unfortunate, because as his indignant gaze swung back toward this guy, it met his fist.  Slowly, almost gently, Leon relaxed as he slumped to the floor.  Apparently, Leon had much to learn about what you could say, and what you couldn't.  His lesson came by virtue of the School of Personal Experience, and the rest of us were studiously taking notes.

I have to admit that the part of me that felt bad for Leon, did serious, though brief battle, with the part of me that felt mad at him.  He picked the worst possible time for his personal tutorial on “Life with Strangers.“  

Our bus load of Los Angeles transplants had remained intact, while we went through the initial week of integrating into the fabric of the “Action Army.”  That included being inspected, disrespected, and dejected (but not rejected), as we were measured for properly fitting daily wear, and the more formal dress uniform.  After all, “Developing disciplined, highly physically conditioned” soldiers, who are “drilled in the fundamentals of soldiery, and of special military duties as assigned,” required a locker full of the basic tools of the trade.  To this day, forty years later, I have twenty-one months' correspondence stuffed into a box labeled “Military Headgear,” which I acquired at around the same time we started to acquire mail.

Items in the daily wear category included long woolen underwear, a woolen jacket liner, an inner woolen set of gloves, an outer leather set of gloves which fit over the woolen ones (imperative for “pushing up Missouri”) and a wool-lined cap.  This cap had flaps that extended down and around my chin, in such a manner as to leave only eyes, nose and mouth exposed to the elements.  We kept our caps with us at all times, because it conveniently folded up into one of the large saddle pockets on our field jackets. 

We were only allowed to wear them if we excelled at our given task at the moment.  It was a classic application of the Pavlovian theorem: do well and wear the cap, or slack off and replace it with our olive drab baseball caps.  These left our ears exposed to the bitter winter winds, routinely dropping temperatures from the twenties down to zero, when you added in the wind chill.  In Missouri, affectionately called Little Korea by the old cook, you had to factor in the wind chill nearly every day of the week.  

“Slacking off” frequently meant that someone could not keep up in formation with the rest of the platoon, as we double-timed our way around the expansive FLW grounds.  According to “The Story of Fort Leonard Wood,” in our U.S. Army Training Center Yearbook, while construction of the base was underway, “The mud was terrific-so bad as to give the budding camp nationwide publicity.  But the excavators and the wielders of hammer, trowel and saw surged on in their work.”   I can attest to the fact that any movement around the base involved constant contact with mud.  In a letter home I noted that, “This place is so rotten.  It's either frozen solid or a sea of mud.  Every night we have to scrape off the thick layer of mud which is caked cement-like, onto our boots.  Then saddle-soap, dye, polish and buff them...  Blah!” 

We were popular guys on base that first week.  Little did we know that every officer in charge of any sort of dirt relocation project, from moving piles of dirt, to scrubbing supply rooms, had his hand in the cookie jar, when it came to requesting recruits for this detail or that.  One day we spent an entire morning canvassing the route of a visiting general, for litter, so that the base commander could make a good impression on his visiting dignitary.  That afternoon, we were transported to one of the ranges, where we were employed moving and distributing gravel, to further enhance the footing and possibly reduce the amount of mud that each of us had to scrape off of our boots, before we could make them presentable for the following morning.

The most dreaded detail of all, and the one that probably gets the most air play is kitchen police, better known as K.P.  The duty itself, if you were lucky enough to avoid that part which required one to work outside, was not in itself repulsive;  it was the seventeen hour time commitment that put a damper on the whole occasion.  The poor guy who got stuck out in the cold was the one who had it rough.  He dealt with the logistics of anything that was coming into the mess hall in the form of supplies, and anything going out in the form of trash, garbage or food to be delivered to on-post locations, as instructed by the powers that be.  K.P. was hideous enough as it was without adding the discomfort of freezing all day.

A guy assigned to kitchen police had to hit the deck at three-thirty in the morning, in order to allow time to get dressed, check out with the duty officer, and get over to the mess hall in time to sign in.  Failure to arrive at the prescribed time was addressed very simply by assigning said sorry individual to the worst possible detail, thus relieving the rest of us from that particular chore.  The other two options were the dining room and the kitchen.  

I did kitchen police twice in the first few weeks, and managed to avoid further return engagements when I assumed the duties of assistant drill instructor, a position which attracted me in the first place for exactly that reason: freedom from all conventional work details.  ADI had his own set of responsibilities, but those had more to do with helping recruits keep organized.  That helped keep “Third Herd” always moving efficiently forward, so as to avoid any sort of distraction which would put an unwelcome spotlight on our unit.

The best of the three options was the dining room because the task, though enormous, was more evenly paced.  There was also the added bonus that you completed the task three times a day, just before breakfast, just before lunch, and just before dinner.  Those who worked in the kitchen, never got within sight of the end, until that last hour, when they were already getting-bleary eyed from being on their feet for close to eighteen hours.  

There were two of us working in the dining room the first time I pulled this duty, and though our responsibilities were simple enough, the sheer volume of troops who streamed through for each meal, was staggering.  Prior to breakfast, which began at five-twenty, eighty minutes after our arrival, we had to have the dining room ready.  We had to put the chairs down from the previous night, set out that which was required to facilitate more than six hundred recruits from three different companies, and get ready to repeat the procedure for lunch and dinner.

We made sure there was never a minute to spare, because we found out early in our army experience, that having a minute to spare at the end of one task invited notice, and subsequent assignment of another task to guarantee that we had no down time.  That wasn't the case here in the dining room.  The fellow in charge was a giant of a man, who towered over us, and yet whose movements seemed almost graceful, as he maneuvered himself through the tightly packed mess hall, checking this coffee urn, or that supply of clean silverware.  Like many physically imposing men,  Staff Sergeant Maris was soft-spoken, and patient.  He never raised his voice because he never had to.  We worked hard for him because we wanted to, not because he intimidated us.  Still, intense as it may have been, it was a cakewalk compared with the kitchen. 

At FLW it was a clear case of “good cook, bad cook,” and we're not talking quality of food.  The sergeant-major who ran the kitchen was a rooster of a man, whose five foot, five inch frame, exuded insecurity from the tip of his omnipresent chef's hat, to the heels (operative word) of his brilliantly spit-shined boots.  Though his head was perpetually covered, the freckles which covered his face and his arms, and his pasty complexion, which turned shocking pink when he got agitated, indicated he was a red-head.  Of course, this conjured up in my mind, the image of a strutting farm rooster, always keeping a sharp eye out for the slow-moving hound.  Every chance he got, he made that old hound jump with a lightning-fast movement of his beak, or a  hazardous thrust of a spur.

In the case of Master Sergeant Lee, a grinder in search of grain, he lived for the moment when he could catch a recruit, whom he referred to as “squid,” violating his kitchen code.  If he caught you dawdling, or spotted you copping a quick cup of coffee (not real likely if you'd already had the pleasure of sampling that morning's brew) then he was on you like bark on a tree.

I wrote home, “Wednesday, I spent seventeen hours in the mess hall doing K.P.  Except for five-minute meals, and two eight-minute breaks (I am not exaggerating by one minute) I worked nonstop.  I was lucky in one respect-I was a house slave, instead of having to work outside with the garbage.  Also, I worked inside the actual dining room, as opposed to working in the kitchen.” 

Even going out to the range was better than K.P, especially when it came to the anticipation aspect of it.  Knowing you had K.P. left a cloud over your head for the several days leading up to it, and if you had weekend K.P. duty, your whole week was shot.

Early on during my stay at FLW, I struggled with the enormity of the task at hand, the two years, the exile from home, the overwhelming nature of a whole bunch of impatient slave-drivers, and the incessant work.  I had contended with my feelings of injustice, with my sense of imprisonment, and with my fear of the subsequent assignment to parts unknown. Therefore, that first time when I did K.P, I was in a pretty depressed state of mind, and operating on auto-pilot, when the first company of recruits noisily arrived outside the kitchen.  After a thunderous stamping of feet, in an ongoing effort to avoid the wrath of the kitchen crew by tracking mud into the building, they began to enter the mess hall. 

Until the moment I heard the approaching platoon of men, I had been mindlessly buffing the stainless steel loading counter, trying to contain my bitterness at my current lot in life.  I had known that my platoon would be first, because we were due in the supply room at 0600, so we had to chow down before the others.   When I detected the cadence of their boots, double-timing on the sidewalk outside,  my spirits soared exuberantly.   Eagerly,  I anticipated the arrival of my newly acquired brothers, all thirty-nine of them. 

For about thirty seconds there, I existed in my own little world of euphoria, before my partners had hustled down the empty aisle up to the loading counter that I had been polishing.  What on earth I had been thinking, I do not know, but if I thought they were all going to come straight at me, hollering out greetings and giving me hand slaps, I had only to think back to my own arrival each morning since my arrival a week earlier.  As I watched, all recruits had stopped making forward progress.  

While stopped, they were required to stand at parade rest, with their feet spread at shoulder width, and their hands clasped behind their backs.   Most importantly, their eyes had to be fastened on the back of the head in front of them.  My friends were not aware of my presence alongside the counter, and the twelve minutes that they were in there were the loneliest of the day for me.

This little incident was the one that sent me over the emotional edge for at least a week, and threatened to take a bigger toll on me if I could not get a handle on it.  The problem was that I had been so overwhelmed with the physical and mental demands on me, that I had simply been operating in neutral.  I had been trusting my instincts to keep me going, but coming face to face with what appeared to me to be a platoon of robots had seriously unnerved me.   I realized exactly what I had become in a very short time.  

I was one of those robots, and the thought almost accomplished what nothing else had been able to: I felt as though I were going to explode, and do something that I would later regret.  The most logical choice was to simply split and stick out my thumb because, as long as I didn't travel in uniform, I should be able to avoid the army's tentacles.

How I got through that day of kitchen police, I have no idea, except to suggest that my auto-pilot mechanism must have been operating at a high degree of efficiency.  All I remember is going back to the barracks and writing a letter by flashlight to my older brother, Noel, outlining to him the situation.  Exactly what that was, I'm not certain, except that I was as emotionally charged up as I had ever been, and I was talking some serious treason.  My impulse had been to bolt, but my head kept me in place, at least as long as it would take to get a letter off to Bro Noel, so that I could get inside his head and get some direction. 

Again, I'm not sure what it was I expected Noel to say, and more importantly, how I would react to whatever it was that he did say.  I had already managed to resist the impulse to bolt;  what was I supposed to do if that was the advice he gave me?  I told myself to hold on, and wait to see what happens.  I wrote my folks a similar letter home, only not quite so desperate.  It took about ten days to get a response from Noel, and the words remain with me to this day.

“Hello Markie! Hey jack, what is the story with those a-hole army dudes?  You're not the one insane, they are!!! Mark is functioning A-OK.  You are the only one with your head together.  So long as you realize what they are trying to do, there is no way those bastards can brainwash you.  No way!  Gather up your inner strength...Don't give up!  I can assure you, you're not crazy.  You have experienced what it means to be a person and they are trying to take that away.  It is a valuable thing.

They can't do it, Mark, you won't let them.  Remember, your best friend and brother is standing behind you one hundred percent.  Whatever you decide, you can count on me.  You can still get a C.O; it is not too late, I'll do everything in my power to help.  If at all  possible, don't touch a fricking gun... Flourish in your dreams...Resist being taken over, at least on the inside....First we will try the C.O. And then we will get a lawyer.  If that doesn't work, we will do what we have to.”

My fear was balanced by my intense pleasure at the support.  What Noel wrote made perfect sense, only it may as well have been written in Swahili, for all the good it would do me.  I wasn't even able to simply walk out the gate and stick out my thumb;  how was I ever going to not “touch a fricking gun?”  I could no more stand up to the drill instructors and say no, than I could continue in an existence devoid of any kind of spark of hope, except for that provided by the passage of time. 

So what I ended up doing was exactly what I was told.  I had known instinctively that if I had been capable of following the advice given me by Noel, then I would never have had to ask for it in the first place.  Noel's was just one example of the many instances of support I received.

I was in a foxhole one morning, with only my helmet protruding from the excavation, when DI Fletcher, five days into a rumored ten day leave, approached from behind, and placed his boot atop my head, while greeting me. 

“Private O'Neill, are you my favorite boot rest in this foxhole?”  Since I was the only boot rest in the hole, it stood to reason that I was his favorite boot rest.  It also figured that I would be his least favorite boot rest in the hole, but I wasn't going there.

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“Did you miss me, PFC O'Neill?”

Only half as much as I would have missed you had you been gone the full ten days.  Out loud I responded, “DI Fletcher, this trainee has been training too hard to note that the Drill Instructor has been gone.”  

DI Steven C. was pleased.  “Is that so?  I'll bet if I ordered you to give me one hundred push-ups right now, you'd “note” that I was back.”

I had been three steps in front of him; he had been four in front of me.  “Unnecessary, Drill Sergeant!  I trust you had a very pleasant and yet, most enjoyable time, during the one hundred twenty hours you were gone.  Drill Sergeant!”

“But who's counting, right, Private O'Neill?”  Was it that obvious?

“Drill Instructor?”

“Right.  Carry on, Private O'Neill.”  What else could I do?  I carried on.

The Seventh Day

The Seventh Day

There’s a new kid in town, and he ain’t scared.  It’s funny how that works.  I used to experience a lot of anxiety, every day of my life.  I’m not certain that I knew it was anxiety; I just used to worry a lot of the time, about things that didn’t seem to bug other people.  I worried about dates on food in the refrigerator, and what might happen if I ate something with an expired date.   It seemed important at the time.

I wrote a narrative called “Six Days a Week” which chronicled my successful effort to rid myself of panic attacks and anxiety issues.  Now I want to recount the changes that have surfaced as a result of the mental shifts that have occurred.  These shifts have come gradually over the past six months or so, replacing life-long habits, and leading me to recognize that mental habits, like their cousins, physical habits, are changeable.

I like to go to town these days, a tremendous paradigm shift in itself.  I went three weeks ago to purchase the tags for my medical marijuana grow.  The tags were twenty-five dollars apiece, and I had to go to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office to obtain them.  I walked in as though I owned the place, and inquired brightly if I was in the correct place to purchase tags for a medical marijuana grow.  I was informed that I was in the perfect spot, and did I have my medical card with me?  Twelve minutes later, I was on my way home, after having exchanged pleasantries with no fewer than six Mendocino County officers, while waiting for my tags.  I could never have attempted that in the past.

On that same trip to town, I had stopped in the Willits Post Office to apply for a passport, so that I could travel to Ireland late this summer.  I had to have my picture taken, and I had to fill out certain forms.  I had already obtained the forms by going online, another paradigm shift, and had filled them out the night before at home.  Is this a good time to mention the trip itself?  I am flying to Ireland this August.  Upon disembarking from the plane that flew me from Korea to Oakland Army Base, in 1973, I had promised myself that I would never board another plane.  And here I was, planning a trip to Ireland.

I had had to schedule that appointment at the post office, to obtain my passport, a little earlier in the day, another task that used to pose problems.  It was hard for me to make phone calls and communicate with people I didn’t know.

I left the Sheriff’s office, and stopped by at Mendo Mill to pick up a few things for a project that I was working on.  I called Casey to see if he needed anything, and he asked me to pick up ten bags of potting soil.  No problem, I thought, vaguely remembering that I used to dread going to the building supply place.  So much hassle, having to track down somebody to help you get what you needed, then tracking down someone to pay, and then having to load it up and grapple with the tying down, or whatever.

I stopped in at Ray’s Groceries to pick up a few things, and checked with Annie to see that she didn’t need anything else.  She asked me to pick up a few things, so that she could make tamales in the morning for Market.  I said that there was no problem. I stopped at Mariposa’s to see if they had gluten-free oats so that I could keep a good supply on hand for my cookies.

And speaking of food, the arrangement that we have made for our kitchen, breaks a few paradigms along the way.  Annie and I now prepare our meals separately most of the time.  Her gluten issues, and my inability to eat meat, make for an interesting challenge, as far as preparing compatible meals is concerned.  

Annie has had to deal with food issues in the house, for the past thirty years.  I figured she had enough going on that I wouldn’t toss meatlessness at her.  Meat is one thing that celiacs can eat without fear of gluten, as long as no one is arbitrarily seasoning the meat.

So, when I go to town, I always include a grocery stop, so as to outfit the refrigerator with appropriate fare.  I make my own breakfast, and get my construction lunch together each morning, so I like shopping for myself.  That has not always been the case.  

Shopping used to be hard, especially when the store was crowded, because I never felt comfortable in the midst of humanity.  That extended to movie theaters, ballgames, crowded meetings, anything public.  Now, the check-out line no longer annoys me, as I generally find someone within my range to make conversation.   If I am in Laytonville, there will probably be a former student or two, or the parent of a former student, with whom I converse.

I used to go to town with one goal: to get back as fast as I could, with no more stops than absolutely necessary.  Now, it is just the opposite.  I figure that since I am in town, that I should take care of any and all business that I can, before I return up the mountain.

I have attended every local farmers market this summer, after only making it to three last summer.  I help run the CSA booth, which is fun.  I have enjoyed conversing with old acquaintances, meeting new folks, and reconnecting with people I have not talked to for many years.  I share with many people, details of my recent therapeutic experience, and the common response is, “Yes, I can see that you have changed...”

My music tastes have shifted and expanded.  It started last winter when I was working on the addition.  The only available source of music that was convenient, was a little portable radio, so i listened to it.  In an effort to find something more palatable than the local “classic rock” station, I started listening to the local pop radio station, playing the fare that many kids listen to.

I developed an ear for that genre, and that’s what appeals to me now.   I wouldn’t mind the expansion, but certain older classic rock artists now annoy me, which seems a little extreme.  The other thing is that not many in my circle find Kesha appealing.  Instead of worrying about it, I don’t.

One consequence of my anxiety-reduction, is that Annie directly benefits.  Instead of having to always worry that I am going to have some sort of issue, she can now relax.  On a recent trip over to the Valley to see Benny graduate from Engineer school, Annie was fretting about time, and whether or not we would arrive for the beginning.

 

Holly had given us directions, which Annie had copied, word for word.  Now it was I saying, “Relax.  Trust the directions and the time frame she gave us.”  It all worked out; it was just odd to be on the other side of the fence.

It used to be that, if we were planning a couple of days up in Eureka, we had to pay extensive detail to each phase of the experience.  If we were going to a restaurant, Annie was always worried that I would have some sort of non-negotiable issue.  This might include music (too loud or the wrong “type”) service (too slow) food (“funny-tasting” or deviating in some manner from what was expected) or even being seated next to a large party of people, because that was always hard for me too.  

Often, instead of simply taking the issue up with the management, or just dealing with it, I would manage to cast such a pall of anxiety over the scene, as to spoil the mood for Annie also.  Even being aware of this dynamic did not allow me to vary from the script-the script that no one else was privy to.

I want to talk about whining.  I have mentioned that in the past, to me whining always meant little kids and obnoxious voices. Now I clearly see it for being the annoying thing that it is: someone complaining about how one thing or another is a pain.  Well, things can be a pain at times, only everyone gets to experience hard times, at different periods.  Why anyone would want to listen to me whine is beyond me.  And that’s the point-no one wants to listen to anyone whine-a person listens because that is what you do.   Only now, I can’t stand to take that role  of complainer; it’s as though I am trying to balance out the years of being a whiny so and so.

In working construction, there are a lot of possibilities for straining parts of my body that didn’t get much occupational use while I was teaching.  I think that is a given; therefore, to keep a running commentary on those specific areas of concern seems a bit overkill to me.  I prefer to focus on the progress we are making and leave the other to another time and space.  I don’t mind hearing others complain; I just don’t want to go back to that space myself.

I want to go back to the issue of food and the refrigerator.  I mentioned at the outset that I experienced a shift in my approach to the refrigerator.  I do not know the origin of my refrigerator-induced anxiety.  A certain portion is just compulsive behavior, a need to adhere to a consistent code to avoid anything, I guess, that would seem uncertain.  The oil separating from the dressing in a bottle of Blue Cheese dressing used to mean I was done with that particular container; now, I just stir up the contents.  It’s the same with cottage cheese, sour cream, anything that applies. 

I used to stick to the suggested dates on food, concluding that the date indicated the time to dispose of something, as opposed to simply not being able to sell after a certain date.  Logic tells me that the dates have to be conservative estimates, because no company would knowingly sell something that might prove hazardous.  In the past, logic did not enter into it.  I might even clearly have recognized that something was still good, but it still would taste “funny” to me, thereby negating all of the logic in the world.

The next item on the paradigm shift list is what I call “spotlight on Markus,”  the feeling I always had that everyone was watching me as I came into the arena, be it a restaurant, a meeting or any other public venue.  Arriving at the picnic in Sebasketball after the initial crowd, was always hard.  Showing up at a party, after it had begun, was the same.  This feeling would create an uncomfortable need to vanish, to disappear, to find a spot and land, regardless of the shortsighted nature of my selection.  

When I went to the Giants ballgame with the summer school students the last year I taught,  we sat in the nose-bleed section.  I managed to get all of the kids into their respective seats, before freezing in the center aisle, paralyzed by the fear of looking down the precipitous steps we had just climbed.  Combined with the notion that everyone in the stands was delightedly watching my predicament, so as to see the final plunge, I froze. 

Afterwards, sitting in my seat, from which I never once moved, I watched others come and go, with the smallest amount of undue curiosity, thereby noting my own indifference to the comings and goings of others.  It made no impact on me one way or another.

Most of the changes I have noted go from negative traits to positive.  One change occurred that had me initiating something that had not been in place before.  Beginning last March, when I was writing my narrative on my military experiences, I asked Annie to put the name of a friend of mine from the military, into the internet.  

When it resulted in me reestablishing ties with him, I reached out again, and again made a connection.  Subsequently, I have been reaching out and communicating with my brothers and sisters.  I had never lost touch, seeing them sporadically at Christmas or other occasions; I just had not corresponded with any of them through letters or emails, except for JT.  She and I had been emailing back and forth a few years ago, but that had stopped when I retired from teaching, because we did not have the internet at home.

I have been trying to reconnect with old high school buds too, and have hooked up with my best friend of long ago, but am still trying with the rest.  I don’t know if that would have naturally occurred without the therapy, but I suspect not.  Something got unlocked in my brain through the therapy, allowing me to not only initiate the correspondence, but to maintain it.

That seems to be a key element in the process: something got unlocked in the therapeutic journey, thereby allowing me to re-program many areas of behavior.  As repetition is the key to establishing any change over time, I am pleased to notice that, though bad mental habits die slowly, they do die.  They can then be replaced by good mental habits, ones which allow me to proceed in a more relaxed state of mind, while also allowing those around me to also proceed in a similarly comfortable manner. 

Military Madness (2): Rat Fuzz

Military Madness:

Rat Fuzz

When we landed in Kansas City, everything was a jumble of confusion, but when the dust had settled, it turned out that the military charter that was to take us to Fort Leonard Wood, had twelve fewer seats than it had passengers. So six of us had to fly in a little twin engine commuter to the army base, while the final six had to spend the night, and grab a commuter the following morning.  I don't know how the decision was made as to how to divide us up, but I ended up on the little plane which left shortly afterward, and arrived at the army base about two in the morning.  

We were assigned bunks for the night, and hooked up with the rest of the guys the following morning, when we were all moved across the base in a couple of deuce and a half trucks, the most common form of troop transport at Fort Leonard Wood.  They hauled us to Reception, where we would be housed for the following week, while we fulfilled a plethora of logistical requirements before we could commence our military training.

Our arrival at the compound for incoming recruits, coincided with the arrival of around 160 other recruits from all around the country.  Altogether, in our company, there were about 200 men and no women.  Those of us guys from LA, were divided alphabetically and mixed in with the rest of the guys to form five platoons, of which mine was Echo, and we would eventually settle into the top floor of a three-story, red brick barracks.  Being in Echo Company, meant that we were our own island in the midst of five platoons.  We rarely interacted as an assembled company, 200 strong, except in times of convenience (inoculations, chow) or ceremony.  These barracks were not left over from the original base but, rather, had been built in that second wave of construction in the late fifties, so they were reasonably modern, comfortably warm and a vast improvement over the open bay models, in which we were housed that first week.  We were divided into rooms with six or seven recruits in each, with a couple of smaller rooms at the end of the hall, that remained empty for the moment, but that would come into play a little later on in the ten weeks that we were there.

Each room was divided into four equal squares, by two five-foot-high ledges, which extended off of each the left and the right walls, and ended up four feet shy of the center of the room.  Each square contained one or two cots, with a maximum of seven men per room.  While lying on our cots, at least there were only two of the four squares within our line of vision.  Being very agile, and quickly tiring of the floor as a resting spot (The cots were strictly off-limits, until ten minutes before lights out those first two weeks.) I began to perch on one of the two ledges within our room.  I found it a comfortable pose in which to write letters.  I wrote a lot of letters.  In fact, I was incensed one night, to hear DI Tanksley screaming that he needed three volunteers.  

“No way,” I said to no one in particular, and opened my locker.  I swept the contents off of the base platform, about thirty-six inches off of the floor, above the set of drawers, and quickly folded myself up within the locker.  My head and shoulders conveniently chilling, nestled within my dress greens and starched fatigues, I waited as the DI gathered up the needed trainees.  The door was open three or four inches to permit light, but not enough to see into.  Sighing contentedly, I continued my correspondence, hoping that DI Tanksley was back in his office, and no longer roaming the hall.

Drill Instructor Tanksley, our lead drill instructor was a weathered veteran, of indeterminable age, who was grizzled and crusty, but whose bark was considerably worse than his bite.  He had fifteen years in the army, so he was probably in his mid-thirties, but to me he was my father, just able to yell a lot louder.  His job was to make “soldiers” out of us, but his mission was to get us successfully through basic training, so as not to have to repeat it.  He was infinitely more approachable those first two weeks, than any of the other drill sergeants. 

It turned out that the army followed a formula, wherein recruits were only allowed to miss a certain percentage of the training (about five days) before being “recycled”  through the entire eight-week training period.  That's why I refused to go on sick call any of the three different times that I developed cold/sore throat symptoms during the ten weeks I was there.  After all, it had not been the most practical thing to pack up forty guys from Los Angeles, and ship them off to a climate where the temperature is as likely to be below freezing as above it during the winter months.  However, the threat of having to retake the eight-week course was enough to propel me through those long weeks of not only having to train for active military duty, but having to do it with a cold and sore throat.

  

The first week was a blur with all of the moving around from station to station, being outfitted with the clothes and tools of the trade.  We took those standardized tests again, twice, and each time I applied myself industriously to answering the questions accurately.  Long about the third day, they lined us all up for haircuts, a symbolic enough of a ritual, associated with countless books and films depicting military life.  I should mention that my beard, which I had worn so proudly on that first day at the AFEES, turned out to cause me some serious grief.  I didn't think anyone even noticed it or cared the first couple days, but then came Haircut/Picture Day. 

They made it a hat trick of logistical accomplishments, by requiring us to stop by for a quick, friendly inoculation or two on the way to the barber shop.  We had to get the standard set of inoculations that one would expect, entering such an establishment.  Injecting each of the two hundred recruits in our company required some logistical shuffling, so as not to have to have us marking time, when there were so many available opportunities for us to shine.  We could shine the stainless steel counters in the mess hall, we could shine the floors in the barracks, and we could shine our boots, but we could do none of the three while standing in line.

  

In an effort to keep us from spending too much time in line, the army developed a tool for inoculating troops at an efficient rate.  The tool was a gun which pneumatically injected one's arm, just below the shoulder, with the desired vaccine.  The gun never comes into contact with the skin, simply sending a jet of vaccine into your arm with no need to be careful about precisely where it enters the system.  No needles, and minimal danger of getting light-headed, due to the nature of the task.  I hated the shots, but I hated needles more, so it was a step in the right direction.  These were the kind of logistics that consumed us the two weeks we spent prior to beginning the actual basic training course.  After that first week of Reception, we were moved to our permanent barracks for the duration of the nine weeks.  The next week was known as “zero week,” as we continued to assemble our needed army-issued supplies, and fulfilled a number of logistical requirements around the post.  The permanent staff referred to it as a time for zeroes; that would be us recruits.  I hated the fact that these personnel, no older than us, lorded over us, merely by virtue of the fact that they had entered the service at least ten weeks before us.

“Come here, Trainee.  Pick up that cigarette butt, Trainee.  Hey, you, Trainee, get back to work before I ask the master sergeant if you can clean out the head too, once you're done with the floor in the day room.”  It wasn't worth an Article Fifteen, but it sure fueled my imagination to think of how a bucket of dirty mop water, would take the starch right out of that guy's fatigues.  The arbitrary nature of having a platoon of forty capable, strong-backed, weak-brained recruits, available to fulfill any and all necessary tasks, was a great temptation.  We were the truffles in the chocolate box of available opportunities, for the Commander of FLW.  Any time the chapel needed cleaning, we were on call.  Gravel needed at the Officers' baseball complex?  No problem.  E-3-2, Third Herd, was ready for action, ready for danger.  Make us aware of your dirty, your scuffed, your dull floors to buff and polish; no job is too insignificant or too demeaning for trainees.  

So there I was, standing in a line of close to two hundred guys, when along came this drill instructor for one of the other platoons, and he noticed my beard and went ballistic.  Of course, I was mortified; my whole program in these early days was to stay unnoticed, and therefore be in the best position to survive this disaster.

Positioning himself directly in front of me, with his toes touching my toes, or rather his toes doing a little tap dance on my toes, he commenced to make conversation.

“What in the Sam hell is that on your face?”  His roar sounded worse than his bite might have been.

“Sir?”

“SIR!  What do I look like to you?  SIR!  Don't you ever call me SIR again.  I work for a living in this man's army, and I WILL BE GODDAMNED IF I WILL LET A PISS ANT SORRY EXAMPLE OF A SACK OF SHIT TRAINEE INSULT ME! YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS DRILL INSTRUCTOR!”

“Yes,  Drill Instructor!”

“I asked you, 'What in the hell is that on your face, Soldier?'”

Probably fear. Either that, or egg yolk from breakfast.  “Drill Instructor?”  There was a split second there when I thought he was going to lose it completely, but it was all an act.  Later, I could see that.  Right now, all I could see was his flaring nostrils.  He perched on the balls of his feet, the better to be able to glare down at me, while he tried to figure me out.

“WHAT IS ON YOUR FACE?”

His cheeks began to turn beet red, as he geared up for some serious “in your face” dialogue, except that there was only one of us currently speaking.   

“Whiskers, Drill Instructor?”   

“I ask the questions around here, and I asked you what the hell that was on your face, and why is it there?”

“WHISKERS, DRILL INSTRUCTOR!  SHALL I SHAVE THEM?”

“There you go asking questions again.”  His face was all of two inches from mine, and his eyes bulged out comically, only no one was laughing.

“NO, DRILL INSTRUCTOR ”

“Are you calling me a liar?” he roared.

Inside I could rationally see that it was all a game, and one that he had played countless times before with countless numbers of new recruits, and one for which there was no victory in store for me.

“No, Drill Instructor.  I need to shave.”

“You're damn right you need to shave.  You needed to shave yesterday!  You need to shave right now, before I do it for you, and if I do it, I won't need a razor, 'cause I will rip it out by the roots!  Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, Drill Instructor.”

“I CAN'T HEAR YOU!”  How many times I was to hear that refrain over the next ten weeks I can't even be able to guess, but there was only one way to respond.

“YES!  DRILL INSTRUCTOR!”

He heard me this time.  “You got exactly five minutes to get into your barracks and get that rat fuzz off your chin.”

.”YES!  DRILL INSTRUCTOR!”

“When you're done, you will get your shaved self back out here so that you will have plenty of time to push up Missouri, while you wait for your own personal hair stylist to beautify yourself.”

Push up Missouri?  How do I do that?  “YES!  DRILL INSTRUCTOR!”

“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?”

I shifted into overdrive, and scuttled back to the quonset hut that served as a temporary barracks, until we moved into the permanent ones on the other side of the base.  I had never in my life had the experience of shaving more than a day or two's stubble from my face, and whereas, if I were still at home, with all of the time in the world, I don't think I would have had any issues.  Now, I was in a world of hurt.  I actually did bring a razor and a can of shaving cream with me in my travel case, but the actual task of shaving proved to be very challenging.   I was a novice in this art, and my hands were having a hard time remaining steady, a decidedly questionable strategy for the delicate operation of removing whiskers with a sharp object.

The amazing thing is, that even in the midst of my fear and embarrassment, my little pea-brain was still sifting and sorting the previous exchange between me and Drill Sergeant Gaines.  His specific words were, “...get that rat fuzz off your chin...”  

First of all, I never saw a red rat before.  I say red, because, even though I have brown hair, my beard comes out red, especially if I spend time in the sun.  “...off your chin...”  He didn't say anything about shaving the “rat fuzz” off of my upper lip.  “Hmmm...”

So it was that, when I went to have my picture taken for my military identification, I still had a mustache.  The guys clipping hair (actually they were shaving heads, and it took them all of about sixty seconds apiece)  were not paid to notice facial hair, and since Drill Instructor Gaines had vacated the premises with his platoon in the interim I had been gone, there was no one who now seemed to care one way or another.  That was then, but the following morning, when we were at parade rest after having come from the chow hall, I drew the notice of Drill Instructor Stephen C. Fletcher, our junior drill instructor, who couldn't have been more than twenty-three.

DI Fletcher was not a big man, but his physique reflected the fact that he was in the best possible shape a guy could be in, an obvious effect of working at a job which required tremendous physical stamina, and a tenacious approach to the habitually frigid environment in which we all existed.  He stood about six feet, and weighed about one eighty, with a compactness about him that suggested that in an endurance race, he would outlast anyone.  He was as light on his feet as Muhammad Ali, and his “Smokey the Bear” hat was tipped slightly forward in a jaunty sort of manner that belied his intensity. 

It was never hard to draw the attention of the drill instructors.  Each of the recruits was a veritable fountain of available opportunities for attention to manifest itself.  Drill instructors were funny guys.  When Drill Instructor Fletcher was calling role, and he got to “Trout, Stephen C,” he stopped and brought Private Trout into his frame of reference.  Poor Trainee Trout, he thought he was going to get reamed, but all DI Fletcher said was, “Stephen C...that has a nice ring to it.”  So, by virtue of the fact that he shared common initials with the drill sergeant, Stephen C. Trout wore a cloak of invincibility throughout the ten weeks of boot camp.

Unfortunately, cloaks came in all shapes and sizes, and served different purposes. Before I return to the saga of the mustache, I want to tell you about poor Charley Buckles.  He was a guy who pretty much existed in his own little world.  He was taller than most of us, and skinny as a signpost. And since I'm in that vein, I'll add that his mental capacity could also be compared to that of a signpost.  if that seems cruel, I can only tell you that whether it was or not, Charley would never have known or cared about it.  He was incapable of determining whether or not someone was poking fun at him; he would just stand there grinning, assuming that whatever joke was being shared, was good enough for him, even if it was at his expense.

It was the constant grin that brought Charley the attention of DI Fletcher: that, and the freckles.  Charley Buckles had freckles and there was no getting around them, at least not for DI Fletcher.  “Private Buckles, would you mind sharing with the rest of us just exactly what is so funny?”

Charley's grin remained in place, but there was an uncertainty to it now.  “Nothing, Drill Instructor.”  At least Charley had learned how to address the drill instructors, and he had me to thank for that.

“Well, then, why are you still grinning like a monkey?”

“I don't know, Drill Instructor.”  Honesty once again proved to be the best policy.

“Come up front, Private Buckles, so I can get a better look at you.”

The thing about Charley is that everything seemed to be in its proper place, but nothing was just right.  His boots were polished, but the laces were not properly interlaced; his jacket was buttoned up with the left side unevenly matched with the right side because the snaps were not properly aligned.  His cap was pushed to the back of his head, so that his forehead was prominently revealed.  His shaved head did not improve matters, and his slow speech pattern hinted at his lack of quick mental ability.

DI Fletcher walked pensively around Charley, while the rest of us held our collective breath.  You see, even in this short time, we all thought of Charley as the platoon mascot, and no one disliked the guy, so we all sort of looked after him.  It may seem funny that a guy that low, intellectually, would be allowed into the army.   The truth is, Charley might have bombed the tests, but at least he tried as hard as he could, and that makes up for a lot of faults.  In some ways, Charley was the prototypical army trainee: somewhat dumb, but very malleable.

“Private Buckles.  Private Buckles.  What are we going to do with you?”

Figuring that DI Fletcher wanted a reply, Charley said, “I don't know, Drill Instructor.”

“Private Buckles, what is your first name?”

“Charley, Drill Instructor.”

“Charley.  Charley.  Charley...May I call you Charles?” 

The unexpected nature of the question removed whatever was left of the grin.  Charley looked around at his comrades, as if hoping for guidance, and when seeing that several of us were nodding encouragingly, he said, “Yes, Drill Instructor.”

“Charles, What is wrong with your jacket?”

For whatever reason Charley looked back, craning his long neck to see if there was something stuck on his backside.  Straightening up and returning to attention, he said, “Nothing, Drill Instructor.”

“Nothing.”  DI Fletcher paused.  “Are you blind as well as being stupid?  Can't you see that you snapped up your jacket unevenly?  Do you need help in the morning getting dressed?  Can you rectify the situation?”  Too many questions.  He had drawn out the word “rectify,” increasing Charley's discomfort.

I did a mental check on the answers to the questions:  blind?  No;  see the uneven jacket?  probably not;  need help?  probably yes; and rectify?  even money on this one.

Charley remained motionless, as if the predator would get bored and go away, if Charley just remained still long enough.

“Yes, Drill Instructor!”  Damn, I hadn't even seen that as an option, and yet, by sheer luck, Charley had given him the one answer that mattered.   That was the part about fixing the problem, even if Charley didn't understand the word, rectify.   Obviously DI Fletcher had sought out this word for use in this exact situation, because new recruits had a lot of rectifying to do in the early going.

“BUTTON UP YOUR GOD-DAMNED JACKET PROPERLY SOLDIER, BEFORE I BUTTON IT UP FOR YOU.  BECAUSE  [long pause] IF I BUTTON IT UP FOR YOU, I WILL DO SO WITH MY BOOT HEELS.”  

Charley looked straight down at the hem of his jacket and, being a frequent flier in this area, rectified the situation.

Calm was restored in a heartbeat.  DI Fletcher wasn't finished.  “Charles, you seem to me like a bright guy...”   My opinion of DI Fletcher's  judgmental capabilities took a serious hit at this moment, until I made the connection that it was all a performance, and DI Fletcher was the star.   “What's a bright guy like you doing here?”  A facetious drill instructor?

Rhetorical questions worked out pretty well for Charley.  Instead of parroting  the immortal words, uttered by Hawkeye in  M*A*S*H*,  and responding “I was drafted,” Charley just stood there.  

Seeing that there was nothing more to be gained at this moment, DI Fletcher  motioned Charley back into formation with a dismissive wave of his arm and moved on to more entertainment.  Like my mustache. 

Stopping in mid-sentence of his outline for the day's agenda, he directed his gaze at me and stared.  His eyes widened and he extended his index finger and crooked it toward himself, in the unmistakable gesture that means, “Front and center, Trainee.” 

When I had scurried up to the front of formation, and positioned myself in front of him at attention, he stood transfixed and ogled my face.  I could have sworn I saw a twinkle in his eye.  Of course, it might have been a reflection from the sun, which had made a rare cameo appearance at that moment, as DI Fletcher let the moment hang in the air

“What is that on your lip?”  

Uh-oh.  I  had a real bad feeling about my hasty decision to follow DI Gaines's instructions so literally.  “Nothing, Drill Instructor!”

His face began to turn pink.  “Nothing?  Are you telling me that there is nothing on your upper lip, except snot?”

“No Drill Instructor!”

“NO?” he bellowed.  “No?  Then, tell me Private O'Neill, is that a god-damned caterpillar?  Do you have an unauthorized pet in my platoon, Private O'Neill?”  His face began to turn red.

“NO!, Drill Instructor.”

“Well, now, I just think you do, because I can see it crawling there on your upper lip.”

“No Drill Instructor!”

“If that is not a caterpillar, what is it?”

“It is a mustache, Drill Instructor.”

“Were you issued that mustache, Private O'Neill?”  

All of this was happening at warp speed, and I never do well in the spotlight, but still I could see that DI Fletcher was enjoying himself, and I wanted him to understand that I was not Charley Buckles.

“Yes, Drill Instructor.”

That wasn't in the script.  “Who issued you the mustache?”  Parry, thrust.

“Drill Instructor Gaines issued me the mustache, Drill Instructor Fletcher.”

DI Fletcher's eyes went from amused detachment, to amused interest.

“What do you mean Drill Instructor Gaines issued you a mustache?  That is a load of shark shit.”

“I mean that DI Gaines specifically ordered me to shave the whiskers off my chin, but he did not order me to shave the whiskers off of my upper lip.  Drill Instructor!  According to the company clerk, once your military identification picture has been taken with the mustache, it's part of your I.D. and it can't be required that I shave it off.”  Ah, the perfect application of the nebulous passive voice.  Note that I didn't tell DI Fletcher that he couldn't tell me to shave it off, only that I couldn't be told.

Yes, I was a smart-mouthed trainee, a slimy newcomer to his world, and a short-time visitor at that, but I had tickled his funny bone, and that was a key factor in determining the success or failure of any given day for DI Fletcher.  He liked humor, and he appreciated it when it was presented to him, as long as it was not perceived by the troops as humor.   It was just as crucial to him to have an appreciative audience for his wit.  It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, one that was to come into play a great deal in the following nine weeks.

“You are the one who came in with the beard.”  Unconsciously, he brushed the fingers of one hand across the neatly trimmed mustache on his own face as he studied the razor cuts and burns on my face.  “How'd that work out for you?”

“Pretty well, Drill Instructor.  I got a mustache issued to me.”

Military Madness (1): Who the Hell Is Leonard Wood?

Who the Hell Is Leonard Wood?

“I got news for y'all.  Y'all ain't goin' to Fort Ord;  y'all goin' my home state, Miz-zoo-ry, to Fort Len-nerd Wood.”   The speaker was a heavyset sergeant, with a round, grinning face, and an air of malevolent satisfaction.  His prominent stomach bulged against the buttons of his starched fatigues, and his stubby chin was dimpled; it positively rippled as he laughed.  The fact that he seemed to enjoy our discomfort, made him even seem less attractive.

Excuse me?  Who the hell is Leonard Wood?  Out loud someone asked, “What's going on?  My recruiter guaranteed me I would be going to Fort Ord.”

  “No pro-blay-mo.  Jest let me see that there gar-an-tee, and I'll get you squared a-way.”  He drawled each syllable of those big words out in his best Missouri twang.

“Well, he didn't give me anything.  I mean, not in writing or anything like that. He just told me that everyone from Los Angeles would automatically be doing basic training at Fort Ord.  Does it make a difference that it's not in writing?”  The skinny kid, with the shock of carrot-colored hair and a sort of dazed look about him, stared expectantly up into the ham-like face. 

The fat man's smile broadened, if that were possible.  “Does a bear take a crap where it wants to?  Y'all got a lot to learn 'bout this man's army.  But yer got yer first quiz right now.  Cause here y'all do what yer told, and I jus' tole yer where yer goin'.  Got it?”  Amazing.  The only word in the two sentences, longer than one syllable, was the word army.   

The original speaker slouched amongst what had to be the sorriest looking group of young adult males that ever assembled in one location.  Since I was sitting there too, I can only figure that I was in just as sad of shape.  I know why I was dejected; it was a simple matter of winning the lottery, the draft lottery that is, the only lottery I ever won.

If you're of a certain age, you know that in the final throes of the Vietnam  War, the draft board instigated a process whereby all eligible draft candidates were assigned a number from one through 366.  Each date on the calendar year corresponded with one of the 366 Ping-Pong balls bouncing around in the clear jug.  September Fourth, always my favorite day of the year, suddenly turned Benedict Arnold on me, as it was drawn at the same time as number thirty-three was pulled.

    

At the start of 1972, the draft board estimated that those with numbers under one hundred, had better be prepared to enter the military.  I entered the Armed Forces Entrance Examination Station (AFEES) in Los Angeles, at six AM, on January tenth, 1972.  I sat there in my ratty Levis and lightweight, olive-drab corduroy jacket, with my six weeks' growth of beard.  Like those around me, I carried a relatively small canvas gym bag with a couple changes of clothes, a book, and my shaving kit.  I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, as I tried to concentrate on M*A*S*H*, but trying to look like a bad ass all the same.  After all, at five feet ten inches tall, and a robust one hundred fifty pounds, I did not present an imposing figure.  But I was the only dude there with a beard.  It seemed relevant at the time.

My brothers, Brian and Noel, along with my then-girlfriend, had delivered me to Sepulvada Boulevard in plenty of time.  Our good-byes had long since been spoken, so there was no dilly-dallying around at the entrance.  I cruised in like the Pro from Dover, until the door whipped back with a thud, an indication of a faulty hydraulic mechanism on the door, at which time the enormity of what I was in for began to sink in.  As I looked around me, I saw my own dejection mirrored in the faces around me.

Someone else blurted out, “But why aren't we going to Fort Ord? Why send us three thousand miles away when we could go right up the coast?”  Geography was not a requirement for entry into the army, so no one bothered to correct his mileage estimate.

“Y'all don't want to be goin' to Fort Ord at this here time, 'cause they got some sort of dizeaze.  It's one that strikes fast and...”  He snapped his meaty fingers.  "Zap, your girlfiend's collecting on your army life inshurince.”  Later we had learned that he referred to meningitis, and that we probably were lucky to avoid Ord, but we still wanted to kill the messenger, or at least deflate him.

“It's sort a funny, ya know.  When I got into the army, we was havin' that same thin' at Len-nerd Wood.”  He looked down at the floor for a second, and then glanced slyly at us to see if anyone had gotten his inference.  If an outbreak had occurred in the past at FLW, and was currently an issue at Ft. Ord, then it could also break out at FLW, at an instant's notice.  I'm pretty sure everyone got it, based on the general sagging quality of the body language.  

“So that means we're not going to Fort Ord?”  someone asked.  Definitely army material.

This gave the sergeant another opportunity to expand on the news.  “The only way you go to Fort Ord is if Santa Claus swoops down in his sleigh and carries you up there.  That or you got it in writin'.”  There was a note of finality in his voice, and his smiling face had disappeared.

A timid hand went up, just as it might have on the first day of middle school.  “I have it in writing.”  This was from a little guy wearing glasses, who had been sitting by himself, and who seemed to want the floor to open up and swallow him.  

Now it was the sergeant's turn to register disappointment.  “Let me see that.”

He snatched the paper from the kid's hand, and examined it for what seemed like longer than what the task demanded.  After all, it had to have been a form that he was staring at, and he must have seen a thousand of them before, since he worked here at the AFEES. 

  Suddenly the sergeant leered at the kid.  “Well I guess it's your lucky day.  You get to go on up to Fort Ord, but I wouldn't worry too much 'bout that there  diz-eaze  They say only one recruit has died so far, but it's still early.”  Even in defeat, he clutched at victory with one final thrust. 

Nine AM finally arrived, and with it the master sergeant who ran the  AFEES-LA. (After all, as we were soon to find out, no one could reasonably expect anything to happen in the army until after you had sat around for three hours).  We were herded into a nondescript room, big enough to seat the forty of us, but not by much. 

Characteristically, there were the gratuitous “moos” and catcalls as we filed in and took a desk, identical to the ones in which we sat in high school homeroom, including the fact there were insufficient left-handed desks.  We were here to take a series of standardized tests, measuring skill levels in basic math, language and reading  abilities, one of the four times during the next week, that we were to take the identical set of exams. 

They were similar to every standardized test I had ever taken, and since the tests were identical, by the third time I took them, I was getting pretty good at it.  Because we were sitting in close quarters, I was able to get enough of a look at a few of my closest neighbors' papers, to be able to appreciate the clever patterns they had formed with their colored-in dots.  Missing from the scene was any measurable level of concern.  It was as though the army had furnished them with a coloring book to entertain them while they waited for something to happen.  When the master sergeant distributed the questionnaire, which included the question, “If given a choice, would you prefer to serve in Vietnam or Korea?” I was flummoxed.

Was this a trick question?  The last time I'd checked, no one was currently getting blown up by land mines in Korea, so I checked the “Korea” box.  Then I colored in the box extra dark, just to make sure there was no confusion.  As it turned out, those tests which had provided such entertainment for my fellow recruits, but had seemed so elementary to me, turned out to be the method by which the army sorted and classified all incoming soldiers.  This is a well-established feature of the army, that everything has to have a classification.  Says so in the manual, page twelve, paragraph four, subsection c.  

As we sat there, I struck up a conversation with an older guy, who seemed a little more together than the rest of us.  Lon DeWeese was twenty-four, with a brushy mustache, and horned rim glasses.  His hazel eyes seemed to shift color from a green tint at times, to an almost amber shade at others, as he took in his surroundings.  Lon was a graduate of UCLA, and had been notified within two weeks of his December 1^st graduation, that he was to report for active military duty on January tenth.  He and I talked about school, shared majors, established that we shared a common passion for pinochle, and made a vow to find two other players first thing upon arrival at Fort Leonard Wood, for some cards action.  Before the first morning had passed, I had already established the art of making connections that were to last, in some instances, for a lifetime.  

After the testing was done, they fed us, appropriately enough, baloney sandwiches and kept us waiting for another three hours, presumably while they cut orders for us to ship out to Missouri.  Eventually, the sergeant major came back in, at which time we wrapped up our individual conversations in two words or less while we waited for the bad news.  Unfortunately, nothing happened to change the orders in his hand as he said, “You already know that you're not going to Fort Ord.  Believe me, it may be cold at Fort Leonard Wood, but you'll get out of there in ten weeks if you keep it together.  I'm not sure we could say the same about Ord.”   The fat sergeant stood off to one side with no expression on his face, as he let his boss handle this part of the program.  His work had already been accomplished.

He asked if there were any questions, and of course there were at least a hundred.  No one said a word.  “Great.  You'll fly out of L.A. International to Kansas City, where you will be given further orders.  I've put Private Second Class DeWeess, in charge, and he has your orders.  You are to follow any instructions that he gives you, and stick together so the military police don't have to go looking for anyone.”  Lon was now a rank higher than the rest of us, and in charge, for the simple reason that he was the only college grad in the group, and he was six years older than most of us.  His reserved demeanor and his age, combined to make him the best, if not the only, candidate for the job.  They then loaded us onto an army bus for the relatively short trip to the airport, where we were put on a commercial airliner heading for Kansas City.  The only thing I remember about that bus trip was Leon, and the way Lon handled the situation.

    

Leon was neither older nor reserved.  He was this tall, lanky black kid with a big smile and an even bigger voice.  He drew our attention because he had pushed his head and shoulders out of the bus window, and was hollering at the babes on the street as the bus passed them by.  His Raiders ball cap was cocked sideways, angled down in the style of the inner-city kids.  He wasn't vulgar, just noisy and obnoxious, and he didn't give up.  The rest of us didn't much care; it wasn't as though we were going to be going the same way the next day.  The bantering continued, without abatement, the entire half-hour trip.  On the bus on the way to the airport, the way Lon handled Leon was to ignore him.

By the time we boarded the plane, Leon had toned it down to the extent that he couldn't very well stick his head out the plane window, but he was still noisy and bouncing all over the plane, for the first few minutes once the “Fasten Seat Belt” sign had been extinguished.  Lon waited only until after that had transpired, before he got up from his seat, walked over to Leon, said something only Leon could hear, and headed toward the back of the plane.  Leon got up as if his shoe were on fire, and followed Lon on back.  Lon came back almost immediately, and retook his seat. 

Leon was gone about ten minutes, and when he came back, he was a different man.  Gone was the hollering, and the seeming need for attention.  In its place was a subdued Leon, who appeared to be a totally changed guy.  His smile had been replaced with a look of concentration-or confusion-it was hard to tell.  He seemed to be settling down into his seat in a very relaxed manner, and he no longer seemed to care about what was going on around him.

What was up with that?  When I had spoken with Lon earlier at the AFEES, he had seemed pretty laid back, so I leaned around the seat in front of me when no one seemed to be paying attention and asked him quietly, “What's up with Leon?  He sure mellowed out fast.”

Lon shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly, as if to say, “It's nothing to do with me,” except that it actually had everything to do with Lon.  It seems that, when Lon escorted Leon to the back of the plane, the reason was to slip Leon a little goodness rolled up in the form of a joint, a little thai stick, if I remember correctly.  Leon was apparently more familiar with the stuff coming locally from Mexico, and the stuff Lon had turned him on to, was way out of his normal league, so Leon was simply fried.  If you glanced at him now, Leon's face had a sort of glassy look to it, and it seemed unlikely that he would be up and hollering any time in the immediate future.  At least the rest of us got a break from the mouth.