The Trouble with Brass

by Teresa Allen

Three American women travel to Vietnam to visit sites where a brother and a son had died, twenty-five years earlier.   During their journey, protagonist Joey Wilkins shares the story of her own military experience (1973-4).  

I, (name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will obey the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  SO HELP ME GOD.

Fierce rains splashed harder and harder on the Kai Tak International Airport.  A petit woman of 37 -- sparkling blue eyes, short brown hair that wisped from her forehead -- patiently sat in the fast-food court of the main terminal.  She sipped her overly-heated coffee.  

An hour had passed since Joey Wilkins began watching Boeing 747s thunder down the runway.  The clashing monsoon and sweltering humidity reminded her of Jim's letter, about the endless storms of Cau Lai.  "It's like being in a sweat bath with bugs and gooks," he had written.

Joey wore denim jeans and a loose cotton blouse.  From one lapel dangled a yellow Vietnam Service Medal, from the other a bronze star the U. S. Army had awarded her brother post humus, for distinguished heroic service against the Viet Cong.  She felt proud of her brother's distinction, though he had been dead for over 25 years.

Joey hadn't changed much over the years, at least not at heart.  Long ago she had stylishly shortened her straight long hair.  Make-up now softened signs of her age.  A simple wedding band adorned her small hand, instead of the many silver and turquoise rings she wore two decades ago.  Since then, she had married, had a child and had lived the suburban life.  But these were superficial changes.  Though happily married to Doug Wilkins, she was still a free spirit -- happy for Woodstock's return in 1994! and ready to venture to Vietnam.

Through sheets of downpour, Joey barely made-out the city edging the distant harbor.  Towering apartments wavered in and out of view, like the memory of Jim Francis Larson, her brother.  At times she worried that family photos were how she remembered her brother.  She was losing him, once again, though this time the loss was mush less piercing.  Now, childhood memories helplessly fell into dreams of an older brother, an idealized soldier.   

During their thirteen years together, Jim had always been kind to his young sister, perhaps because he was six years older.  He watched over her at Arbor Lodge Park or the Chief Joseph grade school yard across the street from their home.  He had even suggested what she might say or do in school -- to help her along.  

On Halloween one night, when Joey was nine, an older boy had grabbed her candy as she crossed the school-yard.  She had dashed home and found her brother and his friends in front of the television watching Twilight Zone.  They were too old to "trick or treat".  When Jim learned of her predicament, he jetted out the door, barefoot, and knocked the boy on the concrete ground, retrieving the candy.  Joey smiled as she remembered her brother's chivalry.  It was her fondest memory of the boy she had worshiped, in those days.

A JAL 747 taxied for take-off, then boomed down the dark and dreary runway.  It looks like it should be cold out there, Joey thought, like a drizzly winter in Tigard, Oregon, where she and her brother grew-up.  Theirs had not been an easy childhood, especially for Jim.  They were the only children of the once attractive brunette, Francis Wilcox Adams Larson Davies, who married her third husband soon after Joey was born. 

Francis Davies was a short women of 69 who hadn't worked a day in her life, even between husbands.  Other than bowling or attending Church functions, Francis usually watched soaps by day and sit-coms at night.  With her current husband equally lounging around the house, Joey doubted either would live much past their 70's.  They were simply too spent. 

Joey and Jim's real father was Henry Larson, a second generation Swedish lumberman.  He had abandoned his family during Francis' early months of pregnancy with Joey, and then he got killed.  And that was all she knew about her real father. 

Shortly after Joey's birth, Francis married a recently divorced man from her bowling team -- the Terwilliger Bowlers.  After two years of marriage, Donald Davies, a retired handyman, third generation beer-bellied Welshman, adopted the coy adorable Joey.  But Joey never expected much from him, other than his frequent drunken naps on the sofa by the TV.  So why had he adopted her?  She used to wonder.  Most likely it was a thing between him and Mom.

Joey sipped her luke-warm coffee.  A distant intercom called passengers to their gate.  Once again, Joey regreted that even Jim's funeral, the most oppressive day of her life, had become a remote spectacle of the past.  During it, Joey had doubted that the pain of his death would ever subside.  But it had.  Simply slipped away.  He could have been somebody substantial.  But the world gave him something else:  a difficult childhood and a brief manhood in the turmoil of an unpopular war where our enemies became our heroes.  Our heroes, the enemy. 

For her brother, she had decided to go to Vietnam.  She hoped to revive her memories of Jim.  Perhaps she would even regain the awe she had when she last saw him fully clad in his Class-A greens, prepared and willing to serve his country.  He had been proud.  Even mom and dad seemed pleased the day he left forever.  

Dishes clanged and a group of British travelers laughed at a nearby table.  Smoke from their Dunhills permeated the air.  At the large food court, international crowds grabbed bowls of noodles before dashing off.  

Joey leaned back in her chair, pushing aside a USA Today.  She anticipated her first face-to-face meeting with two women she already regarded as close friends.  Sylvia Glass and her mother, Deloris Jackson, were arriving in Hong Kong on the 6:40 flight from LA. 

Earlier that year, Deloris had traced down the address of Fran Davis, Joey's mother, through the Friends of the Vietnam Memorial Wall.  

When Joey called her parents last Christmas Eve, her mother mentioned the letter from Deloris Jackson.  "Some lady from back east wrote.  About Jim," came her raspy smoker's voice. 

"About Jim?" Joey questioned.  

They hadn't talked about Jim since Joey's trip to the Wall in 1982.  She had been able to tag along with Doug, on one of his business trips as a marketing director for Motorola.  Joey had tried to convince her mother to come along, but to no avail.  Francis refused to leave her Tigard, Oregon haven.  

At the the Friend's of the Vietnam Wall headquarters, in Washington, D. C., Joey had left her mother's address and her own, in case another family knew something about Jim Larson.  Since the debut of the Wall, people were meeting one another and sharing tragic stories and having happy reunions.  

"What about Jim," Joey demanded over the phone, impatient with her mother.  

Joey had cried when she touched her brother's engraved name on the long black granite wall shimmering beneath rays of sun.  The polished stone reflected her face and those of other visitors -- as if life and the realm of the dead soldier met at this Wall. It had brought her many tears, the wall, but it also gave her a sense of closure -- a fitting tribute to the era that took her brother.    

"Hold your horses," Francis had said.  She plopped the phone aside to fetch the letter.  Joey imagined her searching for hours through junk strewn around the small house on Lombard Street.  "Here we go," Francis said, shuffling the letter open.  "From some lady who's son was in Jim's unit.  Wants me to write her about Jim or anything Jim had in his letters about her son.  Looks like her son was one of those Missing in Action boys." 

Doubting her mother would ever reply to the letter, Joey telephoned Deloris herself.  Fortunately, Joey had retrieved Jim's letters from the rubbish stored in her parent's attic, before she went to the Wall.  The letters, addressed both to Francis and Joey, were generally short, seldom introspective.  He never talked fearfully of dying, as if protecting his sister and mother from the burdens he faced.  

She touched the Bronze Star.  Perhaps, he had not been so afraid to die.  

In at least four letters, Jim had mentioned making friends while in 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry.  Unfortunately, he referred to his peers by nicknames -- Cookie, Animal, Paris, Pops and Blue.  He had never even suggested the origin of these nicknames.  Jim had spent his final days in the small, stoic world of a combat grunt.  No past.  No future.  Only present.  Only survival.  And only the bonding alliances among young men facing a grim mortality. 

One of the soldiers Jim mentioned could have been Deloris's son, Joey suspected, because Jim had felt close to a black man for the first time in his life.  "Me and this black Dude," the letter read, "had latrine duty the other day.  See, they don't bury shit over here.  Got to burn it.   Anyway, the guy's pretty cool...  I mean we could talk about women and home and not even think about being black and me being a white guy.  We laughed a lot.  Never had any black friends til the Nam.  Guess war makes us forget our differences.  At least when you're on the same side.  Love, Jim."

Her watch alarm sounded.  It was time to meet the their flight.  In a box, Joey neatly packed her journal along with letters she had written to Jim several years before.  She stuffed the box in her bag and set off for the gate entrance.  She intended to carefully document her journey now, the first she had ever taken to Asia and only her second trip outside the United States.  The first had been during her military service.

Beyond the baggage claim doors, past customs, Joey spotted her new friends, the only black women in sight.  Both women had short hair, as in their picture, the mother's speckled white.  Both wore flowing African print pants and blouses and they had on bangles and large silver earrings.  They could be poets, Joey thought.  Certainly, they are women of power and class.

On Christmas day, Joey first called Deloris.  

Deloris had been overjoyed by Joey's call, and she subsequently phoned Joey nearly every week.  She talked mostly about her previous efforts to find information on her son, recalling how patiently she had waited during the POW releases, hoping that the next one to leave would be her son.  She was unwilling to believe that Garett was dead until his body came home and she could give him a proper burial.  But word never came.  It seemed that everybody's life everywhere in the country continued, but hers.  How could she forget Garrett?  How could she leave him lost without at least trying to find him?  He had been a good boy, with a promising future. 

About the third call to Joey, Deloris put Sylvia on the phone, her eldest daughter visiting from Rochester New York.  Sylvia was a successful trial lawyer who had never married, never would.  She had a daughter attending Columbia University.

"She won't give up," Sylvia said about her mother, during that first conversation with Joey.  She had a clear, polished diction.  "It's her life's obsession, though all she ever finds is disappointment after disappointment..."

"Why don't you stop her?" Joey hadn't known what else to say.  

"I've tried a few times.  I hoped our visit to the Wall would help her lay her son to rest.   But now, I think her hunt for Garett gives her old age meaning.  Like an occupation, a hobby.  It keeps her going.  That's why I'm taking her to Vietnam.  She wants to know if you'd like to join us."

In an instant, Joey accepted the invitation.  For years, she had wanted to visit Vietnam anyway.  And now she had vacation time saved up from her secretarial job at Motorola.  And she knew Doug, her husband of two years, would encourage her to go.  He was off traveling much of the time anyway.   

"People were always asking, 'how's your boy doing over there?'" Deloris said, a novel resting on her lap.  She sat by the window on the flight to Saigon, Joey sat at the aisle and Sylvia sat in the middle seat.  The plane had just taken-off. 

"Then it happened," she continued, her eyes peering down at the back of her hand, as though she were rethinking a story she must have told hundreds of times before.  "They send me that telegram and I have to explain to everybody that my boy is missing.  All kinds of folks tried to comfort me -- friends, family, the minister -- but really, I had to make everyone else feel OK about me in my grief...."

"That must've been hard."  Joey looked over at Deloris.

"You know," Deloris said after a moment's reflection, "in his letters he always talked about eating hamburgers and my homemade pot roast.  I was always afraid something might happen.  Always.  But I never really expected the letters to stop.  Not really.  And how could I have dreamed that he'd turn up missing?"  Deloris shuddered.  

The plane hit a small pocket of turbulence, and Joey cringed.  

Silence overcame the women.  Momentarily, Deloris began to snooze peacefully at the window seat.   

"It's hard to understand why we went to Vietnam," Joey said to Sylvia.  She was glad to be able to talk about the era to her new friend.......   

"I think that's the question of our time," Sylvia replied, setting down her glass of wine the stewardess had just served.  "But I don't you think it had to do with ideology? ....   

More like economic strategy, like the Gulf War.  But it all seems so academic to analyze it, don't you think?"

"Probably," Joey replied and in a moment added, "1968 -- what a year:  Tet, MLK, RFK, Jim to Nam.  I turned 13, what a way to begin my youth."

I remember when I was only ... fighting for rights of black people... civil rights... MLK...  even went to rally...Sylvia and civil rights story

God, you were there

So ominous...  mountain top speech

And then he was cut short, like Garett,

"like Jim, and all for nothing." Joey stopped.  Deloris had just woke.  

"What was for nothing?" Deloris yawned and looked at her watch.  They had about an hour left on the flight.

"The war, mom," Sylvia interrupted.  There was only so much she could keep from her mother.

"Yes, I know."  Deloris tapped her daughter's hand.  "Saigon fell....  But not after our boys fought long and hard for your freedoms. 

Joey listened to Deloris.  The fall of Saigon, April 30, 1975.  She thought a moment.  About that date.  About that era in her life.  She interrupted Deloris in mid-sentence, "You know, I got out of the Army on the day Saigon fell."

"What?" both women said.

"Really?"  Sylvia gave Joey a puzzled look, as if seeing whether or not Joey was serious, "You never mentioned anything about being in the Army."  

"That's right.  I was a soldier," Joey smiled at her friend's astonishment.  If a man mentioned his military service, no one thought much about it.  But when a woman did, questions of "why" ran through everyone's mind.  Was she a lesbian?  A whore?  Running away from something?  Someone?  From an impoverished background?  Joey herself often felt embarrassed to mention her military experience, even after 19 years.  It was just the way of the world, and of a quiet, self-conscious nature.

Sylvia looked at Joey now in jest.  "You girl -- a soldier!?"

"Yeah, really.  A WAC.  I was in the Women's Army Corps before women became a part of the regular army."

"Come on girl," Sylvia smiled, "Why'd you join?  Especially with Jim having been killed in Vietnam."

"I know.  It's kind of weird.  But it was the timing.  They'd just ended the draft, after pulling all the guys from Nam -- early '73 -- and they had these new campaigns for an all volunteer Army.  My best friend, Stacia Brown wanted me to join-up with her after we graduated from high school.  Neither of our parents ever encouraged us to go to college and neither of us had a job.  We wanted to travel  and leave home.  And the clincher was 'Two Years and Europe,' as the recruitment campaign went.  Really," Joey paused,  "Stacia sort of talked me into it."

"Still...  what about Jim?  The protests?"  Sylvia referred to the sit-ins Joey had previously mentioned, during her high-school years.  Protests against the war that amounted to sitting on the grassy hill of the high school campus, and smoking cigarettes and even pot when security wasn't around.

"That was mostly my freshman and sophomore years -- 69 -- 71.  But we were all really just sitting on that hill smoking cigarettes."  Joey looked at Deloris and caught her smiling.  Deloris wasn't naive, which made her all the more dear to Joey.  She was like the mother Joey wished she had. 

"OK, were you smoking dope.  And did you inhale?"  Sylvia teased.

"Actually, I never really touched drugs in high school, though they were around.  Just dragged off a cigarette, now and then.  Mom and dad smoked so it wasn't that big a deal.   

"Girl, you must have been pretty bold to join the Army.  I doubt I could've ever been so adventuresome."

"I still missed Jim.  And I'd become very confused by then about the whole Vietnam thing.  Besides, times were changing, so it seemed.  With the war finally over.  With "Two Years in Europe" offering us a flight from home.  I was afraid of being stuck with mom and dad until I was twenty or something."  

The women laughed as Joey sipped her glass of wine and smiled.  

"Parents can be a bit testy, can't they," Sylvia affectionately bantered her mother, who slapped her daughter's hand and grinned. 

"You don't know the half of it," Joey attested, "when it comes to my parents."

"They can't have been that bad," Deloris..

"No, I suppose not.  But here was my best friend urging me to join-up and get away from Tigard, Oregon.  To go to Europe, no less.  And then there was the college money you'd get, in case we decided to go to college somewhere outside of Oregon.  And the house loan.  Really attractive benefits.  At least our recruiter, a sergeant Hooper, as I recall, made it out to be.  He also promised that Stacia and I'd be together the entire time we were in Europe.  On the 'buddy system.'  But that turned out to be one of many lies he told, just to get us enlisted."

"Guess it worked."  Sylvia pulled off her weighty clip-on earring and rubbed her lobe.  "Well girl, so you're a Vet."

"A Vietnam Era Vet.  Which is another reason I feel so tied to this trip.  So many of the people I met in the Army had served during the war.  Besides, I feel like my entire teenage experience occurred from the tragedies of 1968 until the fall of Saigon in 1975, shortly before I turned 20."

"Well, I have to tell you, Joey," Sylvia... "You're one impressive lady.  What was it like?"

The stewardess came by and poured more wine.  Joey sat back, reflecting.  It had been a long time since anyone had shown such interest in her military experience, other than Doug who had really taken an interest in her life, which was why he encouraged her to take this trip.  

Joey enjoyed telling the story, as long as the person was truly interested and would take it the right way -- in a positive way.  Until now, only Doug had seemed such a person, though she had gotten together with Stacia now and then.  But even Stacia had trouble relating to Joey's story.  She had had quite a different military experience.  A much more calm and settled one.

"You know," Joey said at last, relaxed from the wine.  "I got inducted during the half-time of the Portland Beaver's Hockey Game."

"The Beaver's Hockey Game!"  Deloris chuckled with delight at the image. 

"Portland's one and only.  About twenty of us walked out on the ice.  A carpet had been laid across so we wouldn't slip."

"I can hardly picture it," Sylvia laughed almost hysterically, the wine had relaxed her as well.

"We all stood out there on the ice, in mini skirts or dresses -- I had on leather knee high boots, with wedged heels, remember those?"  

Sylvia nodded, still laughing.  

"And we raised our right hands while, over the intercom, came the words for the oath of enlistment.  We all repeated it.  But it was just a publicity stunt.  An act.  We'd already been sworn in earlier that afternoon at the recruitment office."

"Amazing, girl.  A hockey game.  So what was basic training like?" ...

The plane again hit turbulance, but this time the women kept talking and enjoying the story over their wine. 

"I remember staying at the Heathman Hotel in Portland before flying out to Fort McClellan, Alabama.  It was pretty exciting for Stacia and me.  We'd never done anything like that before.  My story is in my letters to Jim.  That's how I recorded my military tour.  I brought them with me.  To read to Jim, when I reach Hue, near to where he was shot down."

***

Dear Jim,                Sometimes I lie awake can't believe you're gone forever....  what's it like to be dead?  better than living with (dad's name).  do you think our real dad would of been a good father?  do you know him now?

I miss you terribly.  Still, and it's been nearly five years.  Maybe someday the sadness will go away.  But I won't forget you.  Ever.  That's why I decided to write these letters to you.  Well, kind of letters.  I know I'll just keep them in my trunk, but I'm hoping that somehow you'll know my thoughts.  I love you. 

Do you think I'm crazy for joining-up?  Probably.  But you used to say.....  Anyway, Stacia, you never met her because you were dead before I even met her....  Well, Stacia and I decided to join-up and go to Europe....  And well, you know mom and dad...  never said  much about my joining-up.  Can you believe that?  Mom did say she hopes I'll be happy...  You'd of said something, wouldn't of you?  I wonder what they said to you when you got drafted.  I don't remember anything.

I'm writing this on my bunk in a large barracks at the Reception Processing Company, Fort McClellan, Alabama.  It's after "lights out" and I'm using a flashlight under the OD (olive drab) scratchy wool covers.  The room is cool and quiet, but in the day it's scorching hot and noisy with lots of recruitees among the gray metal bunks and lockers. 

The other girls from Portland and I got here on March.... ... days ago and I'll be in this reception company until I begin my six week basic training cycle.  There are six of us from Portland.  The other Oregonians seem nice but it looks like some of the girls in the reception company are really weird.  Lots are black and Hispanic and most are about my age, but a couple are pretty old -- nearly thirty. 

They come from all over the States -- the east, west, south, north, and a couple are from Puerto Rico and Hawaii.  Everyone is nice and so far I'm enjoying the experience, but I'm told basic training isn't going to be simple -- up at 5 AM and drill, drill, drill until we drop dead every night.  Were the guys weird in your training unit?  I'm sure basic was a lot harder for you than it'll be for me.

One of the girls who bunks near me is really strange.  Her name is Bixby, that's her last name.  We go by our last names because -- we're in the Army now (as everyone around here jokes).  Bixby fascinates me.  She's squat and stupid.  Never even heard of Portland and she only got through her sophomore year in high school.  Wow!  I can't imagine how her recruiter got her in.  For one thing, I thought you had to be at least five feet tall to join up, but somehow Bixby made it through.  She's a hillbilly from Kentucky.  Her teeth are stained and one's missing, her hair's messy (and possibly has lice), and she talks loud and says slangy things like -- y'all, ain't, we was, she knowed, and "winder" for window.  What a kick! 

The other girls avoid Bixby, but I often talk to her because she's so interesting.  It's not that I think of her as my friend or anything, it's just that I've never met anyone like her.  She says her boyfriend's name is Clem, which absolutely kills me.  I mean, I could of guessed that!

Some WAC sergeants met me and the other girls from Portland at the airport in Birmingham.  Then we took a military bus to this reception company barracks, where I'm at now.  We were really excited when we arrived here.  Honestly, I don't think I've ever been so thrilled in my life.  I can't even imagine what's in store. 

As soon as we got off the bus we had to line-up in formation.  Then this reception company drill sergeant, a heavy set lady with curly black hair and a gray felt Stetson hat worn to one side, look us over with squinting eyes and said, sort of mean and teasingly, "Welcome to Fort McClellan, ladies.  The next two months will either make you or break you."  I don't think I'll ever forget that moment.  I wasn't exactly scared because it seemed more like I was going to college or something.  I bet you had it a lot worse.  Did they really make you guys.....

Before I tell any more about the reception process I've been going through, I want to mention the silly way me and the other girls from Portland took our oath of allegiance.  My recruiter, Sergeant Hooper, said he wanted to publicize enlistment (I think he needed to make his end of the month quota for new recruits).  So he had the new female recruits pledge during a Buckeroo Hockey Game.  No kidding!  I don't think mom and dad were necessarily proud of me or anything like that.  They don't say much about what I do, as you know, so I don't know what they really think.  Maybe they're not quite sure about my joining the Army, especially after what happened to you.  I guess they just don't know what to say to me about it. 

Anyway, I'm a lot like you, Jim.  I'm stubborn about making it on my own.  So it's OK that they don't say much because I will make it on my own, no matter what they think or say.  I just wish you were here to see what I'm doing.  I know you'd have lots to say.  You'd be supportive or at least understanding.  Maybe you'd of encouraged me to do something else.  I don't really know because you never said anything bad about the Army when you went in.  You were sure brave.

At least dad sports so I'm sure he liked the free tickets to the hockey game.  I don't know who won because I left after we pledged and went to the Heathman Hotel, where the Army had us stay until we flew off to Alabama.   

The country around here is hot for Spring.  It's green, has a lot of pine trees and red clay, and is located in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains (home of the Beverly Hillbillies).  Every morning we're up and outside the barracks in time to see the bright orange colors of sun rise. 

As you probably already know, the base at Fort McClellan is the headquarters for the Women's Army Corps.  Jim, I think it's so cool that you were here too, training for the infantry.  Imagine that.  We both ended up in the same place -- grunts and WACs at Fort McClellan.  Today I saw a bunch of grunts jogging in formation as our group pulled up in the OD bus (which we were crammed in).  I thought of you.  Imagined you looking so lean and mean -- tough -- and singing that "Airborne" song:

"I want to be an airborne ranger, I want to live a life of danger, I want to go to Vietnam, I want to kill some Viet Cong!"

Well, I don't know about your but I find this place like a military city, which I guess is what a base really is.  These ugly old whitewashed and rectangular buildings with tile roofs were the same ones you saw as you jogged about the place.  There's still a store, dispensary, chapel, post office, hospital, library, bowling alley, theater, and service club, but we can't use any of the interesting places (the bowling alley and clubs) until after our fourth week of basic training.  That is, if we earn a "full post" pass.

Like I said, I'll be in the processing company until we get assigned to our training company.  I think you were Delta Company when you were at Fort Bragg for basic.  Maybe I'll get Delta Company too.

So what am I doing in the mean time?  Waiting in line after line, getting nasty shots for meningitis, flue, and polio, filling out form after form, learning Army stuff, and getting uniforms and insignia. 

Whenever the other recruitees and I go anywhere around the base we march in formation, almost like being in grade school.  And when we meet other WACs who are actually in their basic training cycle -- the trainees -- they yell out to us, "Recruitees, recruitees don't be blue, our recruiter fooled us too!"  It's all in fun but I can't wait to be in the training cycle so I can yell out these sayings to the new recruitees.

The food is pretty good around here, as I hadn't expected.  But I remember you saying in one of your letters that you liked the Army food.  Maybe it's because mom never could cook anything very good.  Even though Army grub is supposed to be awful, there's great things like black and green olives and strawberry yogurt to go with every lunch and dinner. 

I got my military green ID card and my picture sure looks like I'm half asleep.  They say that for my MOS I''ll go to communication school in Georgia and become a communications technician (if I'm lucky).  Now that would be cool.  Then I'd go to the same places you went to, except of course the Nam.

Anyway, I don't really care what job they assign me since I joined-up to go to Europe with Stacia.  Not to learn some goofy military occupation.  (The Army offered us either training or travel and of course I chose travel!)  I wouldn't mind the communications field, though, especially if I can learn other languages.  In fact, I would really like this.  Like a French specialist or some kind of translator, since I studied French in high school.  But they say this isn't likely because they don't need language specialists.  I do plan to learn German while I'm in the Army.  It's one of my goals and it's separate from anything military.  You see, I'm not really trying to get a skill in the Army so I'd prefer a simple, general MOS.  You might say I want to get by while gaining all those fat juicy GI benefits.  Whatever the Army wants from me, I don't really care.  I'll give them my basic service commitment, and that's that.  They owe it to me, after all.  They took you away.

Unlike me, I think a lot of these new recruitees are here because they had no choice.  A lot of them seem poor and even desperate, like they enlisted to avoid trouble.  You get the feeling they come from terrible families, or from no family at all, or they joined to get away from creepy boyfriends or husbands who beat them.  Or maybe they were involved in a crime or had some bad drug situation.  I can only guess, but I know for sure that a lot of these ladies look and seem tough, even a little scary because I don't really understand their background.  I worry that some of them might steal anything I've left out -- just to steal it.  I sure wish you had told us more about the guys you met.  Were they hoods?  Or average guys like you? 

Practically everyone around here smokes, especially Kool Menthol cigarettes.  Now I'm smoking too (usually Marlboros), I hope you don't mind.  I know you smoked for years before going into the Army. 

Whenever we're waiting around for the next formation call, the girls all light up.  But I only smoke two or three cigarettes a day since I've never been a real smoker.  Somehow, just being in the Army makes smoking enjoyable, or at least I like to do what everyone else does.  We have to smoke outside the barracks and only during cigarette breaks.  I really don't think I'll become a regular smoker.  It's just part of what people do in the Army. 

Speaking of cigarettes, we go on a lot of "police calls" which means we have to do what the drill sergeant calls "policing the area."  They say "police" a lot in the Army.  "Police the street" means to look for trash around the barracks and mess hall areas.  We pick up cigarette butts or any other trash laying around and we put the trash in these big green metal canisters called "Dipsey Dumpsters."  Part of being a soldier is to learn a whole new vocabulary.  I never heard "police" used this way before but now I say it all the time.  If you think about it, maybe that's what policemen are for.  You know, keeping an area clear of trash.

After a few days in the processing company, we got a pay advance of $160.00 and then we went to the PX, a store that stands for Post Exchange so I assume it comes from the cavalry days.  I put one hundred dollars in savings and kept the rest for splurging at the PX, even though there's not much one can buy in basic training.  We have to store most of our stuff in the luggage locker and when we leave here we are only allowed so much weight without having to pay for shippage.

Before we went to the PX, the drill sergeant gave us a list of items we can't have in the barracks because they're considered contraband -- such as candy, magazines, chewing gum, knives, and any weapons, alcohol or drugs.  But I can't imagine anyone being so stupid as to keep weapons or drugs in the military barracks, unless they want to be thrown in jail.  The sergeant also gave us a list of required and suggested items to buy at the PX -- such as an iron, starch, bleach, Brasso, Kiwi black shoe polish, a polishing cloth and brushes, and soap, toothpaste, and shampoo (they assume none of us know much about keeping clean, though it's true for some of these recruitees).  I also bought a vanity case, a ditty bag, which is an Army bag with a zipper used to store makeup and bath stuff and a trunk where I'm going to keep these letters to you. 

When we were first learning to practice military commands, such as saluting, I was partners with Bixby, that weird hillbilly gal, because nobody else would be her partner and like I said, she's a kick.  But Bixby didn't make it through the reception company and was sent home.  I figured she wouldn't make it.  You can't be that uneducated and survive in the Army.  Didn't you find that true?

Besides learning how to salute, we've learned how to stand at attention, at ease, at parade rest, and a couple other commands.  You're supposed to always salute officers when outdoors or when in charge of a work detail.  It's really regulated and to salute you neatly snap your right hand to your forehead, with the thumb nicely aligned.  To stand at ease you keep quiet and relaxed and to stand at attention you bring heels together, turn feet out 45 degrees, keep legs straight without stiffening knees (or else you could faint), hold body erect, chest arched, shoulders square, hang arms straight, and keep fingers slightly curled with the thumbs touching the first joint of forefingers.  I know you know all this, but I figured you'd enjoy my telling you about it anyhow.

Boy, I tell you.  Military customs and courtesy are stiff and what they call "strac," which means to look and to be sharp, prepared, alert, and on the ball, like a soldier who stands proud and tall.  I'll never be too strac because I'm not that gung ho as a soldier.  I mean, big deal.  Besides, being too strac seems against my nature.  It's like being a faceless robot and I've always been more independent than what's expected of a true blue strac soldier.  But I'll try to always look dignified and to do what I'm supposed to do. 

When I first arrived here, I thought I had to salute anyone wearing a uniform who wasn't a private.  But you only salute those wearing the brass or silver bars, stars, eagles, and leaves -- the officers, in other words.  NCO's wear patches.  We're supposed to call the men officers "sir," and women officers "ma'am."  You're never supposed to call an NCO "sir" or "ma'am."  NCO means non-commissioned officer -- the sergeants and those in rank higher than privates or corporals.  I'm getting most of what I'm writing down now from these little billfold cards we were given which tell the enlisted and officer grades.  I had no idea there were seven ranks of sergeants (but of course, I never knew anything about the military except what you told me, and that wasn't too much). 

Sergeants are E-5 through the Command Sergeant Major of the Army (E-9).  Below sergeant is the corporal and there's three ranks of privates (E-1, 2 and Private First Class, PFC).  I'm a PV1 (E-1) now, which means I'm nothing but a lowly private without patches.  

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(last edit:  12-30-00 Happy New Year!)