A New Friend

I was in bed, if you could call it that. It was as much of a bed as I had had for the last few months. I had finally overcome my shyness and had gotten used to sleeping naked out in open, lying on top of my blankets during those hot Vietnamese nights. It was really hot in our hooch that night. I was there in the dark, pretty much as everyone else, trying to get cool enough to sleep. I had my fan on but it wasn't helping much.

As I lay there, I heard them coming, the faint thump telling me they were landing far away. They were incoming rounds in the form of mortar shells launched from outside our perimeter. I picked up my head to listen for the next one. Usually, "Charlie" would "walk" the mortar rounds into our small airstrip. He was seeking to wreak havoc with our barracks, Hueys, POLs, hangers and mess halls, trying to kill and destroy as much as possible before being located by our ever vigilent gunships.

I listened a few moments more and then allowed my head to drop back down on the pillow. "Don't have to worry yet", I thought to myself. I had become pretty used to the sounds of incoming mortar rounds and rockets since arriving in Vietnam months before.

"WHUMP!!"

I was out of my cot, running for the door and the bunker as I heard dirt, stones and metal land on the tin roof of our hooch. It was pitch black in the hooch and all I could see was the faint glow of the door as I ran, thinking, "Where is everyone?"

I jumped out the doorway and skidded to the left on my bare feet as I headed toward the bunker. It was positioned between our hooch and the one next to ours. It had been built by some of the our unit's door gunners. Finding the bunker wasn't a problem because the sky was lit up by the flares being dropped by our choppers circling overhead. They were already looking for the source of the mortar attack. The real problem was getting to the bunker in time before the next round landed.

"WHUMP!!" This time louder, closer! Different!

Before I knew what was happening I was lying naked on my face in the dirt, my arms outstretched with a shower of dirt and debris falling onto my body. The ground had been shaken with such force that my feet had gone out from under me. I had landed so hard that I was really shaken up. I was trying shake the fog from my head and get back onto my feet but nothing seemed to be working right. Panicing, all I was managing to do was thrash and scratch at the dirt with my hands and feet in my effort to get those last few remaining feet to the opening of that lifesaving bunker.

Suddenly, I felt someone grab my hand  and started to drag me through the dirt and into the dark safety of the bunker. I felt his strong arms and hands as he grabbed me bodily and pulled me through the small opening of the bunker. He set me over to relative safety away from the entrance. Just then the last explosion of the night landed a few feet from where I had just been groveling and scratching in the filthy dirt, thinking my last hopeless thoughts. The light from the explosion lit the interior of the bunker showing a multitude of sweaty young faces, eyes wide. Then immediately it went pitch black again.

"Damn, that was close.", the boy in the dark whispered in my ear, his arms still wrapped around me.

I sat there trembling, listening to the sounds in the bunker. Someone was groaning. Someone else in the dark asked, "Anyone hurt?"

Another voice said, "Just Morgan, He might want to duck his head the next time he dives in here in the dark. He hit his head on the main overhead beam" .

The boy that had pulled me in, whispered again in my ear, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I guess. I thought I was done for. I would have been if not for you". "You saved my life. Thanks.

A minute or two later I said, "Man it's dark in here, who are you anyway? What's your name?"

"I'm Adon.  I'm one of the door gunners".

It would turn out to be a name I would never forget.

I said, "Thanks, Adon the door gunner. My friends call me Mouse."

"I know". I felt him smile. A moment later he again whispered in my ear, "You might want to grab some pants next time though, Mouse."

"I didn't have time", I said, smiling to my self in the dark.

 And at that very moment, I didn't really care.

Size Matters

In my basic training experience and later in advanced training, I learned that some of the unit staff, permanant party, cadre or whatever you want to refer to them as, would pick on some poor guy to harrass as an example to the rest of us. It was usually some kid who was weaker or "different" than the rest. They would do their best to break him spiritually and psychologically under the guise of making him stronger.

It turned out fortunately for me that I wasn't the smallest guy in our company. There was one other guy that had that honor. He was a boy from New York who had lived in the city all his life, an apartment dweller. He was extremely small in stature and was physically very weak.

His inability to do even the most rudimentary exercises, physical tests or training was immediately apparent. A couple of the drill sargeants were on him from the beginning.

For example, outside of all the mess halls were training devices that looked like a ladder that had been placed horizontally on posts. To get into the mess hall we had to jump up and grab the bars and swing ourselves across the "wrungs" until we got to the other side. The wrungs were placed about 8 feet from the ground making it additionally hard for the short guys to jump up and get a hold. To make it worse the wrungs were loose and rotated in our hands as we worked our way across. If we successfully  made it across without falling, we got to go inside and eat. If we lost our grip or got tired and fell we got screamed at by the drill sargeant in front of everyone and were made to start over (usually after some pushups).

If you were unlucky enough to be behind him you had to wait until he made it across. This made for a lot of yelling of insults from the troops who were waiting for us to complete our task so they also could get to go across and eat.

I always feared going to the mess hall. Usually we were worn out from training before we got there. I was pretty strong for my size  but early on I sometimes fell. But after going through the trauma of failure a couple of times, the fear of falling and the resulting humiliation usually pumped enough adrenaline into my system to get me across.

Not so for the little guy from New York. To start with he couldn't jump high enough to grab the bars. After being screamed at during several futile attemps someone was allowed to lift him up enough so he could reach. But the dirision he received was unbelieveable. Once he was up there he would immediately have a bar turn in his hand and fall to a chorus of taunts.

I felt so sorry for him. But as the weeks of basic training passed I realized that the poor kid saved me a lot of grief. If he hadn't been there, I would have most likely become their target of abuse.

I don't really know how long he was in basic training because he was sent to an extended basic training company when the rest of us were completing ours. My last image I have of him is his being marched around with heavy chains wrapped around his neck to "make him stronger".

At the end of basic training we had to complete a PE Test which included the overhead bars. I lived in fear of failing this test. But as it turned out the bars of the PE Test didn't rotate making it 100 times easier to get across. The ones at the mess halls were just an additioanl form of physical and emotional torture and abuse.

What's in a Name?

Thank you all who read and commented on my last post. I probably am getting paranoid, but the possibility of having everything blowing up in my face, however remote, scares me.
If only...things were different. Sound familiar?
I have had thoughts about changing my profile name to protect myself. But eventually decided not to.
I chose to use this name because of a special friend that I had lost to suicide during my Vietnam experience. The name has become a part of me in so many ways. It has linked me to him in a way. It has also come to represent the gay person within me.

This blog is a secret indulgence, which has given me a voice. This has meant a lot to me, more than these simple words can express. Thank you for helping me, an older man, understand the gay inner "boy" within me. The part of me that never got the chance to grow up.

My intent when I started this blog was to try and be a support to other people, especially those younger than myself.  Those who may be struggling with being gay and how that creates so many conflicts within their lives. I just wanted them to know that they weren't alone. I had hoped that I might in some way lighten their burden, brighten their lives.  I know that all of you, well most of you, have done that for me.

Sadly, Going Deeper

Recently, my wife came into the room when I was reading a blog that I enjoy (Invictus Pilgrim) on the computer and I didn't have time to close the window. So, I just left it open hoping she wouldn't notice what I was reading. She gets very suspicious if I close a window when she comes into the room. She asked what I was I was doing and I told her I was reading a blog written by someone "like me".

My wife is a sweet loyal friend and a wonderful wife. She is also very homophobic and misinformed. This is the third time I have tried to talk with her, to try to help her to understand me better. She doesn't understand why I keep going back through "this". She thought that I had made a "choice" and had put "it" all behind me. She felt that I was looking for answers in  the wrong places and that I was doing it behind her back, which I was, sort of.  Then she wanted to know what else I was doing.



I realized over the last while that if anyone, especially someone in the church came across this blog, there was a chance that they "might" recognize the story as being mine.  I have shared edited versions of my childhood with many of them over the years.

I have decided to go deeper into the closet, back to where I came from, to be more careful. I know what some of you might be thinking. But, I can't face life without my sweet wife and I don't want to hurt her her any further than I already have. And also, my life needs to settle down.

At first I thought I might delete my blog altogether but couldn't bring myself to do it. What I have written has become important to me. Also, I've come to love and appreciate those of you that helped me to understand myself better over the last year.  I need you.

I've decided to tweak the blog some, to change my online identity, the wording of my profile, and possibly, to delete or edit some of my posts if necessary.  Although that would be like twisting a knife in my gut.

I've made a complete backup of it all so I can bring it back in it's original form if I decide to do that later on. Right now I don't want to make things worse here at home by having her find out "what else I have been doing".

So, my dear friends, be aware that I will be making some changes. I think you will know it's still me.
The face will be the same but the name might be changed.

Friendship

It wasn’t long before it became obvious to me that I was going to be subject to harassment from some of guys in my platoon. There always has to be at least one guy to emerge within any group who seems to get some kind of satisfaction from picking on someone who he feels superior to.




Maybe on the second or third day, I got jostled when someone walked past me when there was plenty of room to get by. Then later, I  heard some insulting or crude remarks aimed in my direction concerning my size, about me being a sissy, wimp or a queer. I couldn't pinpoint who it was due to the size of our platoon. This was the same bullying behavior I had experienced during my adolescent school years. I ignored it and went about my business, my usual coping mechanism. But eventually the bully wasn’t getting enough of a response from the other guys he was trying to impress and decided to be more open about his aggressive behavior.



One day when we were getting up in the morning and for whatever the reason there was no particular rush. It could have been it was Sunday, when we had some freedom to just hang out and do some personal things like writing letters home. I had become acquainted with a couple of boys who were from West Virginia. We didn’t have much in common other than that we were country boys. When we “fell in” to formation each day, they were always near to me due to the fact we always lined up alphabetically and were in the same place each time. Their names were Rogers and Rose. I don’t recall their first names, I wish I could.



This particular day I had gone over to their side of the barracks to talk with them while I sat on one of their bunks and wrote a letter home. A few bunks down the now familair voice started in on my friends about me being with them. It turned out that the voice was coming from a guy that had traveled with me from home when we were inducted into the Army. He walked over and started to push me off the bunk, telling me to go back to my side of the room, that he didn’t want me near him.



Before I could even respond, Rogers jumped down off from his bunk, giving the guy a shove as he landed on his feet, catlike.



He said to the bully, “Leave him alone. If you pick a fight with him, you pick a fight with me!”



By this time we had the attention of the whole barracks. Most everyone came over to see what was going on, hoping to see a fight. I heard two or three people in the crowd though say, “Yeah, leave him alone.”, “He’s not bothering anyone.”, “Hey, cut it out.”

The bully looked around to see everyone watching him and decided he'd better back off. He turned around, redfaced, and headed back to his bunk without another word.



I was totally astounded. This was the first time anyone had ever stood up for me like that. I felt really stupid that I hadn’t handled it myself but at the same time it was a display of friendship that I have never forgotten. It was a lesson to me that I would be able to have loyal friends and that I wasn't alone.

The Water Closet

I was marching along with my new platoon when our drill sergeant, Sergeant Montoya yelled, “I don’t know but I’ve been told….”, I was already thinking that if I ever heard that cadence call another time, I would scream like a little girl!

In the last few days I  had to endure things that I had never experienced before. Our living accommodations were World War II vintage barracks which had an open living area on both floors lined with rows of bunks. My bunk was about midway down on the far side of the building.


At one end of the barracks was two small rooms which turned out to be bedrooms for the drill sergeants when they spent the night with us. At the other end was a stairway that went upstairs to the second floor. Also the latrine was located on that end of the building.

Our platoon was on the ground level which at least made it easy to “fall out” into platoon formation. Some things took a little getting used too. Being naked in front of so many guys was a shock to my shy “sensitive” nature. It turned out that once I got past my own nakedness, seeing other guys my age walking around naked was a real treat.



But, the first time I went to the showers was a bit overwhelming to me. As I've said before, I grew up in a sheltered enviroment where nudity was not a common thing. At the end of the first day we were told that it was SOP (Standard Operational Procedure) to hit the showers. Sergeant Montoya said he wanted to see nothing but assholes and elbows. Well, that had its intended effect and everyone started to hurry around, at least until he left the room.



Of course I took my usual approach to this new environment that I found myself in. I had adopted it from the beginning, back at the induction center. Stay back and watch the others to see what they would do. Some of the guys stripped down and wrapped a towel around themseves and headed toward the latrine and the showers. I just kept my head down and peeked around, trying not to catch anyone’s attention. It was hard not to just stare at some of these guys stripping off their clothes. “Man…” I thought. I didn't know quite what to make of it.



I used as much control as I could muster as I slowly worked around my bunk and lockers, steeling myself for my “maiden’ voyage into this new world of open group nudity. I finally worked up sufficient courage, stripped off my clothes and quickly wrapped a towel around my waist just as I had seen the others do. I then headed off. Of course, I made darn sure to keep a good grip on my towel as I negotiated my way through the rows of bunks.



As I stepped into the latrine area, I looked around and saw a large well lit bathroom with a row of 12 toilets running down one side of the room and a row of 12 sinks running down the other. Over the sinks were a row of mirrors facing those starkly “out in open” toilets, similar to the photos below although our latrine was larger and cleaner.






There were naked guys everywhere. Some naked guys were sitting on the toilets talking to each other like it was a normal thing to be crapping next to your new friends while talking about sex with the girls back home. Those toilets were an experience in themselves. There were other naked guys bending over the sinks brushing their teeth and shaving. “Ooo…” I thought








The "Water Closet"




In the back of the room, just beyond the lovely toilets, I saw a cute, wet, naked blond guy stepping out of what looked like a hallway with his towel in his hand. “Oh,  the showers must beyond that hallway” I thought, as I ripped my eyes away from him.



As it turned out, the showers were in that hallway. It was like a long closet, about 16 feet deep. It was lined with stainless steel, with a row of shower heads and faucet handles projecting from the right-hand side. I discovered to my horror that there was barely (no pun intended) room enough for that many guys to get in and out without rubbing bodies with the other guys that were showering.

I was beginning to get really nervous. I felt like turning around and heading back to the safety of the bunks. At this point I couldn’t, that would break my rule of not drawing undue attention to myself.  I had no choice. Whether I was shy or not, I had come this far, I needed to shower so I might as well keep going. I stripped off my towel and stepped in.



Well, I can tell you, I’m a pretty small guy and I made myself as skinny as possible. I slid along the left hand side, dragging my bare butt along the wet wall and doing my best to avoid those jostling wet bodies. But the first thing that happened was that some guy stepped back to leave the shower and bumped into me with his wet hairy butt. “Hey Runt, watch where you are going! I've been called runt throughout my life and it wasn't one of my favorite nicknames and was usually by some big jock. I looked around at him and thought, "crap, your  not that much larger than me". But I said, “Oops, sorry….err… ah…sorry” as I struggled to avoid any further contact with his hairy wet body.



I found the first open shower head and started to soap up, trying the best I could not to appear embarrassed. But, I’m sure my red face was a complete giveaway. I looked around sheepishly, looking at the other guys and realized that no one was noticing me. They were all busy trying to look nonchalant themselves.



It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the only one struggling to get used to this new way of life. I’m sure it wasn’t new to some of them, but I could quickly see that I wasn’t alone in my embarrassment. I finished my shower and headed back to my bunk with a new sense of self confidence, thinking, “That wasn't so bad. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.”

It wasn’t long before I was over my case of nerves and was able to enjoy my trips to the shower, along with the view, discreetly of course.

After the Fall, a post script

After reading a post by my dear friend Tony entitled "Shame", I realized that the meaning behind the title of this blog, “Forever Silent”, originates from my feelings of shame. As old as I am and with all my life experience, I am unable to get past the shame of being gay. For myself, I feel that I have come to accept that I am gay but I am still too ashamed for it to be public knowledge. Also, the the shame and discomfort my wife feels about that part of my personality would most likely keep me in the closet for the foreseeable future.




Tony, in his post, spoke about standing, looking out at the river and having details come back to his remembrance about his past experiences, an epiphany of sorts. I had something similar to that happen to me recently.



In an earlier post entitled, "The Fall", I wrote of my special friend David, who had disappeared from my neighborhood and I did not know what had happened to him. As I originally wrote this story, I wrote it in the way that I remembered it. Recently, in another effort to explain, again, to my wife some of my feelings about that time in my life, something returned to my consciousness that I had "forgotten". As I struggled with my emotions, a memory came flooding back to me as to what had happened to him.



Through tears of shame, I explained to my wife how I felt responsible for David's disappearance from his home and later in life, his suicide. She asked me why I would feel responsible. At this point, a window opened up in my mind and the memory came back to me that had remained hidden for decades.



After his disapperance, I learned that David had gotten into a fight with his drunken abusive father. I was not completely sure what the fight was about but I felt at the time and I probably was right, it was about me. It is so amazing to me how we can crowd difficult memories and feelings to the hidden corners of our mind.





David was a tough little kid and when his father started verbally and physically pounding on him, this particular time, he fought back, knocking his father down. David ran away, leaving his father semi-conscious on the floor. Eventually, David would go to his grandmothers home and would never return to live with his parents. I didn’t learn about some parts of this story until some time after his disappearance.

As I look back on the sequence of events that year some things have become quite clear to me. I am quite sure David's father had learned of our physical relationship, of our "summer activities, most likely from his sister who had promised not to tell.

As in other times that David and I had gotten into some trouble together, David's dad most likely called my father to apply the blame where he thought it belonged. My father never said a word to me about it. He probably didn't have a clue how to handle something like having a "queer" son, but the course of our family changed  soon after.

After this incident, we received a call from a local Mormon man who was proselyting for his church by phone. My father answered the phone that night. When he hung up he came into the livingroom where the rest of the family was watching tv. He told us of the conversation he had with this Mormon man and that he had agreed to let the Mormon Missionaries come visit our home and talk to us about their church. We were all stunned at this turn of events. My father had never before shown in any interest in any organized religion. Something or somebody must have changed his thinking. Me?

We met with the missionaries regularly for several weeks and soon after we were all baptised into the "Church". For my part, I readily accepted the teachings of the Church and still to this day believe that it's teachings are true. The Church and its members have been a valuable asset in my life and I am sure that because of it, I am alive today. I am grateful to my father for opening our home to the young Mormon Elders who taught me about our loving Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ. It was a time in my life when I needed the strength and support that this knowledge and all the other aspects of belonging to the Church provided me.

I must admit that I have struggled over the years with the knowledge that I was and am gay/bisexual because these feelings are in direct conflict with the moral standards of the Church.  But, the positive effects which the Church has brought to my life and the lives of my family, have more than outweighed whatever shame, fear and confusion that I have felt over the years. I do hope that someday I can reconcile those negative feelings which still cause me to be ...Forever Silent.

Chapter 1, Only the Beginning




Arial View of Fort Bragg
Note the Airfield in the Upper Right, Home of the 82nd Airborne.
Also, the famous red dirt of North Carolina 

 
During all this marching around and waiting endlessly for my turn in line, I had plenty of time time to look around at my surroundings and observe the people I found myself currently with. I was always a great one to sit to the side and to inconspicuously as posible,watch people. I realized that none of these guys were my friends, far from it. They were complete strangers, except for the guys I had traveled from home with. 

I've always been antisocial to a degree. And in the process of observing these new people in my life, I decided to myself that I had no one that I could trust here. I kept a close eye on the ones that immediately made me nervous and uncomfortable. Some were loud and pushy, seeking some kind of power over weaker individuals. I guess I fell into that category, so I was constantly on guard, expecting the unexpected. This inner sense of preservation was to save me some personal grief during the next few weeks and months but it also made it difficult to make friends. Looking back at it now I would probably use a different approach, but I was shy, insecure and afraid.

After all the "processing" was complete there was a lull in the action as we waited for the arrival our individual orders. These orders would assign us to our basic training units. I wasn't too anxious to be separated from this group that I was just beginning to get used to, although I hadn't really gotten to know anyone, other than who to stay away from.

Once we got our orders to a basic training unit the real training would begin and I had no idea what to expect. So far, I wasn't impressed with my original decision to put myself in this situation. I felt that I chosen the less of two evils and now I wasn't sure that I had made the right choice.

I longed for friendship and some sort of security. I knew that those things would eventually happen for me, but right now I was pretty miserable. I didn't let on to anyone what I was going through. I just played it cool, waiting for whatever was coming my way.

Eventually, our temporary drill sargeant called us togther and had us form into ranks. He then handed out our orders. He instructed us in the manner we were to be transported to the basic training area of Fort Bragg. He released us to get our stuff ready and told us to be ready at the given time.

As soon as we were released from formation, everyone started looking at their orders and talking excitedly about where they were being sent. I looked at my orders which at first made little sense to me. I looked around cautiously trying to figure out how others were doing in the process of learning where they were going. I found out that everyones orders were basically the same form. I just had to hunt down through the sheets of mimeographed papers until I found my name underlined in a long list of names divided into groups. Above the group of names that mine was included with was the unit's name, 3rd Plat CO D 2nd BN 1st BDE, United States Army Training Center. It was all greek to me but I went and did as I had been told.

Rude Awakening, Part 2

After our physicals, we were allowed to put our new underwear on and moved on to another part of the building.

There we were measured for size and issued a complete set of military clothing and other supplies that we would need for the next few weeks of Basic Training, boots, shoes, hats, socks, more new underwear, fatigues and khaki dress uniforms.

They issued a huge duffel bag to put it all into and an additional black case that we used to put our civilian clothes in. We were then marched back to our temporary barracks. I must have been a sight, trying to carry that huge duffle bag that constantly bumped and banged on the ground because I was so short and it was so heavy.

We were marched back to get lunch.



We were marched to get all the necessary documents produced to make us official U.S. Army “property”. They gave us each a number. Each number had a prefix. Mine was “RA”, Regular Army. I didn’t take me long to find out the “RA” made me a marked person, a target. Everyone knew that it meant that I had enlisted in the Army rather than being drafted. I was to be constantly reminded of my negative RA status during the next three years.



Draftees were given the prefix of “US”. Most of the men and boys I met in basic and with whom I worked with later on, were draftees. I found, pretty much immediately, that draftees didn’t have a very high opinion of anyone who had freely enlisted in the Army.



There was one other prefix that was notably different and received as much or more attention than “RA’s” and that was “NG”, for National Guard otherwise known as “Weekend Warriors”. The drill sergeants and the other permanent party (staff) would usually put them in charge of mundane work details and generally harass them due to their National Guard affiliation.



We were marched to get name tags to wear around our necks. In the event that we were later killed they would know who we were. They stamped our names on them. They stamped our new military serial numbers on them. They stamped our blood type and they stamped our religious preference on them. They were called “Dog Tags”.

When I was asked me what my religious preference was, Catholic or Protestant, I just casually said neither. The young Private taking the information was obviously getting confused easily. “He must be a Yankee fan”, I thought to myself. (Oops, sorry Yankee fans)



I told him again that I was neither a Catholic nor a Protestant.



“Ya got to be one or t'other”, he said.



I was new to the outside world but even I knew there were other religions around. I then told him I was a Mormon.



“A what?”



“A MORMON”, I repeated.



“Never heard of that before….Ok….If you say so.”



The next day when we were marched back to get pick up our shiny new dog tags, I found that my new tags had my religious preference as “Morman”. I always laughed afterward whenever I read my tags, that appeared to announce that I was More man. I also wondered afterward how long that Private stayed a Private.

Rude Awakening

It seemed I had no sooner closed my eyes when I was suddenly awakened by what seemed to be someone screaming. Someone yelling loudly for us to get up, it was time to get up, get dressed and go to breakfast. The person yelling was another sergeant. He said he had let us “sleep in” because we had arrived so late. I checked my watch again, 6:00 AM.

We groggily got up quiet and muttering to ourselves. We quickly got dressed and trudged outside, tripping over our own feet; just a bunch of blurry eyed boys, wondering what the heck was coming next. This new sergeant had us all line up in two columns and then he gave us a little training in regard to creating a proper military formation. Once we were lined up to his satisfaction, he then marched us down the short street in front of the barracks to the nearby mess hall. Apparently, we actually had slept in. It was obvious that many people had already had been eating in the mess hall. Several were still eating and many were leaving as we arrived. I noticed something on the way in that caught my attention. It looked like a ladder mounted horizontally on posts alongside the sidewalk approaching the door into the mess hall. I wondered what it was for. I would find out in the days to come.



We started that day off with a good breakfast. Army breakfast isn’t bad. Bacon and eggs, scrambled or fried, on an oily griddle. Oh, and pancakes and sausage, orange juice and coffee or milk. We hadn't eaten in what seemed like days. Once we were done with the wonderful breakfast, we went outside. We got back into "formation" and we began to make many short trips around the nearby area on foot, to one place and then another.  We marched to the “cadences” of our temporary drill sergeant. He sang in a loud, clear voice, “I don’t know but I’ve been told,…..”.



I was to march to many variations of cadences that started with these same words in the next few weeks and years. The intent of cadences is to help soldiers to march together in rhythm and in an organized manner. As he called out the cadences, he instructed us to repeat aloud each verse. They were mostly rude and crude plays on words, filled with sexual references and innuendoes. I was honestly embarrassed to have to repeat most of them. I wasn’t impressed with them then and to be honest, I can’t remember any of them now. If I was to guess, the practice is still done to this day.



One of the first things I learned during all this marching around, here and there, was that when we got to where we were going, we had to stand and wait, and wait, and wait. I’m sure you’ve heard the old military adage, “Hurry up and wait”? Well, the Army has it down pat, kind of like they do breakfast.

We marched EVERYWHERE!


We were marched to get our first military haircut.

I sat down in the barbershop to await my turn just as a cute, good looking boy with long, brown, curly hair was getting into one of the barber chairs. He was being asked by the barber how he wanted his hair cut. The kid innocently started to answer just as the barber ran the clippers over the top of the boys head, cleaning a smooth strip right down the middle of his head, exposing his smooth, pale scalp. Everyone laughed as the rest of the kid's long hair slid off his head and onto the floor. I recall leaving the barbershop after having had my  head "sheared" and seeing every one of the new recruits “waiting” outside with their now bald heads. Their scalps actually looked blue in the morning sunlight.


We were marched to get poked and prodded, again, AGAIN! by more doctors.


I could see that there would be no personal privacy in the Army. We were being processed through in groups and were told to strip naked, to strip off all of our civilian clothes and put them in a supplied paper bag. We got to keep our civilian clothes for use later when we would get to have leave or a pass into town. My poor civilian clothes didn’t get to touch my skin for many weeks to come.



I shyly peeked around realizing I was in a room full of naked, bare butted boys. I was embarrassed and extremely self conscious of my nudity, and theirs. I had never experienced being naked with anyone except my family when I was extremely young. And of course, with my friend, David. Most kids have nude experiences in the showers at school, gym or at the “Y”. But I never had. We all stood in a row, naked, as a doctor inspected our bodies top to bottom. He walked in front of us and then behind us, giving us instructions as he went. The one moment that sticks out in my mind is when he told us all to bend over at the waist, reach behind us and spread our butt cheeks. He walked along behind us inspecting our rectums. I thought it was really odd and humiliating at the time. But now, I am quite sure I know what he was looking for. I guess he didn't see anything notable about me, well, at least on the back side.



Although I would have been curious in any other situation, I tried to not look directly at any of the other naked boys. Fearing that if they caught me looking at them, they could somehow sense who and what I really “was”. Although I really wasn't sure about my sexuality at that time and even for years to come, I felt emotionally exposed, like they could see into my mind and realize what I feared the most about myself. Eventually, I was to get used to being naked and being around naked guys, during my years in the army (I actually got to enjoy it). But, I never got over the fear, the fear of being discovered or being accused, of being a queer. Speaking of which, in those days people referred to homosexuals as queers. It was an extremely derogatory term and it brings back the memory of my fathers use of the term.  There was something inherently mean and hateful in the way people said the word “queer” back then. I remember my father saying to me and one of my close friends once that people would think we were "queer" if they saw me and my friend in our innocent horse play. I was really young at the time. I didn't really know what he meant by it, but I knew by the inflection in his voice it wasn't good. I remember it like it was yesterday. If parents only realized how words can cut a young kid's heart.



During these physical exams, one of the boys who had traveled with me from home had to be discharged from the Army after his first two days. He had had a cold when he boarded the plane and he had broken the eardrum in one of his ears during the flight. Now, he was deaf in one ear. At least he would live to tell about his short experience in the Army during the era of the Vietnam War.

A fortunate loss in my opinion.