Rick goes to Memphis: Part Two

I finally got the induction center. They fed me, tested me. Poked me. Prodded me. Et Cetera-ed me. That evening they put me and two other guys on a plane for Philadelphia. One of the guys was “in charge” and carried our records. At the time, in Tennessee, the drinking age was 18, so we sat in the bar and drank up what little money we had left. On the flight, a guy bought us drinks after he found out we were going in the Army. We were feeling like quite the men, I’ll tell you what.

In Philadelphia, we were supposed to catch a bus. We went to the bus counter, and all of a sudden these guys started yelling at us. It wasn’t like the movies, where there is a drill sergeant yelling at you to get on the bus and calling you maggot and shit like that. These were civilians. But they were older than us and bigger than us. When they had a full bus load, we set off, crossing the river into New Jersey, and into the country. After an hour, there was nothing to see out the window. We didn’t know where we were, which was the plan, I guess. Bring us in in the night and we wouldn’t know how to escape. All of us shared the private thought that, oh, shit; we’ve made a huge mistake.

Sometime in the middle of the night, we pulled into Ft. Dix, and up to the processing center. Here is where the Drill Sgt got on the bus and started yelling. We were all a bunch of scared little civilian kids. We got off the bus and they fed us – more yelling there – then gave us some blankets and, about 4 in the morning, sent us to bed. An hour and a half later, I woke up – more yelling and in a new twist, trash cans being thrown down the hall – to one of the longest days of my life. I was walking down the hall to take a leak. I accidentally brushed against a guy in the hall way. This guy was about 6 and half feet tall and black and he scared the shit out of me. “Why you touching me? You don’t know me! Don’t be touching me! Daaaaamn, motherfucker!” It seemed that the harder I tried to apologize, the more he yelled at me.

After breakfast, we were marched over to get haircuts. The drill sergeant was running around yelling at us about how we were all pussies and how he wouldn’t go into combat with a single one of us. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t go into combat with a single one of us either. We had barely been in the Army for 24 hours. What did we know? Not much, apparently, because they took us to get haircuts and we had to pay for them.