The recent Memorial Day got me to thinking about my three years of service as a courageous warrior. It all began when I got out of high school and enrolled in pre-engineering in college. Pffffft. I belonged in engineering school like a plow horse belongs in the Kentucky Derby.
Why did I enroll in pre-engineering when I hated math, you might ask. And I might tell you to mind your own business. So I dropped out after a semester. Like many an 18 year old with no particular objective other than girls and beer (not necessarily in that order) I joined the Army. The military demands unquestioning obedience, physical endurance, orderliness and meticulous attention to detail. Think of the opposite of each of those qualities and you have a pretty good description of my personality.
Probably the only choice worse than engineering for me was the Army. I saw a lot of pain and anguish in my hitch, but I'll dwell on the most amusing part for a minute – basic training. That's where the contrast is the greatest between whom I was and what the military wanted me to be.
My platoon sergeant was an airborne ranger a 5 foot 7 inch coil of barbed wire. When he found out I had signed onto the Signal Corps and not airborne or infantry, where the real men go, he had a serious problem with me. In every encounter, he oozed with contempt for my cowardice.
Early on, the platoon was marching somewhere and he gave the order "column right MARCH." Having been awake since 4 a.m., I was dozing on my feet as we marched and thought he said "column left." The whole column moves smartly right except me. All by myself, kind of dozing, I am marching away from the column and into the distance. Suddenly a steel helmet smashes into my back.
"Rizzo, you are a ---- ing idiot," he screams. The platoon cracks up laughing. Fifty push-ups later I was wide awake. The rest of the platoon only had to do 25 for laughing without permission. The next morning at 3:30, all the lights in the barracks suddenly snapped on. There was Sgt. Beelzebub at the head of the aisle. He promptly flung a pail full of hot soapy water down the aisle between the bunks.
"Okay drop whatever you're holding and start scrubbing," he yells. This was insane. It was unfair. But we had a plan. We started scrubbing.
He found a micron of dust in the barrel of my M-1 rifle at one inspection. I slept with it for the next week. When the week was over I actually missed its companionship. Steel can be comforting in the absence of other options – after it gets warmed up.
"Sargent, is it okay if I continue sleeping with my rifle?"
Fifty more push-ups.
There were some lighter moments though. We were bivouacking in the woods at one point and my buddy, Bland and I were sharing a pup tent. Bland was from the very tough part of Chicago and he was bad. Carried a switchblade. Had boxed as an amateur. No one messed with him, which is why I targeted him as my pal. In a showdown he was my last hope against Sgt. Beelzebub. Bland was afraid of nothing except snakes. Being a city boy he had never even seen one.
As luck would have it, one day, during the course of crawling around playing war, one guy cornered a three-foot black snake. A light bulb went on.
"Lock him in your pack," I ordered.
"Why?"
"We'll put him to bed with Bland tonight," I said.
"Perfect," my buddy enthused.
During chow call, which was after dark, we snuck off and slipped the snake into Bland's sleeping bag.
Later Bland found me.
"Turning in?" he asked.
"Couple more hands," I said. "You go ahead."
We gathered about 30 yards away.
Bland disappeared into the pup tent.
Nothing happened.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
AGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
A blood-curdling scream pierced the night air. Suddenly the entire pup tent erupted straight up, all the pegs and ropes trying to hold it down now flapping wildly. Then the entire tent sprouted two legs and the whole mess disappeared, running wildly through the woods. Took us an hour to find Bland and coax him back to the bivouac area.
Where do they send me after basic? Dial Central Office Management School. It's all about reading schematics, theory of electricity, circuit logic. Right into my engineering strength. But the Army taught me a life lesson if I had to do something if someone held my head right in the trough eventually I'd start to eat. So I did it and was good at it. And since I had proven to myself I could do it, when I got discharged I never looked at another circuit diagram again.