LEAVING MY INNOCENCE BEHIND

I got a little out of sequence by writing about The Beacon Drive-In back in October of ’06, but it was in that piece that told how Woody and I seem to circle that place endlessly, and one night decided we would get out of that rut by joining the Air Force. That piece would chronologically follow the drag race piece and then this one.

That was the end of innocence for me. The day I decided I did not want to be a child anymore – what the hell was I thinking? Gees, I could have possibly milked that life at least another year or two, and who knows, maybe I would have become an electrician like my old man. Then, of course, I would have missed the war, never gone to college, and never known anything I know and cherish today.

Nevertheless, I chose to leave Harriman, my parents, some of my innocence, and all my youth behind me.

Imagine you are eighteen years old and far from home among strangers and some tough looking Drill Instructor (DI) and his huge black sidekick starts yelling at you during every waking hour and sometimes in your dreams. What do you do? You just look him, listen to every word he barks, and do everything he asks without questioning.

After your first two weeks in boot camp you begin the psychological state the drill sergeants work hard at provoking in your mind. You begin to think that you have always been at Lackland Air Force Base and that you have always been doing whatever you are doing at any given moment for the DI. You become totally his, putty in his hands, and you would literally charge a machine gun nest if he asked. That is the simple fact why the military takes recruits at the tender malleable age of eighteen. They would take them younger if it were constitutionally legal.

As soon as I arrived the DI told us, “I am now your momma! I am now your daddy! I am now your brother! I am now your sister! BUT, I’ll be damn if I’ll be your girlfriend!”

“Do as I say or you’ll have my foot so far up your ass you’ll have to have it surgically removed! Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir.”

“I can’t hear you!”

“YES SIR!”

That was the way if was from the first sticky August night I arrived, standing at forced stiff attention in my civilian clothes. We marched, or tried to, until the next evening in our “civvies!” This is why new recruits are called “Rainbows.” Their bright colored clothing stands out like a sore thumb beside the olive drab of the hundreds of older troops marching everywhere you look.

I arrived with about thirty-five new troops at about 1AM. Everyone was dog-tired and barely conscious from sitting around airports, flying, and riding buses since 6AM the previous morning.

We were marched into a huge building, which turned out to be an experimental barracks the Air Force was testing, and told which bunk was ours. The DI then announced at the top of his voice, “You got fifteen minutes to shit, shower, shave, and get in that bunk. Hit it! The lights go out in 14 minutes!”

Somehow the thirty-five of us made that deadline before “lights out,” but just barely. Everyone I passed, like me, had little pieces of toilet paper stuck all over their faces to stop the bleeding. When you are tired, standing five or six deep in front of a mirror, and are scared shitless, it is a wonder you do not slit your throat!

I remember waking the next morning and sitting up startled, as “The time now is zero five-thirty hours! Get up, get dressed, and get outside,” blared from the loudspeaker! I also remember that the pillow was stuck to the side of my face from the dried blood I had shed during the past four hours I was asleep!

We jumped into our clothes, pissed, brushed our teeth, splashed water on our face and ran down the stairs to the waiting DI and his assistant who were busily trying to show troops where and how to stand and wait on the others.

We left behind a bed, latrine, and barracks area in a shambles, but this was the last time we jumped out of bed as carefree as we used to do at home.

After breakfast, we double-timed over to supply and had our new wardrobe thrown into our faces, our hair shaved off, and then double-timed it back to the barracks. It was then we began learning the finer points of making hospital corners, making a bed tight enough to bounce a quarter off a foot in the air, how to properly arrange and display our clothing and toilet articles, and how to clean the latrine, all before leaving within thirty minutes of “zero five-thirty hours!”

This discipline does not just happen over night, but with a lot of screamed encouragement down the back your shirt you learned pretty quickly!

This was just the first morning and my innocence and former existence were now far behind!