It Wasn't All Bad

About halfway through basic, I concluded that joining the army had been a terrible mistake.  There are various ways to weasel out of something like that but, after thinking about it for awhile, I decided that they were all more trouble than they were worth, so I decided to tough it out.  Everybody said it would get better after basic, and it did, but it never got really good.  It's like when my daughter said years later that people had been telling her all her life that things would get better.  In elementary school they had told her that high school would be better, but it wasn't.  Then they told her that college would be better, but it wasn't.  "Tell me, Dad, when does it get better?", she asked.  I had to think about it for awhile, but I finally told her,  "It never gets better, you just get better at it."

One thing that was good about my military experience was that it gave me time to sort my life out.  What had I done wrong?  What had I done right?  What am I going to do next?  Stuff like that.  I did some of my best thinking on guard duty.  Many people would find walking around the perimeter of a motor pool or ammo dump in the middle of the night boring, but I didn't.  It was quiet, I was alone, I had to keep moving, but not very fast, just fast enough to keep from falling sleep.  Another good thing was that I got to meet all kinds of people from all over the country, which I never would have done in Chicago or Alaska.  We all talked about our previous experiences and where we were going from here.  We developed a sense of comradery because we were all in it together, and I learned that I could get along with most anybody if I had to.  I also did a lot of reading, everything from porn to philosophy.  I think I got at least as good an education, in the things that mattered, than I would have gotten in college.  Shortly after I got out, my mother told me that a kid of a friend of hers was considering enlisting in the army, and asked me if I would recommend it.  "Well", said I, "I wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience I got, but I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars either."