By Tim Robinson

With the Vietnam War igniting in the early '60s, many young men like myself were concerned with the draft. In high school it was required for each senior boy to "sign up". Many of us did not understand all that was involved. We were teenage boys so it makes sense. Posters from WWII were still around in local businesses with the very patriotic, white-bearded, top-hatted, Uncle Sam saying "I want you". If the poster was meant to flatter, it failed me. Trusting anyone over 30 was normal for teens; they were "old". Going into the military was further from my thoughts than graduating and getting a job. It was not the "freedom" we thought we wanted away from high school. It was kinda like a permanent summer vacation? Short-sighted?

Certainly...but we thought we were smart. We had a diploma!  It did not take long to realize the real world was also the adult world. People did not care if you were smart, dumb or in-between. Box boy jobs were common. Some kids made money on daily newspaper routes or fast food. Other kids became apprentices at local auto shops. Other kids simply didn't do anything, Sometimes those were the kids who opted for Uncle Sam.  For me it was about working AND going to school. One very early morning in winter, after six months of "freedom", I enrolled in classes at the local community college. I did well, working and learning.

Something was missing. It was my buddies.

My friendships had changed. The "gang" had changed. I felt alone. My buddies had either already entered the military or had moved away or were working. A buddy left from my gang mentioned the military to me. I agreed that I wanted to control my own fate regarding the draft. We met with a recruiter. He promised wild adventures overseas with palm trees and beaches.

He had us convinced. I was seeing sunshine and girls, not mortar rounds and rifles. Soon I was off to the military induction center on Alaskan Way downtown. A long line of young men waited outside and again inside. We were asked to undress down to our "skivvies".

A military physician and a nurse walked down the line of men.We cringed. Our moms were usually the only people who had seen us in underwear. They asked each man about their health. Some were immediately excused. We moved along. There was a "short arm" inspection. This is military speak for an exam of one's private area for disease. The men cowered, the nurse was not impressed. Eventually most of us gathered our things, went home with an appt. to be at the airport for departure later that month. Having never flown in an airplane, I reveled as we took off for Los Angeles, the ground simply disappeared from under our seats. We caught a connecting flight to our base. Once there we were treated to a wonderful breakfast in the officer's mess hall. It would be the last decent meal until we gained military leave many weeks later to have mom's home cooking. 

 On base

The training instructors are generally good men who are tasked with breaking down personal values, then re-building your mindset on discipline. This meant a lot of screaming and belittlement at nearly every recruit. "I AIN"T YOUR MOTHER SON!".

Some trainees were reduced to crying. Some stuck their chests out in defiance or courage. We lived in close quarters with 63 other men, eight sinks, eight toilet facilities and a large shower room with a dozen nozzles. That first night my bunkmate and friend I'd enlisted with, came up to me in the latrine."I did a dumbshit, stupid thing", he said. He shook his head explaining that he locked his footlocker with all his civilian clothing AND the paper combination to his lock. He was buck naked and nervous. My problem solving solution? Just tell the training instructor. This is probably not the first time it has happened. I was fairly right.

My friend was ordered to go across the compound to fetch some bolt cutters. He was further instructed to borrow a pair of boxer shorts (polka dot) from another recruit in the row of bunks. That recruit sounded just like Yogi Bear. "S'all right Boo Boo?" It was just the shorts. No shoes, no shirt..just the shorts and to return quickly. After a few quiet snickers from me and others, my friend left like a bear looking for a picnic basket. He returned with the bolt cutters. All was well until inspection a few days later. Inspections are impromptu affairs. No warnings. We were required to be clean shaved and trimmed and at parade rest in front of our open footlockers. We'd already had a buzz cut on our 2nd day. My friend had not shaved and asked to borrow my brand new electric shaver. A gift from my dad when I left for training. I agreed. At inspection, the training instructor picked up my shaver. The only one he did this to in the entire inspection, as it turned out. He found lots of tiny trimmings from my friend's face, not mine since I barely had a whisker in those days.Shavers are supposed to be cleaned after each use. Mine was not, of course, since my friend used it moments before inspection. Touche for the snickers and the underwear scene.

The barracks life was one of trying to fly under the radar eyes of the TI's. A footlocker held your personal items though they were never used. Shaver, underwear, socks and regular issue clothing were neatly presented. Recruits learned fast to use the bunk bed frames to hold a toothbrush. Dirty and clean laundry was kept in a private sack hanging off the bed frame. Showering and shaving was done in the latrine at 5 a.m. The TI was up earlier, to be able to bang a garbage can lid inside the sleeping quarters at 4:30 each morning. What teenager likes to arise that early? Especially on orders to "rise and shine". Not me! Not most of us. But we did.We had to make our bed pulled tight with hospital corners. "Bounce a dime" was the goal. The coin had to get air if dropped on the bed cover. Sometimes it didn't. Especially my friend's bunk since he had to be a chow runner. It meant I had to make his bed too. 

We hurried out to formation for roll call. We marched to the field for P/T. The sun was barely up. Breakfast had to wait. P/T was basically covering four trips around the track (one mile) at a pace you could manage. Some guys "flew" around. I stayed with the pack for two or three days of this until I thought it was too slow. I was also hungry. I separated myself and regularly finished second to a kid from Ohio that seemed to have springs for legs. When everyone finished, we headed for the mess hall. We did not speak at breakfast. We ate, we left. We lined up outside at parade rest and waited for the TI to march us back to the barracks to clean, clean and clean or polish shoes or get ready for educational training. This all happened before 7 a.m. 

Afternoon training was all about marching and cadence and proper military salutes. My friend, who humored us with the polka dot boxer briefs, was doing his best to salute as the officer of the day came down the line. My friend's hand was quite crooked where it was supposed to be rigid and straight. The officer asked why my friend could not maintain a proper salute. The answer was a lie. He said his hand was crushed by a brick when he was young and it never healed properly. That seemed to satisfy the officer, who moved along. Later my friend confided in me that he could indeed salute correctly. He just did not want to be criticized. Don't get caught lying. You'll be tasked with physical penalties like 100 pushups. He was safe for the time being. Training consisted of classroom learning about military goals and purpose. Rifle training included dismantling an M1 carbine in the field, cleaning it and putting it back together in mere minutes. There was additional P/T and marching around the compound. 

At night, after mess hall, we sat around outside in the perimeter of the barracks, shining shoes and socializing. It was our only downtime for several weeks. We did not make friends for the most part. It was also time to sign the demerit log. If your name was called you went up to the TI to retrieve your "form 341" that was collected from you for an infraction of rules. Smith, Jones, Anderson, the TI yelled out. Each man went up in turn to sign the log before returning to their place in the perimeter to continue to shine shoes. Then Robinson, Robinson, Robinson the TI yelled out. I received demerits for dirty shaver, dirt left in the laundry room after cleaning up (my assignment) and for spilling milk in the mess hall and also for reading mail, after chow, while waiting for others to join formation. I was a bad soldier..but they kept me.  

At rifle training we had five positions with the M1 (30/30) WWII style rifle. Standing, sitting, leaning, kneeling and prone. The targets on the range were 100 yards away. Maybe the powers that be wanted to make sure the recruits could actually HIT the target. To compare that to today's sniper sharpshooters, who could find a target at 2100 yards.  I was great with a BB gun as a youth, once shooting George Custer in an above the bar painting in our basement. At rifle training I managed to hit my target 61 times with 50 shots. Yes, you read that correctly. I received an expert marksman ribbon. The guy next to me did not. He must have had four eyes, only one focused on his target. He had to reshoot. I was recommended for guard duty.  Nearly every man had to serve guard duty at night. You got to pick the 3-hour shift. Nine to midnight, midnight to 3 a.m. or 3 a.m. to 6. a.m. I liked the midnight shift. All the shifts meant we did not have to get up for reveille. We walked the perimeter of the compound with a 45 mm pistol and holster. The odd part for me was that we were inside a fairly heavily guarded base. 

We received virtually no training with any pistol and I always suspected the gun was not loaded. It was just an exercise in discipline. That pistol never left the holster though I considered myself "armed and dangerous".

 In the field  

Survival training meant crawling under barbed wire, finding our way through a smoke-filled building, climbing an inversely slanted 9 ft wall and traversing a river by ropes set apart about six feet top to bottom. If you were unlucky enough to be next to a tall recruit, you could dangle your feet while hanging from the top rope.

Crawling under the barbed wire on your belly was necessary to avoid the bullets flying over your head with tracer rounds above to make you realize it was important to stay low. We stayed low.  We shared several weeks of training and then it was off to various parts of the world. Our training and aptitude tests funneled us into fighters, military police, administrators and mechanics as well as cooks and photo recon staffers or map makers.

My friend with the infamous polka dot shorts was assigned to be an military policeman. He was dejected and forlorn as it meant staying on base for training while I was granted leave to go home for two weeks. I was a map maker, transferred to Massachusetts and later Germany.  

Maps were for pilots to read the terrain they expected to bomb in Vietnam. They folded up like a gas station map we used to get for free when our family took a road trip. The maps showed mountains, rivers, bridges and roads. It was all color coded and included elevation changes. Every month we made a new map for the same area since bridges blown up the previous month were replaced as readily as the bombs that knocked them out in the first place.

Coming Home  

After four years I did not want to see another map. But the experience of traveling around the country and the world was priceless.I never got to see those palm trees and beaches. I did control my destiny to a point. I did not avoid the "draft". Those bikini clad girls?; they wore Dirndls instead and often served beer in big mugs.When my transport plane landed on my return from Germany, I kissed the tarmac. I might have looked funny but it was good to be home.