The Vietnam War had just ended about a month before I left for basic. My first day of military service was June 2, 1975. I was full of piss and vinegar and ready to get on with getting on. I had joined five or six weeks earlier and gotten married. So there we all were, on the bus from Louisville, on our way to Ft. Knox, laughing and having the time of our lives, completely unaware that eventually we were going to be asked to get off that bus.

We roll into Ft. Knox and the buses come to a stop. The doors open and we were all greeted with doughnuts and hot chocolate. It was a little overwhelming.

That was what I was wishing would happen. What actually happened was….

The door opened.

Somebody that I had never seen before stepped onto our bus and started yelling and screaming and cursing and calling us things that later I had to look up in the dictionary because I had no idea what they meant.

It was exactly at this moment that I realized that I might have made a mistake.

I had KP on my very first night. Honestly, I am peeling potatoes on my very first day in the army.

On our first night in the army, we all slept in one big room, Kind of like a slumber party. I didn’t have the terminology down yet. I do remember one thing. I could hear crying, and an amazing amount, for a bunch of guys who were having so much fun just a few hours earlier. For an eighteen year old that had grown up in the country, all this wasn’t a little overwhelming…. it was very overwhelming.

Day 2:

Relax. I am not going to give you my entire enlistment, day by day.

Day two was when the military began to make us what we would become. There were maybe three guys I was hanging out with as we were marched to the barber. Ha, Barber.

By the time I was in the chair, the cuteness of explaining how we wanted our hair cut had long past, and I was sheared just like everyone else. When we came out…. we couldn’t even pick out who we had been hanging out with earlier. Hell, I could hardly recognize the guys face I had shaved that morning.

Without spending a whole lot of time on basic training, let me just say that….

• They were quite a variety of folks in the army.
• They didn’t all look like me.
• They didn’t all act like me.
• They didn’t all think like me.
• We mostly all learned to respect each other and work together.

One thing that my drill instructor told us all was that for the rest of your life, no matter where you go or what you do, you will be different. He said that by the time we got out of basic training that we would stand out like a sore thumb. Everybody you are around will know that you are a soldier. A funny example of something that followed me around long after I was discharged was that I could not walk with anyone without being in step with them. 

There are so many army stories, and maybe someday I will share one or two but enlisting and serving this great country that I was fortunate enough to be a citizen of was humbling and life changing and I would not change anything. Well maybe one thing. Memorial Day nineteen seventy-seven, the day I got liquored up and decided to go fight some Germans that were not quite as liquored up as myself. I would probably change that night.

So in closing, I would like to just say that to all the veterans that served during peace time and during war, thank you for your service, but this is not our day, and I know that you know that. On this day, Memorial Day, I am remembering those who did not return.

God bless this Nation.

ws