YER IN THE ARMY NOW!Since I was born with a lack of Mensa qualities I had begged my parents to let me enlist in the service during WW2. Even ran away from home one time and tried to join up, but they said they weren't that hard up yet! The day I turned eighteen, I went running down to the draft board and said, "I want go in rat now!!!)" Lady there said, "Great! What branch of the service do you want to go in?" I say, "Marines." (They had the best looking uniforms!) Then she said, "OK, you get three more choices: Navy, Air Corps and then Infantry." I say, "That sounds good too me." So a few days after that I get a letter saying "Greetings!" And then when I reported into the induction center, I find out that I am going to be in the Army Infantry. The first thing right off when I reported in to my basic training camp was that I got a free haircut. When that barber got thru with me all, and I do mean all, of my long wavy hair was on the floor and I was almost as bald as a newborn baby. I found out that I just loved the army basic training however, because they tooted a horn for you to get up in the morning way before the chickens got up, and then at night they tooted that horn to put you to sleep! I had never had nobody play music before to wake me up and put me to sleep! You can meet some strange people in basic training too. Yankees, Hillbillies and such, and a few good ole boys like me. One time we got a pass to leave the base and another fool and I went into a bar in Joplin, Missouri to have a sodie pop. A few minutes later our Platoon Lieutenant staggered in and joined us. I reckon he must have had a bad hair day or something because he wanted us to help him whip everybody in the bar! Well, we begged his pardon and told him we had to be back at the base in a short time and couldn't help him out. When we walked out the door there was a Salvation Army Band right there a playin and a singin like crazy. My buddy (?) said, "Jeeze (or something like that) I used to BE in the Salvation Army!" He went over there, grabbed a tambourine from a poor little ole lady and started shaking and beating on that thing and hollering halleluah! Well, I left that fool there a singing and a beating on his tambourine and I got back to the base by myself just in time to get put back to sleep by the horn. Did you know that you can sometimes hear grown men cry when they hear taps? I think maybe they are missing their mama. Anyhow, the Salvation Army guy finally got back too, but he fell down in the latrine and couldn't get up..until we poured a few buckets of cold water on him. One ole boy in our platoon by the name of Frank wore glasses that looked like coke bottles. We used to play all kinds of mean tricks on him. Like one time we hid his bunk up on top of some wires above where it should be. So he just slept on the floor that night. Another time Frank was on his cot asleep with his hand hanging down almost to the floor. Some wise guy said, "If you put his hand in a bucket of warm water it will make him wet the bed!" So naturally we had to determine that scientifically. About five minutes after we had his hand in the warm water nothing had happened, so somebody just poured the bucket of water on him. (And it was NOT me!) Ole coke bottle Frank had the last laugh however. He was honored with a big parade and given a medal for being the top expert with the rifle. Seems that he never did miss the bulls eye on the rifle range. |