Part Seven


I had learned, a Soldier’s first day in basic training, is like every other day, one very long day. For me it was thirteen weeks long. Dlsiluk

I was motionless, it was Saturday, and we were all standing about in the bus station on base at Fort Bragg, checking out the billboard for our assignments. It was the end of the eighth week of training, and we had but a few days left, going into the ninth week, actually, my 13th week (counting the four weeks I had for Christmas leave) belonging to this Platoon of sorts. We all were checking to see where our orders were going to send us, for our new assignment. The Drill Sergeants were sitting in the smoking room, drinking and so forth, having a bash, training was over for the most part, but we had two days left, we had to use them to clear the base, sign papers, bring back our linen, and so forth and then we’d meet back here and take our buses to wherever.

Sergeant Wolf was collecting money, “How about you Private Siluk?” he asked (a little kinder than usual), as I’m reading my assignment to ‘Red Stone Arsenal,’ Alabama, for munitions training; Smiley by my side, reading his, to Fort Hood, Texas, for Infantry Training.

“Well,” said the sergeant with his hat out.

“Collecting money for what?” I said, adding “is this another requirement?”

“So we can get drunk and forget all your faces, and all the work we had to do to get you recruits to be real soldiers.”
I just stared at him, and he walked away, went into the backroom with the door opened, and took a drink of his booze. Somehow I felt sorry for the men the Drill Sergeants, they really thought they were doing a good deed, they felt they deserved it, the change they were collecting, they all surely had some kind of vision, one I did not pick up on. I was in-between, the eclipse I suppose. So I walked into the backroom, “Want a drink…?” Staff Sergeant Wolf asked.
“I’m a beer drinker, not whiskey…” I said, and dropped fifty cents into his hat, and walked away. I had come to the conclusion, I was not there to change people, but changing me was not so bad, it was for the better, and I only changed what I wanted to change. We saw things a little differently I suppose, but that is the way life is, even in the Army, and they needed some kind of uniformity and it was over.

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