Tape 10, Side A
[Begin Tape 10, Side A]
So you walked into the induction center with your X9 suitcase and you say they were actually drafting for the Marines and it was just a matter of kind of arbitrarily counting off?
That’s exactly right. Something happened there. This is one of the few supernatural events in my, my career. They made this announcement—you know first of all, all these guys, it’s a madhouse, they’re just starting to gear up for this and so new draftees are coming in by the busload and the carload. Some of them are coming from far out in the county; some of them were bussed in from regional ‘demangement’ centers [laughter], and so groups of them would come in from Ventura, you know. So everybody’s milling around; they were trying to organize things but the army brass, the cats who were putting on that show, they weren’t very organized either. All they wanted to do really was process you through and get you on the bus to wherever you were going for basic training, you know, and the buses, as I say, were out there and their motors were running. And some of us in this big room…
So they were gonna take you away?
Uh huh. That was it. That’s why you had to report with your belongings. And in the one room the guy—all of the personnel are, well most of the personnel are dressed up in their drill sergeant uniforms, with their little Smoky the Bear hats, and so they’re already, you know you’re getting the entrée. I think some of them were actually going to accompany, you know some of them came out from wherever the basic training centers were. Some of them were stationed—it was kind of confusing. It was kind of like that scene in Alice’s Restaurant [laughs]. I don’t know if their were father rapers and mother stabbers but actually this was past that because this was people who were going in, but it was confusing and they made the announcement that: Today we’re going to be drafting for the Marine Corps. Now usually the Marines Corps, that’s a four-year assignment for enlistees only, but I guess they got some kind of dispensation—probably McNamara*—to draft people for the Marine Corps for a two-year deal; that was the usual drafting period. And there was nobody from the Marine Corps there; I mean you would think they would have somebody from the Marine Corps there and they’d be sizing up possible candidates. No, they were just counting off: every fifth person was going to go to the Marine Corps, draft for the Marine Corps. So they’re trying to mount this count off, meanwhile people are still coming in, and they’re counting off from both ends; and I’m in there in the line, I’m jostling around: I don’t want to be drafted for the Marine Corps. I didn’t think that would be any fun.
Would that be pretty much Nam for sure?
Pretty much, yeah, plus those cats are serious. I could stand being drafted for the… You know I’m trying to avoid trouble as much as possible; I’m trying to go with the flow and live totally in the moment and accept the reality as it presents itself without putting too much spin on it myself, you know, without intruding into the experiment, the experiment in terror. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle was at work anyway of course. So they’re counting off, and I’m trying to figure out: is he gonna get me or is he gonna miss me, ‘cause he’s at one end and there’s another cat at another end….
What, counting the other way?
Yeah! counting the other way, and there’s scores of men in here.
And everyone’s in there: pencil-necked geeks and chinless wonders and the whole thing, and they don’t care, they’re taking everyone for the Marines that has a certain number.
Well presumably everybody has passed the basic physical and mental examination, so there’s no homosexuals and there’s no people with only four toes, that sort of thing.
Had you already had your physical?
Oh yeah, I’d been through that months earlier.
Is there any tale to tell?
I don’t think so, no.
You just kind of breezed through?
Went down there, same place, yeah, just breezed through. I don’t remember any… one physical is like another: bend over, cough. Had any…? Yes, I’ve had smallpox. Will that help get me out? No. [laughs] Any allergies? Penicillin. No big deal. So no, I don’t remember anything about that at all.
I remember you said you didn’t try to… you didn’t do one of those things of losing forty pounds and...
No, I wasn’t gonna go anywhere or do anything, no, or [effeminate voice] walk in in a simple frock. No I wasn’t going to do any of that.
Somebody told me if you put bars of soap under your arms it does something to your blood pressure. I don’t know how that could be but people did all kinds of bizarre things.
I don’t know. That’s interesting. They did, they did all kinds of things. I heard some of my friends in trying to get out were trying to do all sorts of things like, you know, staying up three nights in a row before the physical and take all sorts of drugs and just get in there and jabber mindlessly. I don’t know, I don’t know if any of that stuff worked. Probably did some places but I have the feeling in L.A. they were just taking anybody, it was a big… and let them wash out of basic training, ‘cause that was always a popular—I found out later—a popular way of dealing with recruitment, you know, just take everybody and if they wash out in basic training that’s okay.
They didn’t really mind that much losing…
No, they didn’t really mind that much. I mean if you could make it through basic training that was evidence enough that you were good for cannon fodder or whatever else they had you in mind for, but it didn’t make that much difference, I mean people got in who had flat feet or who had… Oh one of the things that was in the popular literature was: take Benzedrine and, what do they call those?--it was an over-the-counter inhaler, and you crack it open and take the little cotton wad out that’s impregnated with whatever it is, put that in a huge pot of coffee, you know, and let it boil for a while and drink that down a few hours before the… and that’s gonna change something; probably didn’t [laughs]. Because later on when I was part of a new basic training outfit up in Fort Lewis Washington, I mean they took all sorts of people, people with criminal records. All these people came in, Hell’s Angels from Oakland, that sort of thing.
Now this is downtown L.A.?
Downtown L.A., yeah, the L.A. Induction Center or Selective Service or whatever it was.
Was L.A. as dead downtown in those days as it was ten years later when I was there? Then the downtown area was really kind of funny because it wasn’t like the downtown of any other city. It was really not much happening.
I’m not sure. I remember a couple years prior to that—well during the time just before that I would from time to time take the bus from out in the beach down to downtown L.A. to see movies or something like that, and I remember it as sort of, you know I remember areas in St. Louis, the other big city that I had for comparison, San Francisco I don’t remember, but downtown L.A. was just, it seemed to me it was real funky, you know, they had lots of old record stores and five-and-dimes with junk in ‘em. I thought it was real colorful but not that… it was kind of seedy, so it wasn’t that, it wasn’t a sparkling downtown. It probably is in many places like that now where they’ve installed some art museums and Starbucks, Gaps.
And glittering glassy façaded buildings. Can you say façaded? [laughs]
Sure, can you say wimpy? Sure: wimpy, wampy, wombly.
So they’re counting off from both ends.
So they’re counting off and I’m trying to calculate, you know, and it ain’t easy but I’m lookin’ and I think: I’ve got it dicked, you know, they’re gonna pass right over me, but in the meantime—and this all happened within the space of five or six seconds—you know the guy’s standing there and he’s counting and I’m going to be, you know, three. Other people are coming in from outside and they’re getting in this big line and he’s counting and I realize that this is four, the guy next to me is four, and then he’s suddenly—I’m gonna be five.
And the Marines are taking…?
The fifth: five! five!
Uh oh. Because of the new guys coming into the line you went from three to…
Yeah, because I had it calculated for a while there. I’m looking around you know: Hey, let’s do it. Cool. And then I realize, you know, it all happened very quickly, I’m gonna be five; he’s counting: four! And then suddenly there’s the iron-jawed, steely-eyed, Smoky-the-Bear-hatted guy right in front of me and I just took a deep breath—swear to God this is a true story—I just looked that sucker in the eyes and I said, you know, in my mind: I’m not here; and I made this little motion—well actually it was kind of a definite motion—with my eyes to the left, like I don’t think I moved my head but I locked eyes with him and I went, whatever I could I just summoned up all my…
Cut your eyes to the left.
Cut, that’s a good way to put it. I said: I’m not here. Just a beat: five! He did it! [laughs]
And you actually didn’t get a number?
No. I just went shffft, and he just went: five! ‘cause he was movin’ fast too, and the guy next to me said: All right! He was happy, so I didn’t feel too bad. If he had said: Shit! I wouldn’t have felt too bad either but...
So how did this fit with your noninterference thing though? Did you feel like it was destined, you were destined not to be in the Marines?
Well yes, of course, I mean if you’re feeling that you’re trying to live in the moment and that everything that happens is natural, ipso facto, by definition, if you do intrude or make a move or do something like that, that’s part of it too, so I sort of skated out from under that ethically [laughs], because, you know, because it happened so quickly, it was of the moment as well, it was spontaneous, you know, I didn’t think it out except for the counting part, because it all happened right then. And if it hadn’t worked I probably would have just, I would have said: Okay, that’s the way we’ll play with this. I was adapting, you know, I was trying to adapt. So shew! not going in the Marines.
Did they put you right on buses?
So far as I remember, you know, we had some paperwork and let’s see, when did the haircuts come? I guess the haircuts didn’t come till later, in basic training, so yep, that was it; that was the end of that and then you’re on the bus and I don’t remember anything about the bus ride. Went to Fort Bliss, Texas; so it was a long haul. I don’t remember anything about it. Or maybe we went to the airport and flew to Fort Bliss, Texas; don’t recall. I don’t recall.
Fort Bliss is a good name.
Yeah, Fort Bliss, Texas. Fort Bliss, Texas, you know, it’s out there by El Paso.
Oh so it was country you’d been in. It must be near Deming, thirty, forty miles.
Yeah, it is. If I had kept all those connections I could have called up my cousins and all them people, but I didn’t. The next thing I recall about that whole thing is being there and it was haircut time, and I was singled out because…
Now you had long hair.
I did have long hair and this was, oh, January of 1966 and you know not everybody had long hair then, mostly it was people in bands [laughs], and I think somebody asked me if I was in a band, somebody on the bus or something.
Now with you the long hair was… Were you into the Beatles?
No I really wasn’t at that point; I wasn’t into any of that pop music, you know I’d hear it on the radio; it was kind of interesting; I wasn’t into Dylan either; he was still… I didn’t know anything, I’d see him on TV or hear a little bit of…; he was doing sort of folk rock stuff, and you know some of it sounded interesting but I wasn’t really paying attention. I kind of liked the Byrds from what I heard; the Byrds seemed pretty cool ‘cause they were taking the Dylan songs and really electrifying them; and the Turtles…
So you were into the electric not the folky stuff?
Well no, I didn’t buy anything; I’d hear it on the radio; you know mostly what I was paying attention to was the jazz music.
But the long hair, was there kind of a… because you said you saw your first ponytail back in…?
Yeah like sixty-four or something like that.
Was that kind of a beat thing?
No I guess not, not really.
It was just kind of a nonconformist thing.
Yeah, I guess so, it just sort of was one of those critical mass sort of things where suddenly you looked around and boom, lots of people had that; looked good, I’ll get me one, get me one of them. So out with the ascots and in with the bellbottoms. No, it wasn’t bellbottom time quite yet. But you know you’d see pictures of George Harrison and Roger McGuinn, and then Jim McGuinn, and David Crosby, and you know I liked that; that looked good, plus it was another nonintervention sort of thing; I would trim my fingernails though.
Just sort of let it go.
Yeah… So, oh and the Doors were starting to…, you know there were all these L.A. bands, the Doors were pretty cool, still I didn’t have any records or listen to the radio that much, but I was getting into the scene sort of. Oh, the few, well some of the drug-taking people that I would associate with also would have the long hair. I don’t think I had a mustache then. But anyway there I am, they singled me out and said: You! hippie boy!—no, they didn’t have hippies then, what did they say? I don’t remember, they said something, you know, some epithet: girlie man, you know, some equivalent: This is how it’s gonna be done, everybody. So they had everybody gather round, you know, they had lots of barbers there.
They used you as an example?
Yeah, right [laughs]. They had everybody gather round and watch while I was shorn, then everybody else, you know, then they started taking groups of fives and sixes: Here’s your lesson, Mr Free Spirit. Well you know I saw that coming so I wasn’t too upset about that. And then they start issuing you the clothing and the boots and so that whole morning or day or whatever was taken up with just gettin’ stuff, gettin’ stuff and then sooner or later finding out where you were going to be quartered. I was well prepared, I must say, for the army life: I mean I already knew how to live in regimented conditions; I could make a real tight bed with hospital corners so you could bounce a coin on it. I could do that. I knew all that stuff from the home and…
Was that from St. Louis?
Yeah. So I was ahead of the game there; knew how to spit-shine shoes already from hangin’ around with the shoe guy in St. Louis, so sometimes I would shine the shoes.
That was one of your educational experiences?
Yes, that’s right. What else did they want you to do? Some of the kids weren’t prepared for any of this stuff, you know, how to roll your socks up into tight little balls and put them in your footlocker just so. And how to avoid notice. That’s a very good skill in the…: how not to volunteer and how to avoid notice, unless you wanted to attract attention.
So even though you were singled out on the haircutting you managed to get by without raising too much critical attention?
Yeah, that’s true. So you know there was a bit of controlled behavior involved [laughs] ‘cause otherwise I would have got into trouble real quick.
So you were consciously suppressing any…
Yeah, this was gonna be, you know, basic training was like two months, something like that, two months, and then you’d go on to some other form of training and then you’d be assigned somewhere, so I was gonna do whatever it took to get through basic training just to see if I could do whatever it took to get through basic training. And I was already a pretty good shot from my few experiences at the summer camp where we had riflery. And ah… the only thing I wasn’t prepared for was all the snoring [laughter].
Rooms full of men snoring.
Yeah, huge rooms full of men snoring, and all the different kinds of snoring from little sips of snore to these huge, thunderous, wall-rattling blasts. These people need operations! It didn’t seem to disturb their sleep though.
Did it disturb yours?
You get used to it, yeah, you get used to it.
How many men in a room?
I guess, I don’t know, let’s see: in the basic training barracks I’m guessing twenty to forty maybe.
Was it bunk beds?
Yeah, it was bunk beds. When you first got in there you knew who your sergeant was, he lived in that barracks too, maybe he had a little room I think. And the first thing he did was appoint somebody to squad leader or something like that, so he asked if anybody had any prior military experience, and a guy did, he was twenty-six, practically ancient at that time; he was twenty-six and I guess he had been in the army before he had reenlisted, so he became the buffer between us and the sergeant. The other thing, I mean besides the formal presentations of classes and things like that about the chain of command and the relationships and the rules and all that sort of stuff, there was a lot of informal stuff.
Who you have to salute…
Yeah, who you have to salute and who you don’t have to salute, in fact who you’d better not salute. Because you know if you called a noncommissioned officer sir he’d say: Don’t sir me, I work for a living!
So they took it like an insult.
Yeah, right, they had to take it like an insult: Don’t you salute me. Which got a lot of kids into trouble, especially brown-nosers, you know, they wanted to salute everybody: Yes sir! [laughs] Don’t call… Drop and give me twenty.
Really?
Yeah, for whatever reason that would be the favorite thing: Drop and give me twenty.
And you managed to…?
Oh I got a few of those, yeah. I don’t think I could do twenty. I could do twenty phony ones. I would expend my capital wisely. I knew when it would happen, what the likely result would be, but sometimes it didn’t happen; sometimes you know you could, if you’re funny enough and you’re on the wavelength that day you might, even from an officer, you might just get a chuckle and, you know: Get back to your bunk you loser, you holdover! No, bolo, that’s what the ah…: Conkin you’re just a bolo! you’ll never be anything more than a bolo!
What’s that?
You know, somebody who’s just never gonna work out in the Army.
Did you take that as a compliment?
Yeah, that was good. That was fine, and later on: the platoon clown, that was always a good one. But the informal things you learned, or you saw right away there was a tremendous distinction—we were all new but we weren’t all draftees—there was a distinction between those who were draftees and those who enlisted, ‘cause those guys were in for four years, minimum, plus everybody had a serial number: their serial number started with RA, for Regular Army, and draftees’ serial number started with US: US56400570. You had to announce that at certain times, you know, sometimes before you’d go into the mess hall you had to say your serial number and maybe recite the chain of command or…
Just to keep it in your head?
Yeah, or just to whatever.
And it worked.
It certainly did.
What did it stand for though?
These days it’s a Social Security number but those it was just random digits, sequentially generated digits: US56400570, yeah, just nothin’. Now it’s just your Social Security number with RA or US behind it, although they aren’t drafting now. So I was prepared for a lot of it; a lot of it I wasn’t prepared for. Fort Bliss was… You know this was sort of January, February, March, and winter time in Fort Bliss, it was snowy down there, and the thing I remember most about Fort Bliss about that time was the smell of coal burning because everything was coal generated, so the whole place just smelled like coal all the time: it was really good. It really smelled good, the coal, and we spent a lot of time outdoors: the coal and the cold, the crisp cold air.
That’s interesting though, was the weather the same as it had been in Deming?
I don’t remember how it was in Deming really, seems like it was hot a lot. I bet it’s hot there, in the summer.
In the summer, so you actually had snow?
Yeah, definitely snow, tramping around in snow. You know there wasn’t very much spare time for basic training, they needed to cram a lot in those two months. Your time was completely scheduled: aside from all the different little things you would go to in inside classrooms to learn about the army or whatever was going to happen next or just general things, there was all sorts of physical stuff on the outside, and if there wasn’t anything scheduled, there was always marching, you know, marching up and down. I liked that part, that was great. Just marching for miles back and forth: I was ready for that too. That was probably my favorite part, just walking all around, because then you didn’t have to, you know you could think your own thoughts, as long as you used your right foot, I mean your correct foot, and you knew how to count cadence: you’ve gotta count cadence and you’ve gotta sing these stupid songs.
Were any of them amusing?
No, they were all about, they were trying to adapt Korean era songs for Vietnam, you know, some of them were like:
I don’t know but I’ve been told
Vietnam is mighty cold.
Well, it isn’t [laughter]. You know it might be cold in Pleiku, in Korea it might have been cold in the winter time, but those were probably inherited from World War II. But a lot of them were about Jody. You know Jody, the mythical Jody?
No.
Jody’s got your gal and gone. Yeah. And the streets of heaven are paved with gold. Sound off: One, two! All that stuff. What’s that one about Jody? There’s a lot of them about Jody, marching things about Jody.
And he’s the guy that stayed home and took your girl.
He’s the guy who stayed at home, yeah, that bastard, yeah, took your gal, that’s right. Jody’s got your gal and gone. And there was stuff about, you know sometimes you hear I guess ROTC people are running around the campus here, sometimes you hear some of the old ones, they’re still doing those oldies but goodies, the old favorites like…I can’t remember, there’s stuff about Rangers which was Army, this was before the Special Forces the Army had the Rangers and they had berets and they would say Over the hill and up the hill and through the hill and that sort of stuff. Let’s see if I can remember some more of those marching ditties. I’m sure I will off tape.
[End Tape 10, Side A]
So you walked into the induction center with your X9 suitcase and you say they were actually drafting for the Marines and it was just a matter of kind of arbitrarily counting off?
That’s exactly right. Something happened there. This is one of the few supernatural events in my, my career. They made this announcement—you know first of all, all these guys, it’s a madhouse, they’re just starting to gear up for this and so new draftees are coming in by the busload and the carload. Some of them are coming from far out in the county; some of them were bussed in from regional ‘demangement’ centers [laughter], and so groups of them would come in from Ventura, you know. So everybody’s milling around; they were trying to organize things but the army brass, the cats who were putting on that show, they weren’t very organized either. All they wanted to do really was process you through and get you on the bus to wherever you were going for basic training, you know, and the buses, as I say, were out there and their motors were running. And some of us in this big room…
So they were gonna take you away?
Uh huh. That was it. That’s why you had to report with your belongings. And in the one room the guy—all of the personnel are, well most of the personnel are dressed up in their drill sergeant uniforms, with their little Smoky the Bear hats, and so they’re already, you know you’re getting the entrée. I think some of them were actually going to accompany, you know some of them came out from wherever the basic training centers were. Some of them were stationed—it was kind of confusing. It was kind of like that scene in Alice’s Restaurant [laughs]. I don’t know if their were father rapers and mother stabbers but actually this was past that because this was people who were going in, but it was confusing and they made the announcement that: Today we’re going to be drafting for the Marine Corps. Now usually the Marines Corps, that’s a four-year assignment for enlistees only, but I guess they got some kind of dispensation—probably McNamara*—to draft people for the Marine Corps for a two-year deal; that was the usual drafting period. And there was nobody from the Marine Corps there; I mean you would think they would have somebody from the Marine Corps there and they’d be sizing up possible candidates. No, they were just counting off: every fifth person was going to go to the Marine Corps, draft for the Marine Corps. So they’re trying to mount this count off, meanwhile people are still coming in, and they’re counting off from both ends; and I’m in there in the line, I’m jostling around: I don’t want to be drafted for the Marine Corps. I didn’t think that would be any fun.
Would that be pretty much Nam for sure?
Pretty much, yeah, plus those cats are serious. I could stand being drafted for the… You know I’m trying to avoid trouble as much as possible; I’m trying to go with the flow and live totally in the moment and accept the reality as it presents itself without putting too much spin on it myself, you know, without intruding into the experiment, the experiment in terror. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle was at work anyway of course. So they’re counting off, and I’m trying to figure out: is he gonna get me or is he gonna miss me, ‘cause he’s at one end and there’s another cat at another end….
What, counting the other way?
Yeah! counting the other way, and there’s scores of men in here.
And everyone’s in there: pencil-necked geeks and chinless wonders and the whole thing, and they don’t care, they’re taking everyone for the Marines that has a certain number.
Well presumably everybody has passed the basic physical and mental examination, so there’s no homosexuals and there’s no people with only four toes, that sort of thing.
Had you already had your physical?
Oh yeah, I’d been through that months earlier.
Is there any tale to tell?
I don’t think so, no.
You just kind of breezed through?
Went down there, same place, yeah, just breezed through. I don’t remember any… one physical is like another: bend over, cough. Had any…? Yes, I’ve had smallpox. Will that help get me out? No. [laughs] Any allergies? Penicillin. No big deal. So no, I don’t remember anything about that at all.
I remember you said you didn’t try to… you didn’t do one of those things of losing forty pounds and...
No, I wasn’t gonna go anywhere or do anything, no, or [effeminate voice] walk in in a simple frock. No I wasn’t going to do any of that.
Somebody told me if you put bars of soap under your arms it does something to your blood pressure. I don’t know how that could be but people did all kinds of bizarre things.
I don’t know. That’s interesting. They did, they did all kinds of things. I heard some of my friends in trying to get out were trying to do all sorts of things like, you know, staying up three nights in a row before the physical and take all sorts of drugs and just get in there and jabber mindlessly. I don’t know, I don’t know if any of that stuff worked. Probably did some places but I have the feeling in L.A. they were just taking anybody, it was a big… and let them wash out of basic training, ‘cause that was always a popular—I found out later—a popular way of dealing with recruitment, you know, just take everybody and if they wash out in basic training that’s okay.
They didn’t really mind that much losing…
No, they didn’t really mind that much. I mean if you could make it through basic training that was evidence enough that you were good for cannon fodder or whatever else they had you in mind for, but it didn’t make that much difference, I mean people got in who had flat feet or who had… Oh one of the things that was in the popular literature was: take Benzedrine and, what do they call those?--it was an over-the-counter inhaler, and you crack it open and take the little cotton wad out that’s impregnated with whatever it is, put that in a huge pot of coffee, you know, and let it boil for a while and drink that down a few hours before the… and that’s gonna change something; probably didn’t [laughs]. Because later on when I was part of a new basic training outfit up in Fort Lewis Washington, I mean they took all sorts of people, people with criminal records. All these people came in, Hell’s Angels from Oakland, that sort of thing.
Now this is downtown L.A.?
Downtown L.A., yeah, the L.A. Induction Center or Selective Service or whatever it was.
Was L.A. as dead downtown in those days as it was ten years later when I was there? Then the downtown area was really kind of funny because it wasn’t like the downtown of any other city. It was really not much happening.
I’m not sure. I remember a couple years prior to that—well during the time just before that I would from time to time take the bus from out in the beach down to downtown L.A. to see movies or something like that, and I remember it as sort of, you know I remember areas in St. Louis, the other big city that I had for comparison, San Francisco I don’t remember, but downtown L.A. was just, it seemed to me it was real funky, you know, they had lots of old record stores and five-and-dimes with junk in ‘em. I thought it was real colorful but not that… it was kind of seedy, so it wasn’t that, it wasn’t a sparkling downtown. It probably is in many places like that now where they’ve installed some art museums and Starbucks, Gaps.
And glittering glassy façaded buildings. Can you say façaded? [laughs]
Sure, can you say wimpy? Sure: wimpy, wampy, wombly.
So they’re counting off from both ends.
So they’re counting off and I’m trying to calculate, you know, and it ain’t easy but I’m lookin’ and I think: I’ve got it dicked, you know, they’re gonna pass right over me, but in the meantime—and this all happened within the space of five or six seconds—you know the guy’s standing there and he’s counting and I’m going to be, you know, three. Other people are coming in from outside and they’re getting in this big line and he’s counting and I realize that this is four, the guy next to me is four, and then he’s suddenly—I’m gonna be five.
And the Marines are taking…?
The fifth: five! five!
Uh oh. Because of the new guys coming into the line you went from three to…
Yeah, because I had it calculated for a while there. I’m looking around you know: Hey, let’s do it. Cool. And then I realize, you know, it all happened very quickly, I’m gonna be five; he’s counting: four! And then suddenly there’s the iron-jawed, steely-eyed, Smoky-the-Bear-hatted guy right in front of me and I just took a deep breath—swear to God this is a true story—I just looked that sucker in the eyes and I said, you know, in my mind: I’m not here; and I made this little motion—well actually it was kind of a definite motion—with my eyes to the left, like I don’t think I moved my head but I locked eyes with him and I went, whatever I could I just summoned up all my…
Cut your eyes to the left.
Cut, that’s a good way to put it. I said: I’m not here. Just a beat: five! He did it! [laughs]
And you actually didn’t get a number?
No. I just went shffft, and he just went: five! ‘cause he was movin’ fast too, and the guy next to me said: All right! He was happy, so I didn’t feel too bad. If he had said: Shit! I wouldn’t have felt too bad either but...
So how did this fit with your noninterference thing though? Did you feel like it was destined, you were destined not to be in the Marines?
Well yes, of course, I mean if you’re feeling that you’re trying to live in the moment and that everything that happens is natural, ipso facto, by definition, if you do intrude or make a move or do something like that, that’s part of it too, so I sort of skated out from under that ethically [laughs], because, you know, because it happened so quickly, it was of the moment as well, it was spontaneous, you know, I didn’t think it out except for the counting part, because it all happened right then. And if it hadn’t worked I probably would have just, I would have said: Okay, that’s the way we’ll play with this. I was adapting, you know, I was trying to adapt. So shew! not going in the Marines.
Did they put you right on buses?
So far as I remember, you know, we had some paperwork and let’s see, when did the haircuts come? I guess the haircuts didn’t come till later, in basic training, so yep, that was it; that was the end of that and then you’re on the bus and I don’t remember anything about the bus ride. Went to Fort Bliss, Texas; so it was a long haul. I don’t remember anything about it. Or maybe we went to the airport and flew to Fort Bliss, Texas; don’t recall. I don’t recall.
Fort Bliss is a good name.
Yeah, Fort Bliss, Texas. Fort Bliss, Texas, you know, it’s out there by El Paso.
Oh so it was country you’d been in. It must be near Deming, thirty, forty miles.
Yeah, it is. If I had kept all those connections I could have called up my cousins and all them people, but I didn’t. The next thing I recall about that whole thing is being there and it was haircut time, and I was singled out because…
Now you had long hair.
I did have long hair and this was, oh, January of 1966 and you know not everybody had long hair then, mostly it was people in bands [laughs], and I think somebody asked me if I was in a band, somebody on the bus or something.
Now with you the long hair was… Were you into the Beatles?
No I really wasn’t at that point; I wasn’t into any of that pop music, you know I’d hear it on the radio; it was kind of interesting; I wasn’t into Dylan either; he was still… I didn’t know anything, I’d see him on TV or hear a little bit of…; he was doing sort of folk rock stuff, and you know some of it sounded interesting but I wasn’t really paying attention. I kind of liked the Byrds from what I heard; the Byrds seemed pretty cool ‘cause they were taking the Dylan songs and really electrifying them; and the Turtles…
So you were into the electric not the folky stuff?
Well no, I didn’t buy anything; I’d hear it on the radio; you know mostly what I was paying attention to was the jazz music.
But the long hair, was there kind of a… because you said you saw your first ponytail back in…?
Yeah like sixty-four or something like that.
Was that kind of a beat thing?
No I guess not, not really.
It was just kind of a nonconformist thing.
Yeah, I guess so, it just sort of was one of those critical mass sort of things where suddenly you looked around and boom, lots of people had that; looked good, I’ll get me one, get me one of them. So out with the ascots and in with the bellbottoms. No, it wasn’t bellbottom time quite yet. But you know you’d see pictures of George Harrison and Roger McGuinn, and then Jim McGuinn, and David Crosby, and you know I liked that; that looked good, plus it was another nonintervention sort of thing; I would trim my fingernails though.
Just sort of let it go.
Yeah… So, oh and the Doors were starting to…, you know there were all these L.A. bands, the Doors were pretty cool, still I didn’t have any records or listen to the radio that much, but I was getting into the scene sort of. Oh, the few, well some of the drug-taking people that I would associate with also would have the long hair. I don’t think I had a mustache then. But anyway there I am, they singled me out and said: You! hippie boy!—no, they didn’t have hippies then, what did they say? I don’t remember, they said something, you know, some epithet: girlie man, you know, some equivalent: This is how it’s gonna be done, everybody. So they had everybody gather round, you know, they had lots of barbers there.
They used you as an example?
Yeah, right [laughs]. They had everybody gather round and watch while I was shorn, then everybody else, you know, then they started taking groups of fives and sixes: Here’s your lesson, Mr Free Spirit. Well you know I saw that coming so I wasn’t too upset about that. And then they start issuing you the clothing and the boots and so that whole morning or day or whatever was taken up with just gettin’ stuff, gettin’ stuff and then sooner or later finding out where you were going to be quartered. I was well prepared, I must say, for the army life: I mean I already knew how to live in regimented conditions; I could make a real tight bed with hospital corners so you could bounce a coin on it. I could do that. I knew all that stuff from the home and…
Was that from St. Louis?
Yeah. So I was ahead of the game there; knew how to spit-shine shoes already from hangin’ around with the shoe guy in St. Louis, so sometimes I would shine the shoes.
That was one of your educational experiences?
Yes, that’s right. What else did they want you to do? Some of the kids weren’t prepared for any of this stuff, you know, how to roll your socks up into tight little balls and put them in your footlocker just so. And how to avoid notice. That’s a very good skill in the…: how not to volunteer and how to avoid notice, unless you wanted to attract attention.
So even though you were singled out on the haircutting you managed to get by without raising too much critical attention?
Yeah, that’s true. So you know there was a bit of controlled behavior involved [laughs] ‘cause otherwise I would have got into trouble real quick.
So you were consciously suppressing any…
Yeah, this was gonna be, you know, basic training was like two months, something like that, two months, and then you’d go on to some other form of training and then you’d be assigned somewhere, so I was gonna do whatever it took to get through basic training just to see if I could do whatever it took to get through basic training. And I was already a pretty good shot from my few experiences at the summer camp where we had riflery. And ah… the only thing I wasn’t prepared for was all the snoring [laughter].
Rooms full of men snoring.
Yeah, huge rooms full of men snoring, and all the different kinds of snoring from little sips of snore to these huge, thunderous, wall-rattling blasts. These people need operations! It didn’t seem to disturb their sleep though.
Did it disturb yours?
You get used to it, yeah, you get used to it.
How many men in a room?
I guess, I don’t know, let’s see: in the basic training barracks I’m guessing twenty to forty maybe.
Was it bunk beds?
Yeah, it was bunk beds. When you first got in there you knew who your sergeant was, he lived in that barracks too, maybe he had a little room I think. And the first thing he did was appoint somebody to squad leader or something like that, so he asked if anybody had any prior military experience, and a guy did, he was twenty-six, practically ancient at that time; he was twenty-six and I guess he had been in the army before he had reenlisted, so he became the buffer between us and the sergeant. The other thing, I mean besides the formal presentations of classes and things like that about the chain of command and the relationships and the rules and all that sort of stuff, there was a lot of informal stuff.
Who you have to salute…
Yeah, who you have to salute and who you don’t have to salute, in fact who you’d better not salute. Because you know if you called a noncommissioned officer sir he’d say: Don’t sir me, I work for a living!
So they took it like an insult.
Yeah, right, they had to take it like an insult: Don’t you salute me. Which got a lot of kids into trouble, especially brown-nosers, you know, they wanted to salute everybody: Yes sir! [laughs] Don’t call… Drop and give me twenty.
Really?
Yeah, for whatever reason that would be the favorite thing: Drop and give me twenty.
And you managed to…?
Oh I got a few of those, yeah. I don’t think I could do twenty. I could do twenty phony ones. I would expend my capital wisely. I knew when it would happen, what the likely result would be, but sometimes it didn’t happen; sometimes you know you could, if you’re funny enough and you’re on the wavelength that day you might, even from an officer, you might just get a chuckle and, you know: Get back to your bunk you loser, you holdover! No, bolo, that’s what the ah…: Conkin you’re just a bolo! you’ll never be anything more than a bolo!
What’s that?
You know, somebody who’s just never gonna work out in the Army.
Did you take that as a compliment?
Yeah, that was good. That was fine, and later on: the platoon clown, that was always a good one. But the informal things you learned, or you saw right away there was a tremendous distinction—we were all new but we weren’t all draftees—there was a distinction between those who were draftees and those who enlisted, ‘cause those guys were in for four years, minimum, plus everybody had a serial number: their serial number started with RA, for Regular Army, and draftees’ serial number started with US: US56400570. You had to announce that at certain times, you know, sometimes before you’d go into the mess hall you had to say your serial number and maybe recite the chain of command or…
Just to keep it in your head?
Yeah, or just to whatever.
And it worked.
It certainly did.
What did it stand for though?
These days it’s a Social Security number but those it was just random digits, sequentially generated digits: US56400570, yeah, just nothin’. Now it’s just your Social Security number with RA or US behind it, although they aren’t drafting now. So I was prepared for a lot of it; a lot of it I wasn’t prepared for. Fort Bliss was… You know this was sort of January, February, March, and winter time in Fort Bliss, it was snowy down there, and the thing I remember most about Fort Bliss about that time was the smell of coal burning because everything was coal generated, so the whole place just smelled like coal all the time: it was really good. It really smelled good, the coal, and we spent a lot of time outdoors: the coal and the cold, the crisp cold air.
That’s interesting though, was the weather the same as it had been in Deming?
I don’t remember how it was in Deming really, seems like it was hot a lot. I bet it’s hot there, in the summer.
In the summer, so you actually had snow?
Yeah, definitely snow, tramping around in snow. You know there wasn’t very much spare time for basic training, they needed to cram a lot in those two months. Your time was completely scheduled: aside from all the different little things you would go to in inside classrooms to learn about the army or whatever was going to happen next or just general things, there was all sorts of physical stuff on the outside, and if there wasn’t anything scheduled, there was always marching, you know, marching up and down. I liked that part, that was great. Just marching for miles back and forth: I was ready for that too. That was probably my favorite part, just walking all around, because then you didn’t have to, you know you could think your own thoughts, as long as you used your right foot, I mean your correct foot, and you knew how to count cadence: you’ve gotta count cadence and you’ve gotta sing these stupid songs.
Were any of them amusing?
No, they were all about, they were trying to adapt Korean era songs for Vietnam, you know, some of them were like:
I don’t know but I’ve been told
Vietnam is mighty cold.
Well, it isn’t [laughter]. You know it might be cold in Pleiku, in Korea it might have been cold in the winter time, but those were probably inherited from World War II. But a lot of them were about Jody. You know Jody, the mythical Jody?
No.
Jody’s got your gal and gone. Yeah. And the streets of heaven are paved with gold. Sound off: One, two! All that stuff. What’s that one about Jody? There’s a lot of them about Jody, marching things about Jody.
And he’s the guy that stayed home and took your girl.
He’s the guy who stayed at home, yeah, that bastard, yeah, took your gal, that’s right. Jody’s got your gal and gone. And there was stuff about, you know sometimes you hear I guess ROTC people are running around the campus here, sometimes you hear some of the old ones, they’re still doing those oldies but goodies, the old favorites like…I can’t remember, there’s stuff about Rangers which was Army, this was before the Special Forces the Army had the Rangers and they had berets and they would say Over the hill and up the hill and through the hill and that sort of stuff. Let’s see if I can remember some more of those marching ditties. I’m sure I will off tape.
[End Tape 10, Side A]
posted by epikles at 4:24 PM
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