Memorial Day Observations 1

 Never a fan of the military you know. 

When I was a kid I had a set of those green army men, some trucks, some tanks, some green planes, probably a battleship or two, though they were way out of scale and hard to imagine how they fit in the battle plan, but an eight year old kid can figure that shit out.  We played all day, one kid's army against the other kid's army.  Probably the most strategic part of the battle was setting up your lines, those guys lying down with machine guns first, then maybe the guys who were standing with a rifle, maybe the bazooka guys were next, bazookas were way cool, and I guess the tanks and the cannons further back, and way, way, back that battleship or two shooting from some distant sea.  Then I think we took turns leading some segment into battle and the other guy countering, and so on and so on as the day went on, and I don't remember either side ever winning conclusively.  Likely the waft of a newly opened Monopoly game and the sound of those little crisp bills and the irons and hats and shoes tromping across the board stole our attention and there was an instant truce.

And the guns. Oh lord, those cool cap guns and fancy holsters, plastic space squirt guns, just you fingers if need be.  I remember the Christmas of the burp guns.  Every boy in the hood wanted one for Christmas and every boy got one and we spent all of Our Savior's birthday blasting the shit out of each other.

Army comics were cool and so were the movies.  I thought flame throwers were cool, but then I had a flash about what it would be like to be on the other end.  Still cool though.

I was surprised when I learned sometime in my early adolescence that the Korean war had been over for like five years.  What the hell, we weren't fighting the commies anymore?  Shouldn't we still be doing that?

I was a little proud at the age of eighteen to show up at my local draft office and sign up.  Felt like a man with that little white card (still have it in my archives) in my wallet.  The Korean war was way over and there was nothing on the horizon, but it seemed like everybody got drafted as a matter of course, seemed like a rite of passage that I expected I would have to go through and I don't remember feeling much one way or the other.

Because the University of Illinois was a land grant college ROTC was mandatory for all men for the first two years.  They dropped it after my first year and I did not feel bad about it at all.  It was all inspection and standing at attention and some asshole looking you and down and decided that either your shoes or your brass was not shiny enough.  They dished out demerits and you had to go to their office and do clerical crap to get them off your record.

The worst was saluting.  If you were going to or coming back from Inspection and wearing your uniform you HAD to salute any officer who crossed your path.  Fuck that shit, fuck that guy.  I didn't like it at all.