Interlude
1
KP
KP, or call it Kitchen Police, Kitchen Duty, or whatever, but back in my day, ever soldier did it. I was woken up this one morning of my seventh week in training, it was a Sunday, and someone wanted to go to church, so guess who they picked for kitchen duty, me. I wasn't supposed to have it, I had had it three times before, and was suppose to have been done with it. But the Army never works that way, they just keep putting straws on the camels back until he drops, or says something to stop it, and I was not everyone's favorite soldier, so I just accepted it, I was close to going on to the next stage, advance training in Alabama so I figured another day on KP would not hurt. Yet at the time I didn't know my next duty station. I didn't even know if they were going to pass me, I mean, they could have fixed it for me to stay around a while if they hated me so much, you know, torment me with another eight weeks of this boy scout training as I had felt it was. They had done it I heard, but they would not do it to me. Although I'm getting ahead of myself, it is of no consequence to the story here and beyond.
"Soldier, get up, you got KP!" said the young sergeant, my drill sergeant, at 4:00 AM, with a smirk on his face. He was a vulture, "I already had it three times before!" I said.
"You got ten minutes...no more!" he added to his unsightly face. The Buck Sergeant stood outside, waited to see if I was coming, and I was, I rushed to and fro...and was on my way in ten minutes flat.
It was as if by me staying in the platoon touched off a high explosive inside the sergeant's head, I think he would have liked me to have gone AWOL, run to Canada for his amusement. As I walked outside, onto the dirt road in front of the barracks, and then on down the dirt road, and across the black asphalt road--that went the opposite way, to the Mess Hall, he looked a bit gloomy, I was turning out to be a soldier indeed, and he wasn't sure if he liked that.
It was a long day, or would be. First came the dishes, then the pots and pans, and then the potatoes, yes, I hated doing the potatoes, not because it was hard, nothing in the Army is that hard, it was boring, and they had an automatic potato peeler right behind me, staring at my back side, as I sat on the steps in back of the mess hall, peeling potatoes the old fashion way, with a knife, slowly, and a big pot for the skins of the potatoes and one for the potatoes. I think it was based on not wanting us to have something to do, rather than nothing to do and the automatic peeler would only do the job quicker and allow us to have free time. Oh well, it was all part of the show I told myself. And it gave me time to think of many things.
(I thought about Maria Garcia, a young woman I was seeing and had met while on Christmas leave, back in St. Paul (the past December). She had a kid, and we'd drink a lot together, and she always seemed to be having family, friends, people in general over to her house, a Mexican thing I think, or Spanish thing, more the company the better; where as for me being the gringo, I was not used to this, and had I suppose less of a family life in that I didn't have so many people around, more of a loner. But it was nice meeting everyone. She was cute, short, black thick hair, a nice shape on her, and somewhat of a decent lover. And I never told her I was in the Army, and on my last day of leave, I simply left, that was it, I got up one morning, had my orders to go, and left, never even made a phone call, had I, I would not have known what to say anyhow. I would see her some two years later; she'd spot me in St. Paul, in a grocery story, and ask, "Whatever happened to you?" She wasn't even mad, just concerned. I replied: "I'm really sorry, I was on my way to Vietnam, to war, and I thought, had I told you, it would just get in the way." Well there was some truth to that, I had went from Fort Bragg, to advance training in Alabama, and onto West Germany, before I went to Vietnam, I kind of let all that stuff out of the picture, deleted it you could say, and just added Vietnam, and war.
"Oh my gosh," she said, with a serious look.
"How are you doing now?" I asked. And she assured me she was doing fine. Evidently, living with someone, and thus, we parted good friends.
On my three hundred and forty-forth potato, I got thinking about Sergeant Wolf, a black sergeant, drill sergeant that is. How he'd smoke, solemnly smoke them cigarettes, right to its end. He was there among the other Drill Sergeants often, talking, he was from 'C' platoon, I think he liked me, because I made him look good, and our sergeants bad; they always had bets, betting on this and that: saying there platoon was better, and I think my drill sergeants lost many bets. He had a fleshless neck, all most none at all, and a head of an absurd largeness; a stooping body like an ape, and hands that almost touching the ground when he walked. He was the Judo and Karate instructor; I could have taught the men better, but for what time we had, it was good enough. I think at times his prerogative was to out show me, but whatever he showed, or demonstrated, I could do better, he had a horrible agility, dull small eyes, clean-shaven. He darted here and there it seemed, like a spider, stupidly I often found myself looking at him. I wouldn't miss him, I told myself.
Yes indeed many thoughts were going through my mind this day, this twelve hour day: I remembered the three Generals, the second or third day I had been in boot camp, Smiley, I and Bruce were sitting down in the clothing supply area waiting to get sized up for our dress greens, and here comes three generals, I didn't really know a general from a captain, but one had three stars on his shoulders. "How they treating you soldier?" he asked me, I didn't get up, and simply said, "So, so, I guess," he smiled, and said something else, and I never saluted him, nor stood at attention, that was a peeve with my young drill sergeant, but he got over it, after warning me, should it happen again, I'd be severely reprimanded; the General saw the sergeant was upset, and told him in so many wards: give him a break.
The other thing that came to mind in my daydreaming was the old sergeants appearance, my drill sergeant, when I say old, I do not really mean, old, old, but for a drill sergeant, old: he had a square jaw, like me, but was a few inches taller, not much, a rough looking face, as if he had been around a bit, small eyes, half closed all the time, or seemingly so. At times he was vigorous and at times a cold pathetic look gravitated all over his face to his forehead. He was what many called, a Red Neck, perhaps thirty-seven years old, but he was a vulture nonetheless.)
2
Army Life
I felt at times I was the side focus of the group of drill sergeants, they had beat the hell out of one of the soldiers for not adjusting and getting smart with them, which I really never did, I mean I never disrespected them verbally, I was simply not afraid of them, and they knew it. Moreover I was guarded I suppose, waiting for them to do it to me, or try. And they knew I was waiting, and I think my eyes warned them, be careful, you are treading on unknown ground, and somebody besides me will get hurt also. What I took to be men of honor, among our leaders, disappointment me somewhat, most were fine, but some were not. They had a job to do I know, and this is of course how I was feeling at the time: everyone with gaunt and hard eyes, with gloomy jobs, and often drunk before lights went out for us. The older drill sergeant, my drill sergeant couldn't talk for two weeks, laryngitis (inflammation of the larynx). Not sure why I thought this was funny, but he couldn't holler like he'd have liked to.
At the end of the day, I had a few aches and some numbness, my muscles danced, and my nerves wiggled. Smiley came by once, said: "See yaw at the beer hall tonight...!" And Bruce and Allen would be with him. Both good old southern boys, as they called themselves. Allen was a large figure of a man, glasses and smart. I nodded my head 'yes' and kept on peeling those potatoes, and cutting them up.
