AWOL: Part 1

Author's note: I interviewed the subject of this story last summer in Arkansas.

The sky became increasingly unfriendly. The hum of the twin engine plane reverberated through my body and those of a dozen comrades heading to Fort Polk Army base in Louisiana.

 The pilot of the 15 place airplane tried not to show his concern. But with every unplanned drop, lurch and wind buck, the small aircraft had all of us white knuckled and green gilled.

 One of the boys lurched forward, retching projectile vomit. Others, equally full of alcohol from airport bars in Little Rock, where we’d started, and Shreveport, where we’d just left, began hurling the contents of their insides.

 The smell was outweighed only by the panic of a group aware of its mortality. I stayed as resolute as my 19-year-old self could. I’d never succumbed to fear, and I wasn’t going to start here. If I were going to die this November 13, 1972 in the choppy skies over Louisiana in a Royale Air Lines tin can, so be it. At least I wouldn’t have to endure basic training.

 As it was, I didn’t. Die or endure basic, that is.

 My new haircut exposed me to the intensity of the cold air. It was rainy and miserable as we stood in line after line for the first few days, getting our paperwork, physical testing, and regulation wardrobe. Green was the color of choice from our government, hmmm, no surprise there. (I’ve always liked purple myself, but they didn’t ask me.) We all began to look and act the same as we were herded hither and yon, barked at and ridiculed. All the confusion of being shuffled about was becoming a ringing in my ears. And here, I’d joined the army to escape the drudgery of life back in northwest Arkansas. Maybe I should have stayed driving a Pepsi delivery truck there. My head throbbed. My chest was tight. I coughed, but not from smoking. It was raspier than that. My face was flushed.

 We were carted off in a cattle truck, crammed in tight. I tried not to cough on anyone. The cattle truck stopped in front of the barracks, our home for the next 13 weeks. Uncle Sam would make men out of us here. Then we would most likely be sent off to Vietnam where we would most likely die gloriously for our country in a war nobody cared about.

 But I couldn’t think about any of that. I was busy trying to keep my pulse from stabbing through my fuzzy scalp.

 I tossed and turned in my bunk. The sweating and shaking continued. I couldn’t breathe.

 The yelling started early. The drill sergeant was reminding us to “fall in” for formation. I would more easily have “fallen down” than “fallen in” at that point, but I made an effort.

 “What’s wrong with you?” the sergeant demanded.

 “I’m sick,” I managed. “I need to go to the infirmary.”

  “You mean the first day in basic and you’re falling out for sick call?”

 Another recruit vouched for me.

 The nurses’ station was a long walk in the rain. I was staggering by the time I got there.

 I was checked out and told I needed to go to the hospital, as I was very sick.

 Another long walk in the cold November rain. I trudged along, wondering where this adventure was leading, or if I was cut out for the army at all. I finally made it to the fort bus station and taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital.

 I don’t remember my temperature on base, but at the hospital it was 105 degrees. I also was diagnosed with double pneumonia. That time of year, there were so many pneumonia patients I was shuffled into a crowded area in the pneumonia ward and pretty much left alone the first night. Despite my misery, a sharp tongued female staff member ordered me to latrine duty. “Go clean the head,” she said.

 I looked at her, bleary eyed.

 “Excuse me? I’m sick, that’s why I’m here,” I said.

 “I don’t care, you’ve got latrine duty.”

 I glared at her. “I’m not going,” I said, defiantly.

 She looked surprised, then angry, then spun around and walked away. Presently a man came by. “Did you refuse to do what you were told to do?”

 “Yeah,” I shrugged, indifferent.

 “You’re going to be written up for that, you know,” he said smugly.

 “I don’t give a damn what you do, I’m delirious I’m so sick,” I replied.

 I don’t remember much at the hospital after that, but I do remember being released. Since I had double pneumonia, I was released to a Special Training Company (STC). The STC barracks were divided into four sections: one for those with medical issues preventing them from completing basic training with their company (sick barracks), another for those who needed help to pass the written tests (dummy barracks), a third for those overweight or unable to pass the physical tests (fat barracks), and the fourth for soldiers waiting to be discharged. Many of those were returning from combat in Vietnam and had to be debriefed, or had mental issues, or were waiting on other issues to take place before they could be released.

 I spent the next 30 days hanging around with them, listening to the horror stories of Vietnam. “We’d take a hill. I remember the 305,” a thin corporal with distant eyes said. He lit a cigarette without breaking his trance. “We lost fourteen on the way up. Nineteen injured, including me. I was hit in the shoulder. I was one of the first to the top. All I could see was another hill on the other side. It was getting dark, and it wouldn’t stop raining. We slid back down in the mud that night. Orders, ya know?” He looked at me as if for the first time. “We had orders to retreat. All the way back down. Every damn step reminded me we’d lost 14 good men for nothin’. Do you hear what I’m sayin’? I could have been one of them comin’ home in a box for nothin’ because we had orders to retreat.”

 I decided that I’d do anything to avoid this war. Perhaps they would let me out if I acted crazy. The base shrink was a pleasant, helpful sort of man who seemed genuinely interested in our welfare. I latched on to him like an old friend. He could sense my desperation, but I don’t think he realized how badly I wanted out, or how far I’d go to get out.

 I was in the infirmary, but the real sickness was that I was just prolonging my fate. I would get well and go back to train to participate in a meaningless, god forsaken death ritual on the other side of the world. I didn’t want to die in some far off jungle. I could see the discouragement in the eyes of those war vets. They wanted to win, but their eyes carried doubt, defeat, and delusion. They described a war they weren’t allowed to win. A war that butchered their buddies in bloody piles, but didn’t create a victory to heroize the fallen the way they should be. There was no glory in this politically driven conflict.

 Listening to them, I bolstered my resolve that I wanted out of this man’s army. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live life, and to live it on my terms. I was determined to experience everything I’d been denied in my rigid upbringing. I felt like I’d left a small box for a big one. I wanted freedom and independence, but was getting more grief here than at home.

 My commander, Lieutenant Rice, reminded me of my uptight, legalistic dad. The lieutenant didn’t like me, but I knew it wasn’t personal. His job was to make basic training miserable. He’d try to get me to do push ups in the mess hall for talking in the chow line, but I would just look at him and say, “profile, profile.” I was on a 30 day sick “profile” which meant I didn’t have to exert physically until I was released.

 As I started to feel better physically, I began to plot how I could avoid basic training altogether. I sneaked out a few times from the base to the nearby town of Leesburg for a little wild fun at the bars. Technically, that was going AWOL, but I wasn’t ever caught, so what did it matter? I considered going AWOL permanently, but didn’t want a dishonorable discharge and all the headaches that would come later from that.

 It was mid December now. I huddled in the cold and smoked a cigarette, plotting my escape. It came sooner than I expected. Sergeant Jackson, a burly black man with a commanding presence, approached me. “You’re going home for Christmas, Smith,” he said.  One advantage of being on a 30 day sick profile was an extended Christmas break. At this point, even northwest Arkansas sounded good.

 The thrill of being off base soon wore off as I sat around the house. Dad eyed me suspiciously. A preacher and a World War II veteran, he took discipline and service seriously. When he found out I’d been doing next to nothing in an STC, his disappointment was evident. I may have had my shaggy hair cut off, but my rebel was still a thorn in his side. It was a rebel he’d never tamed and probably felt personally responsible for.

 I remembered the final standoff with him when I was 16 after drinking and being out all night. It was Sunday morning, and I’d scooted past him even though he was sitting in front of the door to block me. I told him matter-of-factly that I’d gotten drunk and had slept it off. He stormed up the stairs in anger, yanked open my bedroom door, and raised his belt to whip me. I caught his wrist in midair and we locked eyes. After a stare down, dad realized he couldn’t whip me and get away with it. He looked away, and never bothered to tell me to go to church or do anything after that. He’d raised his hand at me in anger, and didn’t have any justification for it.

 Now, back home in northwest Arkansas for Christmas 1972, I grew restless under his scrutiny. Mom was trying to make everything one big happy family for the holiday, and I played along, but when I went back to base, I began strategizing how to stay out of basic.

 So far, I’d spent 30 days in the STC, doing next to nothing. I figured I couldn’t fake being sick, but I could be injured. An iron bar was in the corner. It was heavy, and could do some damage. I didn’t want to hurt my right hand, but I could break the left and not be too bad off. I raised it up, and squeezed my eyes as the bar came down…hard.