May 2022
I am currently recuperating from Covid. It's day 4 after testing positive. Right now, the symptoms are largely like having a bad cold. Judy tested positive on the same day, so we're fortunate to not have to stagger our quarantine periods. It's nowhere near as unpleasant as the flu episode I had a few years ago, but it's definitely not fun.
Being cooped up has left ample time to cogitate over things, leading to an effort to locate a copy of the basic training yearbook I failed to buy some 52 years ago. Trainees were given the opportunity to acquire the chronicle which was similar to a high school yearbook. At the time I thought to myself, "With few exceptions, I hope to never see these people again." Now, a half century later, I feel the same way, but I would like to see pictures of them.
Here's what I've learned in my so-far-unsuccessful search. If you google some combination of 'basic training' and '1970' you will find yourself at an American Legion (legion.org) site where the featured article is an unabridged copy of my Basic Training Chapter 1 from Nude Nuns and Other Peculiar People. I have no idea how they found it, but I'm pleased they did.
Further cogitation led me down memory lane. Read on, if you've an interest.
Fort Polk, LA - Part II
At the conclusion of basic training we had a graduation ceremony and parade. Many family members and loved ones attended to celebrate this micro-achievement, unique only to the five million young men who shared the experience during the Vietnam War era. My loved ones were apparently busy that day.
I thought I was scheduled to travel to Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio to take a 4-month training course for dental assistants. But, there was a SNAFU. For reasons I would never learn, I was instead ordered to stay in Ft. Polk and enter Advanced Infantry Training in Tiger Land. I was more than mildly concerned about this, so I wrote Colonel Hume, the commanding officer of my home dental detachment in Springfield, MO. I was particularly indebted to Dr. Hume, as he made room for me in his highly desired unit. He wrote back saying, "No big deal, just go with the flow, we'll train you when you get home."
So off I went to Tiger Land. The welcoming sign at Ft. Polk, says "Home of the Combat Infantryman." Tiger Land was designed to replicate Viet Cong villages and surrounding terrain. There was a section with barracks and chow hall, but mostly we lived in tents or in the replica villages. There were thatched huts, guard towers, M-60 machine gun emplacements, punji stick traps made of sharpened bamboo, systems of tunnels, strands of concertina wire, et al. NCO's and returning veterans were dressed as VC or villagers, never revealing which. Most memorable, were the systems of trails that were all booby trapped with punji sticks traps, spidy holes, and mines. It was all pretty terrifying.
The Tiger Land people proudly boasted that trainees who graduated from their intensive AIT, were spared having to undertake the one-week unit training course upon arrival in Viet Nam, and could go directly into lethal combat. No delay. What a deal.
If it wasn't so life-threateningly serious, elements of the training were pretty darn cool. Who wouldn't want to shoot an M-60 Machine Gun? Unless of course there was someone else with equally deadly weapons shooting at you.
After a week in Tiger Land, a drill sergeant took me aside and asked, "Can you type?" I replied in the affirmative, and he told me I was being reassigned to clerk duties at Company HQ. I never learned if this was due to Colonel Hume's intervention or someone decided it was a waste of bullets to train a dental assistant as an infantryman. In a matter of hours, I traded my M-16 and combat fatigues for a Smith Corona and Class A's, and I was re-situated into the comforts of an air-conditioned office. Thank God for my eighth-grade typing class at Indian Hills Jr. High.
My new boss was an E-6 (staff sergeant) and a pretty good guy. He was tall, had real greasy hair, and was probably in his mid 30's. We underlings called him Phil, in large part because that was his name. But this being the military, first name familiarity between trainees and cadre was not commonplace.
One of my new workmates was a young black man. He was very effeminate and had a beautiful singing voice, reminiscent of Johnny Mathis. He was constantly singing, much to the delight of anyone within hearing range. I often wondered if he ever made it big. He was really good.
Phil somehow took a liking to me. One day he invited me to travel to his home after work. It was always a treat to get off base, so I quickly accepted his kind invite. I hopped into his beat-up pickup, and we traveled down a series of dirt roads running through the dense pine forests of western Louisiana. He pulled into a ratty looking place with a couple of derelict vehicles littering the yard. The front porch was decorated with an old icebox and a couch. The 'Walton's' style house was in dire need of freshening. If Hollywood were attempting to paint an unflattering stereotype of a redneck home, this was it.
We walked in, and Phil yelled, "Hey hon, we've got company, can you grab us a couple of beers?" Hon turned out to be a very pretty girl. I'd guess she couldn't have been older than 15. Hon delivered the beers, and Phil said, "Let's sit on the porch and shoot the shit." And we did, and the shit was shot. And I thought to myself, "Is this even legal?" I don't remember a single morsel of our conversations, other than it was a whole lot better than being in my barracks. This was to be the first of four visits to Phil's home.
We shared office space with the company commander, a captain, and occasionally we had contact with a major or even a lt. colonel. In spite of my limited exposure, I surmised that the cadre of officers assigned to basic training units were not the best and brightest. In later life I read the quote by the German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord which seemed apropos:
"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent - their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy - they make up 90% of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent - he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief."
And Kurt probably never even traveled to Ft. Polk.
Phil had a good sense of humor and a bit of vengefulness. On a few occasions he had us mail personnel folders to the wrong military installation insuring that the target's orders and payroll data would get lost. Company clerks were not to be messed with. I was getting close to my 6-month end of active duty, and was counting down each morning, '31 days and a wakeup'.
On May 4, 1970 we were in the office and someone walked in and asked, "Did you hear the latest scores? National Guard 4, Kent State 0." We would later learn this referred to the incident when the Ohio National Guard fired on student protestors killing four and wounding nine. It set off a chain of protests on college campuses all over the country. Unfortunately, this tragedy played an outsized role in turning public sentiment against the boys in uniform, not just the politicians. I would experience this wrath on numerous occasions over the next 5 ½ years of my reserve duty.
Inexplicably, I received orders to go home about three weeks early. I gleefully complied.
Cousins' Reunion
Judy and I traveled to Carlsbad, CA to attend the tenth holding of the Welsh cousin's reunion. Ten of the thirteen living grandchildren of Jesse and Mayme Welsh, along with spouses and partners, gathered for a few days of merriment. Jesse, as you may recall from earlier stories, was born in 1892, had one of his eyes pecked out by a chicken when he was a baby, served in WWI in France, became a teacher then principal in schools in SE Missouri and fathered five kids, my Mom, Helen, being the first born. My grandkids are totally freaked out by poultry pecking part of the parable, "Who would leave a baby near a chicken?"
We rented a car at the San Diego airport and drove north to Carlsbad on I-5. At one point in the drive we descended from a hill down to a bridge crossing a lagoon. It afforded a view of several miles of the nine lanes of congested traffic each way. I told Judy it made me feel like an ant. Gas was over $6 a gallon.
The reunion was great fun, and I enjoy the company of my cousins. One evening our host, assembled about 300 family pictures which we watched as a group on a wide screen television. We could identify most everyone pictured, but several remained mysteries. On one occasion someone quoted the oft-repeated aphorism misattributed to Einstein, "Repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity."
Cousin Steve, a retired nuclear physicist, calmly interjected,
"Einstein did believe that, but he was proven wrong. What he described as insanity is, according to quantum theory, the way the world actually works. In quantum mechanics you can do the same thing many times and get different results. That is the premise underlying great high-energy particle colliders."
No one argued the point. What a great group of cousins.
Waverly
Lucy was picking up the kids on their last day of school. Finn got in the car first with his yearbook. She asked to see it, and Finn mentioned that an older boy drew a picture of a penis in it. He was nonplussed, said he tore out the offending page, no big deal.
A few minutes later, Waverly got in the car, and Finn told her what happened and who. She espied the flagitious miscreant awaiting his ride and raced out of the car before Lucy could stop her. Waverly confronted the junior shit-weasel, who stood a foot taller, and planted her face inches from his. Lucy reports she was concerned she was going to hit him. But she didn't.
After she returned to the car, Lucy asked what transpired and was told, "I didn't say a word. I just gave him 'The Look' ". What a kid.
