On October 15, 1968, I joined the U.S. Navy. My brother Bill enlisted at the same time. Bill had just finished high school and I had graduated from college, and the Army was looking for lots of men, good, bad, or indifferent. Neither Bill nor I wanted to be walking up the stairs of the enlistment center in Boston, but the government said it needed us.
The enlistment center was in the Army Supply Terminal along the waterfront. The Terminal is long gone and the area has since been tastefully gentrified. Enlistees in all the various services were inducted in this one place. At the top of the stairs stood an army sergeant screaming his head off for us to get a move on. The stairs were steep and crowded and any hustling on our part would've been dangerous. This was my first taste of military knuckleheadedness.
I could have turned around and walked out into the bright sunshine, but the government had my number and unless I wanted to move to Canada, they'd come looking for me. If I allowed myself to be drafted, I'd only have to serve for two years, but that would include a year of camping in Vietnam. Joining the Navy looked to be more comfortable. The downside was that I had to enlist for four years.
Once we passed the apoplectic sergeant, I tried to put a good face on the coming four years. I didn't really have any pressing engagements, I could use a break from my girlfriend, I'd get to travel, and when I got out, I'd have a chunk of GI Bill money for more college education to supplement my unmarketable degree in English literature.
All we were doing this day was getting a physical and taking our oath of enlistment. It took all morning to get through the long line for a physical. They must have given us lunch. It couldn't have been too fancy because I don't remember it.
After lunch Bill and I walked out on the pier behind the center. The harbor was calm and we enjoyed the warm sunshine. One of us noticed a big red candle. Someone had probably been trying to throw it into the harbor and missed. It was in the shape of an angel and looked like it could burn for days. I was a smoker back then so we lit the wick and set it on the edge of the pier and walked back into the center.
We sat around for a couple of more hours waiting for our turn to take the oath. The only previous oath I had taken had been in Boy Scouts. We stood in front of the flag and promised to defend the Constitution and obey our officers. The first part was vague. I would soon come to learn how specific the second part was.
After another hour or so, those of us who had joined the Navy were bussed to Logan Airport. We had no need for luggage. We were leaving our old lives behind. We flew to Chicago and were bussed up to Great Lakes Naval Training Center. It was a mild night along Lake Michigan and the still-green leaves rustled overhead in the dark as we marched to our barracks. The leaves would be gone when we marched away more smartly eight weeks later.
I always call Bill on October 15th, and we like to imagine that the candle is still burning.
Reading your autobiography exemplifies our 4-year age and life differences -- and my verbosity about my own. I learn more about you with each post, although I knew you and Bill enlisted together, just not in this rich detail.
ReplyDeleteI was in high school in 1968; you were in an enlistment office. I was sitting in a classroom; you were answering the government's call to arms on a pier in Boston.
You had a girlfriend (before you-know-who) ? You were a smoker? You were a Boy Scout? (Not surprising. I'll bet you still have all your badges, uniform sash, and cap; regulation socks, shorts, shirt and underwear.)
And, you had an unmarketable degree in English literature? I thought English Majors lead marching bands in parades during college festivities and football games and you had to be pretty athletic for that, explaining your physically trim build and all, Was I off-base! However, this explains your equally unmarketable degree in English History, except as filler for an undisclosed northwest Minnesota almanac website. No wonder you saw dollar-signs when a degree in Auto Mechanics beckoned you.
I always sensed a warrior side to you.
ReplyDeleteIn October 1968, I was beginning my 3-year (I graduated in 3; that's why not the usual four) stint as a protestor at UWisconsin Madison, and other parts less known. I hung a sign: Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?!" I still believe in the basic accusation. I wrote a paper on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. I was chosen by the Black Student Union to be their candidate for homecoming queen. I painted flowers on a real wheeled canon which we later rolled into the river at the edge of campus. Blah -Blah - Chicken - Blah. . . Not very impressive; even so, I was impressed with myself after the dull and stuffed life of 12 years of Catholic schools. "Let me our of here!"
That said, the military did not have the corner or even a baseboard on knuckleheadedness. Amid the smoke, dropped acid, hot rock 'n roll, and hotter sex there was plenty headiness of several types going around.
I will end with one other "odd fellow" who was doing his own thing in Japan at the time you and I were on different sides of the invisible fence. Note what he was doing in Oct 68, and then another October event in 1980. Difference between him and you and I is that his enlistment" has no end point beyond the usual termination.
Oct 1968 Awarded Shodan (first degree black belt)Promotion by Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido
Oct 1980 Ordination as Shingon Buddhist priest at Sanboin (big deal)Temple in Koyasan (bigger deal), Wakayama Prefecture, Japan
I think that about covers it. -- except for the 'never tell" parts between 68 and 71 - well, give me enough champagne and you might hear about those too. Think 3, 5, 1. HA!