Part XL

October 16th, 1985 was a Wednesday night, but it did not stop my friends Mark, Pat and Marc from coming to my house to celebrate my entry into the Army. I don't remember a lot about that night except that it was the kind of man night filled with bragging, statements of strength and extreme silliness. We got into a wedgie contest and literally ripped each other's underwear to shreds pulling up on it as hard as we could, no joke, and I still remember it as a very fun night. My three friends came to send me off as friends do, and I am forever grateful for that memory because it does not allow me the self-pity to believe that no one cared.

Early on the morning of Thursday, October 17th, the recruiter arrived to take me to the processing station in Oakland again. It was 4am, or 0400 as I would soon call it, and I was ready to go. Arriving at the station, I was given another physical and if you have never been given a group physical, I am jealous. There is nothing quite like lining up with 5 other guys and being told to strip naked and bend over so the doctor can check your goods. I think this is only used in the military and prison. The similarity was not lost on me. We then swore in, signed in and shipped off to San Francisco International Airport. There is a USO there, so my delay was sent playing pool and reading. It was a pretty easy time. While at the USO, we were given a pamphlet called "Dept. of Defense Guidelines for air travel" which asked various things of us like not yelling "hi" to your friend, Jack. It was the first indicator that we would be treated like abject morons my the military.

A few hours later, the jet landed in St. Louis and was a little behind schedule, so I had to run to get to the bus for Ft. Leonard Wood MO. It may have not been this long, but I remember the bus taking about 3 hours to get to Ft. Leonard Wood. It is in the middle of Missouri, the middle of the Ozarks, the middle of nowhere. My expectation for basic training was taken from the movies, "The Boys from Company C" and "Stripes." So, when we were ushered off the bus, I expected the worse and was prepared for the worse. We were rushed into a room where we were directed to make out a postcard to our "mommy", letting her know that we were Army property now. Well, that is what he said, but I still have the postcard (which my Mom gave me a few years later) and it just says that I am fine and how to reach me by mail. I was told that I was assigned to 4th platoon, Echo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Basic Training Brigade, or as we would come to know it, E-One-Three. Then we were all sent to the processing company to do everything we needed to do to be prepared for basic training. That night we sat around and gave each other nicknames. Few of them stuck, Robert Easley was "Stick" but the first day in our platoon, the drill sergeant called him "Easy" and it stuck. I took a top bunk and went to sleep, excited and concerned about the coming ten weeks or so.