Military Part 1

I have been thinking about this post for a few years. The three people that read this blog probably know that I am retired military. The details have not been posted so here are some of the details and my thoughts on the military. Now this is my view and my experiences and since the military like any other profession is always evolving and changing others with military experience may or may not share my views. I spent a total of 30 years in the US Army, starting at private and ending at W4, my jobs ranged from combat infantry to Helicopter Maintenance Test Pilot. I went from a single young guy with visions of an Army that didn’t exist to a divorced father of two that had seen things that were beyond belief both good and bad and a realization that the Army was something that I couldn’t define. This will of course take more than one post and how it will end is anybody’s guess.
So how did I end up in the Army to begin with? My father had something to do with it but the bottom line was that I had quit school over something fairly stupid and unless I wanted to spend my life in an Indiana factory with no future I had to do something. My choices in Northern Indiana were limited, my parents were divorcing, I had let stupidity and ego talk me into quitting high school with two months to graduation. Vietnam was cranking up and in 1965 it was almost a popular war. So I drove up to the big town up the road and was waiting outside the Air Force recruiter’s office. He was late and the Army recruiter asked me if I had considered the Army, he gave me his song and dance. I ended up signing up to be a combat engineer, thinking that I would do my time and come out with skills in driving road graders and such. I also jumped on the Airborne school, not realizing and not being told that I only had once choice and the Airborne choice, for the extra 55 dollars a month wiped out my first choice. My journey from there started in Indianapolis where the half truths, half promises and bullshit continued, but being young and dumb, I swallowed it all hook line and sinker. A bus trip from there to Ft Knox Kentucky started my basic training. The truth’s started to be revealed, I was just a very minor cog in a big machine, expendable , rubber stamp to be applied, to be conformed to a standard, invisible with no opinion, lonely, scared and impressionable.