Dave Does the Army!!!!
Yes… if you have been reading the stories of my life you have probably figured out by now that I joined the Army when I was 18…if you haven’t figured it out then you really don’t belong to the human race and you should just kill yourself now and save us tax payers the grief of executing you later… Anyways… I’ve already told you why I joined the Army. Damn women… always making us guys do the weirdest stuff… anyways I joined the Army on November 25th 1981. It was pretty cool. A limo came and picked me up at my house and took me to Baltimore for my physical and induction…. Well it was a pretty boring day… but I will tell you the highlights….
When we reached the Baltimore induction station I signed in and was put in a room with about 30 other guys all joining the Army… and there we waited for an hour and a half to be called for our physicals. Well they handed us our folders with our paper work and took us to the second floor and put us in a big room with chairs around the walls and one by one the doctors came to us, asked us questions, took our vitals and then had us stand, turn around, face the wall and drop trou…Yes the old grope and cough. Then the old grab your ankles and squeal exam… oh what fun… should have known then what I was going to be in for… should have run like hell… but I couldn’t… had to stick it out… had a woman that I thought was depending on me… so he groped and I coughed… I grabbed ankles and he made me squeal… oh the inhumanity of it all… right there in front of 29 other guys…
Next we were taken back downstairs to await our assignments…. Again we sat around waiting… at 12:30 they came and took us to the cafeteria for lunch… My first Military meal… and let me tell you it wasn’t mom’s home cooking… Never forget it though… had a burger and fries.. figured they couldn’t screw that up… but they did… nothing like a burnt soybean burger and raw fries…. And damned nutritious too!! So after forcing down the swill it was outside for a smoke break… first smoke since being dropped off and I needed it bad…
After the smoke break it was back inside to wait some more… Well about 2:00 they finally called me for induction and we went back over my paper work… I had already decided I was going infantry… two reasons for this… I thought it was warm in Georgia in the winter and I like to camp… so I figured what better thing could I get into to start out… well while I was waiting I talked to another guy and we had become friends and he told me about going Mech Infantry and after basic he was going to Washington State… I said that it sounded cool and so when I got before the Sergeant I told him that is what I wanted to do… I had to give them three choices but could only come up with the one… so I left the others up to the Army. Looking back now that wasn’t such a wise decision…but it worked out ok… I got Ft. Lewis as my Mech Infantry duty station… but first I had to go to Glorious Ft. Benning GA for basic training and A.I.T. ( Advanced Infantry Training)… (stealing a line from the movie Stripes) Army training, Sir!!!
So after the paper work was completed they handed me my airline tickets to Ft. Jackson, SC… now I made the first of many mistakes… I questioned why I was going to Ft. Jackson when my paper work said Ft. Benning. Well damned if that nice Sergeant didn’t get a little irate… how dare a lowly private question the way the Army does things… well come to find it out I had to go to Ft. Jackson to get my uniforms, more physicals and learn a few things about walking and eating and breathing before I could be allowed to go on to Benning… now you would think that they would have just told me that… but no… it seems that from now until the end of my tour at Benning everything would be screamed at me talking in a normal voice is NOT the Army way…should have learned then and there to keep my mouth shut and blend into the background. But if I would have done that I wouldn’t be Dave!
So next I get herded into a room with the other 29 guys to swear our allegiance to the Flag, God and the Constitution. Which wasn’t hard… but I didn’t understand why at the time… so like the other sheep I did as I was told… If I would have known then that we would have slick Willie and Janet Reno running things I might have decided to skip it and head for the border… But at the time we had My hero… Ronald Reagan (yes the greatest president since Jefferson!!!!) and Casper Weinburger. So I figured it was worth doing….
So I take my tickets and get on the military bus for the Airport…after checking in at the counter I move on to checking into the airport bar… I have two hours to kill before the flight so I figure I might as well toast my new journey in life and start to get completely drunk …
After several rum and cokes ( I hadn’t discovered the joys of Long Island Ice Teas yet.) I boarded my bird to my destiny… Sometimes I think if I had of passed out and not done it I would have been a lot better off…. But I didn’t.. so I boarded… took my seat… next to my new friend Dave 2… he is the one I met at the induction center and chose to go to Washington State with after basic… well this was my first time ever on a plane and I was a little nervous… So after take off I grab a flight attendant and ordered up more rum and cokes… figured if I was drunk I wouldn’t sweat the small shit…. As an aside that will prove useful later… it was at this point I put my criminal background into play and swiped about 12 bottle of booze off the poor ladies cart and it would lead to more fun later on (you know… those little airline bottles)…. So I got totally plastered and didn’t sweat the flight… hell, I don’t remember most of it… all I remember was getting off the bus in Ft. Jackson and having Drill Sergeants screaming at us… Welcome to the Army…
Well don't stop here... there are more stories to read about the Army...
Dave! Does Ft. Jackson!!!
Well here I was… coming off the bus at Ft. Jackson… brand new to the Army and drunk off my ass… hmmmm… sounds like a theme… drunk off my ass… anyways… as we step (stumble) off the bus and bunch of Sergeants are there screaming at us… Oh joy… more screaming… anyways… they have us line up and start to march us over the cobble stone walks to a building for a briefing on life in the Army… and as we are marching along getting screamed at, it is late at night and we can’t see a damn thing in front of us… when low and behold one of the little bottles of booze falls from my pocket and the guy behind me kicks it across the cobble stone court….well holy hell breaks loose at this… seems we weren’t suppose to have any liquor on us and the screaming really intensifies… we are made to stand up against a wall while a Corporal goes and gets a trash can… and we are told to empty any contraband into the waste basket… well I don’t know about you… but I wasn’t about to give up my booze… so I just ignored the trash can and soon we were back to marching again… and low and behold… me being drunk… I drop another bottle… damn!! That sucked…well it seemed that I wasn’t the only one to ignore the trash can… nor was I the only one with booze… out of about 50 of us 10 had booze still on them when they searched us… Welcome to push ups Dave!!!… After about 50 push ups… the slow, hard kind, we were allowed to continue our journey… onward into a night of screaming and hell… really the only two memorable things, past the first night, that happened at Ft. Jackson was that I switched from breifs to boxers and I met three people that would have a real impact on my life…. Jerry, Mike and Rob… trust me… Rob was a guy you will want to stick around and hear about… hahahaha… so stay tuned….