Most of us were not feeling well. Several had been sick from their consumption of liquor. Throw in the lack of any “real” food in hours and no rest, plus the natural anxiety of our situation, just made us all miserable as we waited for whatever was coming next in our endless traveling. I was just personally thankful that my headache was gone.
As we waited we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Nobody was in the mood to talk or strike up friendships. No one had spoken to me from the time we were first in the induction center. The staff had seen to that with my so called “assignment”. But, I wasn’t paying much attention to the lack of friendly banter as we were all pretty much unfriendly by this point.
We had all looked around that small, soggy loading dock trying to locate a spot to get somewhat comfortable while we waited. I found a less wet area up close to the wall of the building. I leaned my back up against the wall and wrapped my arms around my thin legs to conserve whatever warmth I had left in my small body, I closed my eyes. Getting any sleep was impossible.
Eventually, out of the damp southern gloom, we heard what sounded like a truck approaching. It turned out to be a small military bus. It came careening to a halt in front of the loading dock with a crash of gears and the screech of brakes. (Reminds me now of Harry Potters experience with the “Knight Bus in the movie Prisoner of Azkaban”). A sergeant jumps off the bus and yelled, “Come on “troops”, we don’t have all night, get your asses and your gear onboard and let’s get the hell out of here!”
Finally, I thought, we’re getting out of this miserable hole. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in my assessment of the situation as there was a flurry of activity as we all grabbed our “gear” and eagerly got our “asses” onto the bus. We took off into the night with a lurch and more grinding of gears accompanied by more than a few, choice, profanity laced remarks from the sergeant directed mostly at the old cranky bus, but some were aimed in our direction as well.
Apparently we hadn’t been too far away from our final destination. Soon, we could see the sky glowing white over the treetops. In what seemed like a just a few minutes we approached the front gated entrance of Fort Bragg. The sergeant driving the bus waved at the guard as we drove through the gate and into what would be our home away from home for the next few months.
After a few more lurching and jarring turns, we started passing row upon row of military barracks. We came to a sudden stop in front of one of them as the sergeant announced, “We here “troops”. Grab your gear and follow me.” He led us into the darkened barracks which turned out to be unoccupied. The sergeant didn’t bother to even turn on the lights. We could faintly see rows of bunk beds from the light streaming through the bare windows from the streetlights outside. As he was leaving the sergeant said, “ Grab a “bunk” and get some sleep, it’s late. I’ll be back in the morning to take you to breakfast.”
We felt our way around and discovered the “bunks” were metal bunk beds with bare mattresses with bare pillows laying on them. We couldn’t see what condition they were in but they didn’t feel or smell very good. In fact, I was pretty grossed out but I was so tired I just found a lower bunk off to one side and fell onto the mattress and didn’t move except to look at my watch, 3:30 AM.
