An Odyssey in Basic Training

by Charles Merkel

part 1

Week Five, Day Three in Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and another empty mail call. Misty-eyed, I turned away from the guys, humiliated at the thought of them seeing me this way. My God, the reality of it, the utter despair. I had lost Penny Quinn. Two letters and a postcard in all this time and the letters within my first ten days, the last missive bland and short.

How foolish was I to let my dreams grow to such unrealistic bounds? I mean my dreams, my gilded imagination of the future, were they a blessing or a curse?

I met her in sixth grade, and we kinda hit it off. She seemed quite entertained with my jokes in class and the endless repercussions they caused me. As time went on, I loved the fact that she had such a naughty sense of humor for a smart, mostly straight-laced girl.

Then, in the summer between eighth grade and high school — with neither of us officially allowed to date at thirteen and fourteen — our kinship began. Always willing to try anything that could never work, I concocted a plan over the phone where I would meet her at the bus stop at Third and Arbor Park Avenue around noon, and we would secretly journey to downtown Louisville and see a movie: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

I went on to propose that we’d grab a snack at the Walgreen’s lunch counter on Fourth Street. Then, safely back in under five hours with ridiculous but still believable alibis, we’d be home for supper. I beamed over our audacious success. That made a real mark, too. We were buddies, comrades in adventure, with some sort of implied future.

Penny was much more attractive than I and had guys calling her constantly. Going steady? Not even a close reality, but we were always in touch, occasionally walking home from school, chatting on the phone or dancing now and then at the after-game dances.

Then, senior year, something happened; something along the lines of a fortuitous bolt from the Almighty. Her attitude changed somehow, and we suddenly saw a lot of each other, perhaps the best being serious make-out sessions in my ’63 Impala. We went to the prom, nine drive-in movies, spent many afternoons at the Wyandotte pool, saw a couple of Louisville Colonel baseball games and rode everything at Fountaine Ferry Amusement Park. We even had a couple of dinners at Frisch’s Big Boy. Summer could not have been more packed with delights and hope.

In September 1966, she did the right thing, and I did the opposite. She started freshman year at the University of Louisville and moved on campus. Though accepted at a junior college in town, I opted to go into the army with some chums, to get the obligation — draft-enforced — out of the way, then have the GI Bill for some serious college.

I was not alone. Thousands of young men were making similar decisions back then. Most, like me, needed money, weren’t fond of living at home and had this haunting thing about our military requirement. At first, we were going to enlist for three years and have some say about our jobs. But in the end, we volunteered for the draft — two years — and, given our youth and inexperience, the infantry likely waited to inhale us.

Penny certainly didn’t agree, but I should have been somewhat alarmed because she didn’t put much effort into talking me out of it, either. The war protests were not much of an issue outside of the east and west coast colleges at that point. I never saw the so-called revolution coming.

Our goodbye was doleful but, to me, there still seemed to be a solid path forward. I didn’t ask for a commitment, but I sort of felt it was there.

“Be careful. Don’t get killed, stay out of Vietnam,” she said. “Keep your silly mouth shut around those sergeants.”

“I think I’ll be home at Christmas,” I said. “And if I do go right away to Nam, maybe a couple weeks into February, at least I’ll be getting that out of the way, too. That’s the way it’s set up. Then a guy can get an early out to go to school. Like ninety days cut off the end of your two years. And don’t forget I’ll probably have a Christmas leave, then another one before I go overseas.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Well, Patty Kreckel has a three-bedroom apartment and only one roommate. So, I mean, if her situation is still going on. She’s told me I’m welcome to party and even stay overnight there. So, who knows? Who knows what possibly might happen, Andrew.”

My jaw dropped at this inference. She was coquettish, a tease but, somehow, she’d always managed to squeeze in something about the mixed bag of modesty, morality and all things to those who are patient; the last things a guy in love and burning with lust wants to hear.

My hopes remained strong even on the overnight Greyhound ride to Fort Leonard Wood. I had hoped for basic at Fort Knox, twenty miles from Louisville, but I guess it was chock-full the day I took the oath.

As the days turned into weeks, gloom over Penny seemed to pervade my every minute.

Things worsened when my close friend, Kenny Mitzenbarger, also a freshmen at the U of Louisville and salutatorian of our class wrote me:

Sorry, buddy, but I think Penny has a couple of pretty wild frat dudes, one’s a big-time jock she’s close to. Don’t take this too hard, but I think you should know, I am 99% sure she’s not a virgin any more. Not positive. But the evidence is overwhelming and from more than one source.

This was too much. Life was not worth living.

Though wounded, my desire for her transcended any rage over possible infidelities she may have perpetrated. After several days of pining and feeling sorry for myself — this on top of the fear, torture and degradation of my military plight — I decided to gamble on the wildest plan of my life.

My platoon had an excellent chance at the end of week five to earn the only time ever away from our unit. If we qualified, any or all of us could leave after chow around noon that day; then we’d take one of a fleet of buses to Saint Louis for a two-day pass. All we needed to do was avoid finishing dead last among the company’s five platoons in the weekly Friday morning inspection.

In our first four weeks, we had ended up second each time. Of course, guarantees do not exist during hell, but what else was there? I mean after basic, I’m off to Fort Polk, Louisiana for eight more weeks of infantry training with no leave until possibly Christmas, and that was not a certainty. Trainees have no rights, we were reminded constantly.

I had to do something. I mean, after all, I’d fired off twelve letters and gotten a mere three replies, the last being a post card of a Louisville Cardinal football player on the front and a scrawled Cards 66 Drake 26!! — PS. Not even a newly minted: xoxo — PS.

So, I became a soldier on a terrifying mission and decided to do what only a few had done before me: I would leave the company area. One of my predecessors had been caught and punished severely; a court-martial promised to the rest of us should we try it. No matter. I would find a phone and call my beloved Penny and, defying all odds and hopefully — no, surely — arrange the greatest weekend of all time. I had to count on us earning that pass, but what the hell? I’d have to take that chance; surely, we’d do it.

At twenty-two-hundred hours, sixty minutes after “lights out” on Tuesday night, I took off. According to our cadre, I was AWOL — on base, not actually the end of the world — but, because of being in the midst of those eight weeks of abuse and stark exaggeration, my distorted perception had me mustering courage on a level of a Silver Star.

I could not get the image of my deranged platoon sergeant out of my mind. I could feel him screaming, spewing spit into my eyes: “You scum — yellow-ass deserter! You’re goin’ to the stockade, you maggot turd! And in two years, when you’re done with prison, military prison, where there are no pussy-prison-rights, you’ll still have your two years to serve. I just hope you end up in my company. I’ll squeeze your balls off. We can’t have weak, Old-Glory haters like you out there screwin’ this country’s women. Not ever! Imagine the cretins!”

Floundering around in the infinite maze of similar-looking company areas, I finally found a phone next to a post exchange. Of course, a PX — a place where regular soldiers could buy supplies, complete with a small diner where a guy could even get burgers and beers — there’d always be a phone booth outside of a PX. It must’ve just closed. I was scared out of my mind, not only because of my absence and the mounting problems associated with re-entry but much more scared by my insecurity with Penny.

As I dialed her number, my focus grew hazy, my knees morphed into putty, and my bowels suddenly felt as if I’d swallowed a grenade with its eight-second fuse nearly spent. No busy signal; it rang. I trembled and shut my eyes. Some not so memorable exchange with a female voice, and then: for the first time in weeks, I was talking to my girl.

Feeling vulnerable and pressed for time — plus, I only had a few quarters more for the pay phone — I got right to the point and asked her to meet me in Saint Louis on Friday night. We’d get a hotel room and stay until Sunday around noon. As I stumbled through my detailed proposal, the idea that I might as well be talking to Ann Margret or Mia Farrow hit me but, to my total amazement, Penny was in a joyous, even silly, mood. “Why don’t you just sing it?” she said, laughing.

I didn’t get it. She reminded me, condescendingly, of the old show tune: “Meet Me in Saint Louis.”

“Oh sure,” I replied. “From that Judy Garland movie, I can’t remember how the damn thing goes. Shame, too, ’cause all the guys say I sound just like Perry Como when we sing our marching-cadence songs.” I was trying hard to be funny but was way too nervous to pull it off.

An excruciating pause ensued, then, “You’re lucky I miss you, Andrew. I’ll have to cancel some groovy plans and break a promise to Daddy not to take the car more than fifty miles away without him knowing about it. Plus, I know darn well I’ll have to do all the research, make the reservations and probably come up with most of the money!”

She’s gonna do it, I screamed mentally. “Well, yeah, I was getting to that.” I smirked. “And it’s only two-hundred and sixty miles.”

“Yeah, great. For me that might as well be two thousand. The things you come up with.” Her gaiety continued, she even sounded excited. When I hung up, I was as happy as I had ever been.

My rapture was short-lived, because I now faced the serious challenge of getting back to my unit, Charlie-5-3, unnoticed.

I slipped from the lighted phone booth and everything changed. I glanced around, then, in a heart-pounding stupor, studied the surroundings more closely. Lost. Oh damn, lost for sure. I started out, hoping at least I was going in the right direction.

I wandered cautiously like a rabbit in a forest crammed with wolves and soon drifted onto some sort of perimeter road. As I crept from one bend in the pavement to the next, I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the base and the uniformity of its hundreds of white-framed, green-roofed buildings, all arranged in identical clusters of seven — an orderly/headquarters attached to a supply room; a mess hall and five two-story barracks — which served as the individual company areas of the largest basic training facility in America and, they’d told us, in the world.

Fighting debilitating panic, I sat on a steep knoll and mentally tried to pick my way back, but I had no idea from which direction I’d come. I got up and instinctively began to run. Soon, I found myself in a ghostly nightmare.

The impending losses loomed large: I would forfeit the pass and perhaps the most exciting weekend I’d ever imagined. I’d lose the hellish weeks I’d already accrued, along with any control I’d have over my military life should I indeed become a prisoner. Losing Penny forever was a given, because I would have no way to call off the rendezvous except by mail, and there wasn’t time. Her expensive effort, fraught with problems, even danger, would be a waste. I ran faster, the white clusters of barracks beginning to blur in all directions.

All I could think to do was dart into the guarded areas of each company and read the signs posted in front of their orderly rooms. A-2-4. I sprinted, then skidded to a new marker. D-1-2. Then D-2-2. I tried a different direction: F-2-3, E-1-5. Suddenly I spied a jeep — MP’s — and I actually dove underneath the elevated mess hall of E-2-4. They stopped as if they’d spotted something, but then drove on after a few seconds.

I bolted from there and crossed a PT field, then took another curved road until more company-areas appeared. Just ahead H-4-3. In an all-out sprint, I skipped ten companies.

Nearly in tears, I blurted, “God, how could You allow this?” I was trapped in a city of despair, a sea of gleaming, wooden structures with perfectly kept lawns and large gravelled formation areas; a world of thousands of young men preparing for war under tutelage of the fiercest pit bulls to take human form.

Headlights loomed ahead. I jumped over a ditch and threw myself onto the ground next to a huge tree, camouflaging my olive-green form on the still-emerald grass in the black of night, a little like they had been teaching us. My heart thudded. I realized that I had never known real pressure before; the understanding that every action I took, every thought I allowed, was part of a dreadful puzzle of survival. Terror replaced all my bravado of minutes before. I began to reason how incredibly dumb I was to risk sacrificing what I had earned. I imagined that I was reasoning exactly the way they wanted us to think.

Pressed to the fragrant ground, I watched the approaching vehicle, there was something on its roof. More cops, had to be. I strained to make out how many MPs there were.

Proceed to part 2...