A Stupid Kid

As I look back at my early years I realize that I was a stupid kid. (I guess uneducated, shy and backward also come to mind.) I was horribly shy and really didn't have what one would call true friends. I barely made it through a Catholic Grade School. (We acutally have a first ever reunion of the school coming up.) I was made fun of, was a lousy student, terrible at baseball during recess, etc. I now know that I was terrible at baseball was due because of poor vision and not being able to judge distance. High School was even worse. It seemed the only thing that ever was good was working. Somehow that made up for everything else although it really kept me even more from school activities, etc. due to me working almost full time while going to high school. After High School I went to Des Moines and lived with a couple other guys and went to United Electronic Institute for six months. I was horrible at math, studying, etc. so I dropped out after about four months but lived and worked in Des Moines until my parents forced me to return to Omaha. I had made a friend, Steve from Wisconsin, and just starting to feel "normal" but that ended that. (I often think of Steve and where he ended up and wish we had had more time to get to know one another. We both shared some of the same circumstances in our past.)

I was working at a horse racing track and making some friends and started to feel normal when I was drafted and went to Ft. Lewis Washington. I was scared shitless. I was still very shy, not athletic, etc. and ready for failure. But a funny thing happened. I ended up feeling happy and normal. I made friends, laughed, told stories and we all did stupid things that we could laugh about. I guess we were all in the same boat. We were all away from home, out of our element, scared, etc. I never felt like this before and it was overwhelming. We were in the 4th Platoon which was considered the fuck ups. Every time our Company had to sit down the Drill Sargent's would say "Take Seats" to which we would reply:

"Rat Shit, Bat Shit, Suck your mothers tit. Cock suck, Mother Fuck, Eat a Bag of Shit. We're the mighty Penguins, all the other suck. We the might D12, rah, rah  fuck." And once when ROTC was there for training with us we added "ROTC Suck" to the end.

At the beginning of Basic I did what everyone told me not to do. I signed up for an extra year to get a school. Little did I know that I would be offered a duty station right a Ft. Lewis but once they found I signed up for a school I was told to forget that. Shit, I could have stayed there for my full two years. So, after the Basic Training Graduation Ceremony, me and 3 or so other guys grabbed a cab and he drove very fast to get us to the airport for our flight from Washington to Nebraska. We got there in a nick of time and they put us in First Class. We were offered this great meal, etc. but I turned it down even with the push for me to take it from Ed. Why? I was embarrassed. Why? Who the fuck knows. I was just overcome with being shy and embarrassed again. What the hell was wrong with me. Anyway, I had two weeks in Omaha before my tour at Ft. Gordon, GA. It was a strange two weeks. I had a girlfriend and I fucked that up royally and I don't even remember the circumstance other than I was a total ignorant prick. I also had an altercation when while driving my mom's car. Of course I had the buzzed hair down to my scalp. Some guy next to me at a red light started yelling stupid things at me and threw hamburgers all over my windshield and calling me names. I kinda was forcing them over into the wrong lane when the light turned green and the driver yelled "please" so I backed off.

I remember being glad that leave was over. I just didnt' seem to fit in and was ready to go. Scared shitless again, but ready. I flew off to Ft. Gordon GA via Chicago, Atlanta and finally Augusta. When I got there it was time to settle in for a day or so with all the new guys getting stationed there for inprocessing. It was a time also a for meeting up with some guys I had met in Basic and boy was it like old home week. One of the guys talked all the time in Basic about his car "The Judge" and what a car it was. He was more than happy to show it to us all since he drove it down to AIT.

Well, I got to get some ZZZZZs. It has been such a fucked up week so far and I have been so sad. Thinking back to a time, that those who never served would not understand, brings some peace to me tonight.

Goodnight Brothers.

Gas Chamber in Basic Training

"Knocked Up" has been on TV a number of times recently. Isn't that why we have and pay for cable? To see the same shows over and over again? Anyway, in this show the lead character is shown smoking dope using a gas mask. It brought back memories of the Gas Chamber in Basic Training. For some idiotic reason I couldn't wait to do that. The more they talked about it the more excited I got. Stupid huh? Anyway, that day came. We had a great meal brought out to the field that day and right after eating that meal we were lining up to go in.

You know, growing up I had heard and saw on TV of how one takes many breaths filling up their lungs with oxygen and that allows one to hold their breath for a long time. Well as a kid I tried it and it worked. I was always the winner at the pool for those contests when you see who can stay underwater the longest. So, my plan was to do this at the Gas Chamber.  I didn't know what to expect and just thought I'd be choking from the gas or whatever. As I walked in I realized my mask wasn't sealed, no problem, I was trained to get that sealed and got that done. Soon we had to take off our masks and this damn gas burned my eyes and they were tearing up and it penetrated the skin on my face from the morning shave. This was not expected, but I held my breath. I was watching as everyone else was choking and gaging. We had to walk around the room and then head for the door. I was almost there, shit this is going to work. Then I hear "Drill Sergeant, Mahoney isn't breathing." from a guy in my platoon. That's all it took - as the Drill Sergeants made the target and made sure I had plenty of time in there and really got some good lung fulls of the tear gas or whatever that was. Once that was done I exited gagging, trying to catch my breath and soon throwing up. I looked down at that puke and thought, shit - that was a good lunch too. (I think it was good on purpose just with them knowing it would be thrown up.)

We had one more training session that day while under barbed wire with smoke pouring over us so you would not know when they popped open the gas and we had our masks off. When you started to experience the effects of the gas, you could then put your mask on.

Well, at the end of the day the guy who yelled out I wasn't breathing got some grief/ribbing from others in my platoon. But mostly it was just a group of young men laughing at what had happened that day and what we had experienced. But, beyond the laughing there was also the quiet conversations that was serious on whether or not we will experience a gas attack while on duty and just how serious an attack could be. It really made us think.

And shit, that was a good lunch too.