There are so many stories about Basic Training. Unfortunately, most of them are tragic. We lost a few. For instance, there was "Fat-Fuck Frank" who always trailed behind on the route runs. We didn't seem to march anywhere, we "doubled it" everywhere! When Frank would fall quit running because, well, he was just so out of shape, the Corporal would get a bit ahead, wheel the whole troupe back around to pick him back up. We called it "bringing the bus around". This added quite a few extra steps to our day, and we resented it. Hence the horrid nick name we applied to Frank. I remember him grinning at the nick name....he told me nobody had ever given him a nick name before, and it made him feel like he belonged. I felt it was cruel, but he told me that it kicked in that little extra anger to enable him to overcome his natural lethargy. He had a good heart, but it wasn't strong enough to drive his body as hard as his tremendous will did. It gave out on him during the downhill part of the 3 miler. We were just too far away from the MIR (Medical Inspection Room) at that point to get him help. Made us all feel like shit for a long time.
We lost another in the pool. I don't even remember his name...he was some French fellow in 4 squad, upstairs from me. It was what, the second time we all ended up in the pool, and we were drown-proofing. This is a process where you take a deep breath, put our face in the water, and float for a bit, then blow out the air underwater, lift your head, take another deep breath, and float some more. The idea is to calm you down so that you don't thrash around and panic...which will kill you quick! Its almost like meditation! And it works. Unless you get it wrong, and breath in under water instead of breathe out. He died without a struggle, just floating in the pool along the rest of us. The lifeguards only moved when we were all ordered out of the pool and he didn't respond. I think this one ended sort of well...the lifeguards got the water out of his lungs, and breathed for him. We heard that he was in the hospital, and would not be completing training with us.
Another trainee just couldn't take it, and suicided on us. This was his last chance, I guess, and he just couldn't take it. That was back in 1975, and of course, depression was part of growing up. Don't believe me? Just listen to a "Donovan" album. The less said about this incident the better. I got a lot of brownie points because I volunteered to clean up the mess. I didn't have to though....some "Personnel Awaiting Training", that is to say, people who had been temporarily taken out of the stream for mostly medical reasons got that un-enviable task. We came back from a day's lesson in how to use atropine or some similar military type training to find the whole bed space totally cleaned out, no lockers or beds or anything. His name was Chris, and he was my friend, and he was gay. The Sergeant got me a letter sometime later on in the course, from Chris's boyfriend. It was pretty incoherent.
Jim was a acne covered kid from Cape Breton Island. His girlfriend was like him...not a great looker, and definitely country folks. I stop short of calling them hillbillies, but Jim had a lot of trouble reading. His girl showed up around week 6, and discovered about a thousand government inspected horny 18 year olds. Seeing her chance to break a record, she proceeded to screw as many of of them as possible. When she had nailed most of 4 platoon, Jim just lost it. I mean, 4 platoon is our rival platoon! The ones we competed against in sports, in drill competitions and now apparently, in nailing Jim's girlfriend. He kept punching his locker, kicking at it, and smashing it with his fists. He reduced the locker to almost half its size, and broke every bone in his hands. The military police arrived about the time I was wrapping bandages onto his hands, and they took him away. I saw him marching with PAT platoon and had a drink with him at the Green and Gold on graduation day. I don't know if he ever got re-coursed and graduated....I hope so. He was a basically decent guy. I can't figure her though....I think she had just discovered that guys found her attractive, and took it to extremes in a two weeks period of her life she will NEVER forget! Some of the discussions she and Jim and I had in the G and G are even now, too surreal for me to process properly!
There were cool ones too! Frenchy Dorion who spoke up when we were asked if anybody played a musical instrument. "I can play drums" he said. Well, he played a 5 piece set with 2 high hats in a rock and roll garage band in Miramichi, and they gave him a snare drum. Normally he would just beat time for us on the march, but every once in a while, when he would get bored, he would deliver what I can only describe as a "riff". The corporal would yell at him, and he would go back to "da dum. da dum" . One is reminded of a slave galley with Ringo trying to do fancy bits from the Beatles as the drummer up in front! And there was GF Currie...the GF stood for, well, never mind. Tremendous drive. Tremendous resilience. Tremendous incompetence.
So, we were 9 platoon. We started with 123 raw long haired "alises" and ended up with 78 flat bellied, steely eyed twits who thought they knew everything. It was a real sea change for a lot of us long haired hippies who had to put their bodies where their mouths were.
6 comments:
I haven't listened to any Donovan albums (the only song I recall of his is "Mellow Yellow"), but I've heard enough Carpenters hits to remember that depression was a major factor in the 1970s. No, Karen didn't write the lyrics, but most of them were extremely depressing (with the rare "up" tune like "Top of the World").
I've always wondered what happens to those who flunk basic training. I'm sure that some overcome the experience and learn from it, but it's obvious that a few don't.
Thanks for visiting Ont. This post took me 4 days to write, and I almost hit "delete" instead of "post" but after editing it and taking out a LOT of pointless angst, it didn't turn out too bad. Needs to be broken into two or three essays though....
Dang it Stag! This is too depressing. The worst is poor Jim, finding out his girl had done the entire enemy platoon. Dang it all!!!
Nah, you know I’m just kidding ya. Don’t ever hit delete! Your stories MUST be shared!
Wow. Your stories sound so full metal jacket. No one in my basic training died--but then, my BCT was more like a really bad summer camp (just in winter).
Keep posting military stories. Myybe you should collect them all in a book--it could be that great novel you were going to write before you joined.
!
DJ
Maybe I should move these stories over onto my web page. I hear that blogger occasionally hiccups and you end up losing piles of archives.
These military stories are seldom properly edited. They are almost totally "stream of consciousness". They are much more like when we are sitting around the table at Tim Horton's drinking Coffee and shootin' the shit! Occasionally I get around to editing it a bit, and the seams show...like when I changed the line from "When Frank would fall out when we doubled on the route march" (pretty much military speak!) to "When Frank would quit running." I see I left the word "fall" in the line and didn't catch it until now.
i hopped over here from oregon celtic lady's blog because you were a new name and face. i am so glad i did.
i read through word for word and could almost here my husband, my father, my brother, my uncle, speaking along with you. the stories the men in our family have brought home from the service have been sometimes heart wrenching, sometimes amusing, sometimes shocking, but always worth listening to.
Post a Comment