Looking back on my military career, which lasted approximately three years, eleven months, twenty-three days, eighteen hours and thirty-two minutes, there’s a certain pride. Just for having served, mostly. I didn’t do it on purpose, not really. There was a war, there was a draft. There was actual shooting and explosions. Bullets and bombs. There were extenuating circumstances. There was my dad.
I flunked out of college in my freshman year. GPA of… what’s all Fs and a D? Which, if anyone was paying attention, suggested I hadn’t wanted to be in school for, I don’t know, maybe the previous ten years. Just because I win scholarships, doesn’t mean I’ll go to class. School is no place for a boy like me. Too many rules.
What to do next? My father suggested I might have a better chance with the Viet Cong than remaining at home with him. Imagine Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear. I got the hint.
Dad drove me to the recruiting offices, about noon one weekday. I wanted to be a Marine. The entire concept was so crazy, I figured, what the hell, might as well go all the way. The Marine office was closed for lunch. Damn, I guess I’ll have to come back, I said. Dad said, no. The only office open belonged to the Air Force. Sign me up.
I arrived at the train station in Brewster with a bunch of other guys, all looking a little lost. We were greeted by Henry Wells, a Spanish-American War veteran who had always impressed me. We had marched in some of the same parades, he in his Rough Riders khaki, me in the blue of the Cub Scouts.
Two Americans in uniform.
We ended up at Whitehall Station. The Whitehall Street center processed inductees from 1884 until it was bombed by protesters in 1969, during the Vietnam War. There were different colored foot prints stenciled on the floor. We were told to follow the feet. There were young men, heads down, placing their shoes on the path precisely. Apparently, I had miss-marked one answer and was led to a hard bench in the corner. What Arlo Guthrie called the Group W bench. Father stabbers, mother rapers, father rapers, not a nice looking group. And one chubby white boy who was unhappy with a small Methodist college’s freshmen curfew.
The recruiter suggested some tests, nothing to worry about, and go back home and hang out at Lake Carmel Beach #3 all summer. Ogle beauties.
Thought that’s what he promised.
Next thing, I’m in Texas. San Antonio. Lackland. That small Methodist college and mandatory vespers suddenly started looking pretty good.
I bet I’ll even miss my madras pajamas.
Found the military had a better sense of humor than brains. Exactly the opposite of what you’d think. Take a bunch of black guys from Brooklyn, add a bunch of white mountain boys from West Virginia, toss me in the middle. Funny.
Sign on the platoon bulletin board. WARNING! OFF-LIMITS. The home of Tana Wallace and her daughters.
Turns out the ladies were professionally affectionate and the Air Force thought that was somehow bad for troop morale.
The warning ended with the complete address of the Wallace domicile, practically had a map with global coordinates. Smart.
How else would a virgin from New York find the place?
Rifle training. I put so many bullets into the wrong target, the guy next to me got sent to Sniper school.
“T.I., T.I., don’t be blue. Frankenstein was ugly, too. Sound off. 1. 2. Sound off. 3.4. Bring it on down. 1,2,3,4. Boo ya!!!” I was scared all the time by everybody, but we ended up as the honor flight. Let us sleep in to 0600 as our reward.
Casual barracks. Another oxymoron. Before you get to go on leave, you have to have orders. Nowhere to go, you stay there. Policing the parade grounds, spit shining your entire being, accidentally picking up a comely transsexual at El Gato. A story my grandmother didn’t want to hear.
Weeks go by. Men leave. More men leave. Finally, orders come. Only thirteen of us left. Like many sergeants, ours was sado-masochistic. He read aloud loudly each name, like an epithet, announcing one assignment after another like throwing a poison dart.
Shaffer. Yessir! Latrine Development & Maintenance. Da Nang. Moore. Yessir! Latrine Development & Maintenance. Dong Ha. One after another. Latrine. Viet Nam. My mouth went dry.
Welch. Yessir!
Czechoslovakian Language Training.
Monterrey, California.
The dress uniform. I looked like Ralph Kramden.
True story. Might’ve been Abilene, an old lady asked me, “Driver, when will the next bus be departing?”
Despite the opportunity to spend great times on Cannery Row back when the place had canneries and no aquarium, ironically, The Defense Language Institute wasn’t any better than being an Allegheny Alligator.
Months and months and months of classes, often eight hours daily.
With K.P. on Saturdays. A wizard on pots and pans.
Inspections. I make a tight bed.
Turns out there is no skipping classes in the military.
One of my teachers, Pan Seda said at graduation, “Pane Welch, we teach you Czech against your will.”
Flunking meant a fox hole on the front lines, professor.
I am crazy, not stupid.
Bavaria and spying was fun for the next three years. But that’s another story.
This might surprise you.
Time to muster out, USAF offered everybody in our squad a ten thousand dollar bonus to re-enlist.
Everybody but me. Still can’t decide a half century later if I should have been insulted.
They said I wasn’t “military material.” Wasn’t enough money anyway.
The USAF is no place for a man like me. Oh, the rules.
I have a Good Conduct medal.
Yeah, I’m amazed, too.