Be All That You Can Be!
Some folks might wonder why I would join the Army while the Viet Nam war was still a hot mess. The war and the protests were all over the nightly news, but I only knew of one person who had any direct experience with it, and I didn’t really know him. The oldest son of the Groth family had gone to Viet Nam as a door gunner on a helicopter in the Air Cavalry. He was on a mission and was firing his machine gun and was shot in both arms by the enemy. He returned to the US, was treated and released from the Army. I'm not sure of his long-term disability.
In my initial enlistment I had joined as a grunt… Infantry. Those were the guys that did most of the fighting and dying. I only learned that after joining and that knowledge was part of the reason why I backed out.
My two uncles, Frank and Dave, on my dad’s side, had been to Viet Nam as pilots in the Air Force. Frank had been shot down over North Viet Nam but was rescued. Both were family heroes, having done their duty for their country; Uncle Frank having been awarded a Silver Star. My dad had taken a safer route. He joined the Merchant Marines and floated from New Orleans to central and South America during the war.
I considered myself somewhat patriotic by joining the Army but this time I thought I should take a more careful approach and become and MP. Not that the MP’s weren’t on the front lines, but my perception was that the gig would be safer than infantry. I remember telling people that I couldn’t really have a strong opinion about the war unless I had some experience with it so I needed to join up and go. The youth of America was turning against the war from what I could see on TV. The government seemed to be looking for a way out…Peace with Honor, as Tricky Dicky put it in January of 1973, a year after I joined.
I remember getting to the induction station in downtown St. Louis. Mike Crowley, a good friend, dropped me off and we said good-bye and I walked into a new life. There were lots of other guys being herded into rooms to be poked and prodded and tested. One of the first steps was to go into one room to take the oath. I don’t remember the oath but I do know that after you raised your right hand and swore to uphold the constitution of the United States of America and there was no backing out. Once you took the oath you were owned by Uncle Sam. The deal was sealed. You were now a soldier in the US Army for the duration of your enlistment agreement; in my case three years.
At first I really got into the Army. I was “gung-ho” and wanted to be an officer. I was naïve enough to believe it was possible, but I didn’t realize that officers needed either a four-year degree or a battlefield promotion. There were Warrant Officers, which was a grade above enlisted but below officer. No degree needed for Warrant Officer but it was only for certain specialty MOS's. (Military Occupational Skills) Well it was a long way in the future so let’s just see what happens.
Boot camp was OK. There was lots of food and plenty of exercise. Oh, and marching; lots of marching and singing songs with catchy lyrics like “I don’t know what I believe. I’ll be home by Christmas Eve. I don’t know what I’ve been told. Eskimo pussy is mighty cold, Left, Right, Left.”
Troops had to call their rifles “weapons”, not guns. That was a rule. One cold day as the company was doing drills, I made the mistake of calling my weapon a gun and the penalty was interesting. As the column moved forward, marching back to the barracks the Drill Sergeant made me run all the way around the company with my M-16 above my head yelling loudly “Here is my weapon! Here is my gun! This is for combat! This is for fun!
It didn’t take long to learn how to "get over" in the military. We all had to take driver tests and they asked me if I could drive a truck. I said “sure” though I had never driven a truck before so they gave me the keys to a "deuce and a half' and I set out to learn by doing. I got a license to drive the truck so instead of having to pull guard duty in the frigid cold of central Missouri I drove the guards to their posts then returned to the motor pool to sleep in wait for the next shift change. It was all because I was one of only a few people who could 1) drive a stick-shift and 2) put the truck in reverse and back it up without hitting anything. Most enlisted "lifers" spent their whole careers trying to fly below the radar and get over one way or another.
I did well generally, got in great shape, even scored as an Expert with an M-16 rifle. But it was colder than a motherfucker, laying in the snow in 10-degree weather shooting at pop-up targets at “Fort Lost-in-the-Woods”, as we called it.
The other guys in the Army at the time were from all over the country and all walks of life. Rednecks and hippies, blacks and Latinos; even an American Indian. It was my first real taste of the melting pot of America having lived all my life in a mostly white suburb of St. Louis. Many of them were draftees. Others of us were either RA, Regular Army like me, NG, National Guard, or ER, Enlisted Reserve. The NG’s and ER’s were going home after they completed their basic and advanced training. The RA’s and draftees were in it for the long haul.
We learned so many important things. I learned how to properly brush my teeth. Not that I didn’t already know this but we actually had an hour-long class on personal hygiene including tooth care. I was surprised to see that several of my classmates had deficient oral hygiene and need that training badly.
I had one leave midway through Basic Training. I remember driving back to St. Louis with a bunch of guys and not having any civilian clothes to change into. It was totally weird to have to stay in my uniform and hang out with friends that weekend. I remember thinking that everyone might look at me with respect and that women would find me more attractive. I had had it in my head that they would think I was cool but there wasn’t much respect for the military toward the end of the Viet Nam war. I had a date and thought I might get lucky so I got a classy motel room at the Ben Franklin Inn just off Highway 270. I slept alone there that night and ended up returning from my leave totally frustrated and a little confused. It made me begin to look at the military in a different way. It wasn’t going to be what I thought it would be.
We graduated from Basic Training without much fanfare and were dispersed to our next training post. I was happy to escape the frigid winter to go to advanced training at Military Police School at Fort Gordon, Georgia. It was early March and I distinctly remember that the smell of springtime in the air when we rode the bus onto the base the morning of arrival. The green was returning to the trees and I vividly remember the contrast with the Georgia red clay.
I met a lot of good guys at Ft. Gordon. It was pool of unrestrained testosterone. At some point they gave us a long weekend but confined us to the barracks. One of the guys had a friend bring his Ford Mustang onto post with a supply of beer and wine. I ordered four bottles of Boones Farm Strawberry Hill and we proceeded to drink heavily that Friday night. Much of the night is a blur. I was told that I got into a fight; one that I did not win, after drinking two bottles of the cheap wine in about 30 minutes. I had the top bunk but I woke up in a lower bunk of a bed that was not mine, with a pool of vomit on the floor next to the bed. I could only see out of one eye and went to the mirror in the latrine to find that I had suffered a severe cut over the left eye and it would be black and blue for some time thereafter. I should have gone to the dispensary for stitches but by the time I woke up the blood had coagulated into a scab and it was too late. I never found out whom I had fought with though it was obvious that I got the worst of it and there were no other obvious injuries.
The next day we all played softball and one the guys slid into second base face first and encountered the knee of the short stop, giving him a hell of a swollen black and blue right eye. We had photos taken as a remembrance of our weekend injuries.
In MP school I learned how to “crunch crime” the military way. I did pretty well here, too, scoring in the top 10% of my company of 300 men. But it was easy. You didn't have to be that smart to be an Army MP. One of my favorite sayings about being a Military Policeman was “I didn’t even know how to spell MP. Now I are one.” Duh…
