Let’s get some family and such up to speed here.  All this time I’d not done any more than write home and maybe call a couple of times.  Vickie was becoming an issue, yet the separation was easing my ability to call it quits with her.  My mental state was always aimed at learning all I could about what I was there for, so it lessened any anxiety about home.  I had grown to love Vickie when we were together, but in a spiritual sense I didn’t know the full impact of what we had done to each other until I was in my late twenties.  God wasn’t at the forefront in my mind right now, yet He was guiding my every step.  How else would I have gone into the military as a fresh body for the draft and ended up where I was.  Even during my school there things were going better than expected.  I had reached the date for automatic promotion to Private (E-2).  I could now put on my first stripe.  I was also still conversing with Billy back in Castle Hayne and knowing the situation at home with Vickie had to die, Billy was telling me he could get me a date when I got home if I wanted.  So things were not only changing for me in the military, but also my status at home was changing as well. 

One thing that did upset me back home was that situation where I wanted to play football the inaugural season for Aurora High School.  We’d never had a football program and to get in on the ground floor was what I wanted to do, yet before getting my last piece of equipment my dad quashed it by refusing to let me play.  Even the coach asked my mom could he come by and talk to dad about letting me play, but she advised him not to.  Then while away, I learn dad let my brother try out for the team and he made it and was playing his first available season.  I think Mike played football too.  Later in life mom told me dad didn’t want me to play because he was afraid I’d get hurt.  That, to me, was about the biggest hot steaming pile I’d ever heard, especially if he allowed the rest of my brothers who wanted to play that opportunity.  I can only write this off as being the oldest child.  It’s true so far as I’m concerned that we are the experiment in raising children.  I turned twenty years old while I was in boot camp doing things far more strenuous than what a football coach could ever make me endure.  I guess it took the Department of Defense to convince my dad to let me “play”.  If this sounds angry, it probably is.  I know this story is taking a side road for a moment, but let’s take a short ride.

My dad was a good man.  He was well liked by most everyone he came in contact with.  I attribute that to the calling of God on his life.  He was gifted with that ability, yet his own shyness and inability to express himself publicly forever erased his functioning in that ministry he was called to do.  There was an incident I will relate later in this writing when I confronted him with that calling and it sealed my knowing this first hand.  But on another hand I’ve said earlier that my grand dad, his dad, was known as a hard man.  He and grandmother weren’t always on best speaking terms.  Even as a young child I heard him speak to her harshly.  What I’m saying here is that it’s father like son in character.  You do what you learn.  So my dad started out being the same father to me that his father was to him.  This is something I swore later on in life I would not be to my children.  I don’t know whether to write some of the things that occurred later on in conversations with my mom or not, but I believe it best to wait.  You will see what I’m talking about as you read on.

Back to the Army.  Thanksgiving came quickly.  We had our first experience of being away from home and eating a mess hall turkey feast.  The mess hall cooks out did themselves with the typical home style cooked meal.  You think of what it would be and we probably had it.  There was a day of rest for us right in the midst of training, but believe me, the drill sergeant didn’t let us forget were we where and we had to make up that day. 

We still got up in the morning and went to the compound and studied the components of the missile, how to program the guidance system and most of all how to put it together in the field.  But there was a couple of days we took a sidestep and got trained on the M-60 machine gun.  Now there’s a lightweight weapon that could cut a person in half when done right.  The last day we all loaded up in deuce and a half trucks and took off out into the open terrain.  We got to a firing range where there were old military vehicles off in the distance.  We unloaded a couple of M-60’s and set them up.  We paired up to do firing.  One guy fired the weapon and the other fed it the ammo.  Then we’d switch off and let the other fire it.  Some say you could fire this from the hip Rambo style, but I think that was going a bit too far.  This weapon gets hot when its fired a bit and it really isn’t that light to be toting around like that.  This was a fascinating weapon overall for us, because we weren’t really into weapons as a unit.  Our main weapon was the missile itself.  M-16s were always a staple weapon with any soldier.  So we got our fun time in and then it was back to work.

To say what we did would get redundant here, so I’ll try to give you some character studies here.  We were all above average intelligence and that’s not to say I’m smart.  It’s just to say we all were still a bunch of guys with testosterone to spread around, but we had to learn things that infantry soldiers would never be shown.  To say that is to say this.  We weren’t all pristine subjects of upbringing.  We found out some of us didn’t like Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.  Some of the Mexicans and such didn’t like some of us white guys.  See I was still leaning towards being a Klan member.  What we found out early on was that one of our naturalized Mexican members wasn’t in the Army on his own accord.  He was there as an option to jail time.  He had committed a crime we weren’t privy to, but we think it had something to do with knives.  Why would I say that?  Well, about the third or fourth week one of us white guys had tormented him to the point they were in the stairway one evening and our Mexican friend pulled a blade on the white guy and the whole barracks of guys broke into a run to the stairway.  Some from the second floor grabbed on and the rest of us on the first floor grabbed the other and held them apart and tried to reason with them.  The drill sergeant came in as this was going on and ordered a halt to the action and he took both of them to the Charge of Quarters office.  We don’t know what happened, but they were cool when they came back.  We never had an issue like this arise again. 

We’d been ridden pretty hard by the drill sergeant to get our junk on the bunk in order.  We were to have a big inspection with the Colonel at the end of the fourth week, just before Christmas.  It almost seemed unreasonable at times.  I had made my stripe and had them sewn on.  We were also making plans to go home for Christmas.  This was going to give us a good break and happy for it.  We just had to make it through the inspection.

Also during this time we had one guy who just never seemed to make the grade.  He was always goofing up.  He’d not gotten his uniform on in time to fall in formation in the morning on a repeated basis.  The drill sergeant was seemingly never happy with him. 

Then one morning while we were waiting for him to fall out there we stood in the cold, shivering in our field jackets while the drill sergeant stands there in just his starched fatigues and sporting his drill sergeant’s badge.  The black guy next to me started to laugh a little and then we all kind of caught on, because we all wondered how the drill sergeant could stand such cold this way.  By the way, our drill sergeant was black if you’re wondering.  By this time we had broken the ice a little bit with him, but this morning he stepped off the curb in front of this guy next to me.  He leaned over into his face and in no uncertain terms asked him why he was laughing.  Of course he answered quite frankly that we wondered if he was cold.  He stood straight up backed up on the sidewalk, looking about a half foot taller, looked around at us all and said it only once.  He said “I’m not cold, my drill sergeant’s badge keeps me warm!”  We all couldn’t hold hit.  We broke into instant laughter and he grinned.  I think this is when we were over the hump with him, yet he didn’t let up on this fourth week before the inspection. 

I was and still am a stickler for detail.  Knowing I had a ready made bunk fit for inspection I didn’t have that to worry with.  So I concentrated on making sure my shirts were ironed and my uniforms were clean, pressed and hung in the proper order according to the diagrams.  My socks were rolled together in pairs just so.  My drawers and t shirts were folded neatly and all was tucked in my cabinet drawers as instructed.  The evening before the inspection the drill sergeant came through and took a look at the progress we were making.  He looked at mine first since I was closest to the entry.  He then went down the line and around and when he got done he called everyone to attention.  He then told all of them to get over to my display of my stuff and take a good hard look.  Everyone was to set up there junk exactly like mine.  I was the example.  I felt like a million dollars to be the example like that. 

The next day the Colonel and his XO and recorders came through looking and making notes of this and that.  When the inspection was over the drill sergeant came back in and said we had passed out inspection and that for all to know, I was given a meritorious promotion to PFC (E-3) because of how well I had displayed my junk.  I was an E-2 a full two weeks.  I was ecstatic.  I now could go home for Christmas with a rocker on my crow foot.  But I would take that new rank home and let my grandmother sew it on for me.  At this point we were still allowed to wear field jackets with Class Cs, but now I did something special.  I took my Class A uniform to be tailored.  It came to a 29 inch waist and the jacket was a 40 inch chest.  I was really physically fit at 175 pounds.  I had the sides taken in at the waist to make me look sharper and I got it back ready to wear home for the first time.  Christmas was coming.

All of us made our plans, got our tickets and worked our next week or two till being released for leave for the first time since we’d entered the Army.  A new experience was about to happen.

I had written Billy during this time and told him I wanted a hot date when I got to Wilmington and he assured me he could and would.  He even did so through a friend of his who knew this girl who’d just broken up with her boyfriend and was acceptable to meeting me.  Billy even sent me a picture of this young adorable girl with glasses, a short haircut, wearing what appeared to be a black sweater with a string of pearls.  It was her Senior picture from New Hanover High School.  Her name was Julie Barnes.  She was quite attractive to me.  I just hope it wasn’t because I’d been deprived of womanly company for the last four months.  

So the day came.  A bunch of us headed out for the Lawton airport with us going different directions.  Mine was to Dallas first then on to Atlanta and then Wilmington.  I was so ready to take a break.