For anyone that doesn't know, at one
point in time I was in the military. Even writing that feels like a
lie for many reasons one being that I never even went to basic
training. More on that later. People who know me but don't know that
I enlisted in the National Guard and then Army Reserve will laugh
because they know who I am and how I behave and the idea of seeing me
saluting or doing anything remotely related to following orders
funny. This is Five Things I Learned Being Recruited.
This all started because me, an ex
girlfriend, and a dead guy (not a military related death) decided
that if we took these equivalency tests that we could get out of our
first three periods of class. That sounded like a great idea! We get
to the room they're doing this and its full of fuck ups. Just
terrible ass students. Not just in a school sense, but just life.
Just kids you knew would grow up to commit crime. So we finish the
tests and forget about it until months later when during an assembly
they tracked us down. The dead kid didn't do too well so they got at
me and my ex. They told us what we did well on (I mastered nerdy shit
like communications) and I was tricked into joining the National
Guard. Then levels of nonsense I was unaware of began.
This goes out to my first recruiter
Sgt. Ortega. This guy could walk the walk and talk the talk. The
problem is that I am good at spotting a bullshit artist so he stayed
away from me when we had to be around each other. I would just watch
him play his game with everyone else. He knew I wasn't joining
because of any sense of honor or duty to my country. I was a broke
ass Black kid from South Central who wanted that paper, son! I was
told how much I'd get for basic training and smiled. $3000 for three
months of just marching?! Hell's yeah!
Oh, I was so stupid. I went to lunch a
few times with this recruiter and reported to a station near Capital
Records and would just sit there for hours after school doing
absolutely nothing but memorizing my SSN and signing my signature. He
would get mad that I would actually read my contracts and whatever I
signed. He bumped me to a First Class Grade E3 because it was
allegedly a higher pay grade. He would say anything he needed to to
get more recruits. Anything. Even at the cost of my freedom.
My recruiter for the Army Reserve was
not as bad as my National Guard recruiter but she managed to lose my
SS card, not set up a way for me to get home from my drills, and
never let me know when we'd have PT. I did PT (physical training)
wearing steel toe boots, Guess jeans and matching shirt while
everyone who had recruiters that gave a damn told them to wear
sweatpants and t-shirts. Getting home that first drill I was lucky
that a lady lived minutes from me and started taking me there and
bringing me home. Eventually I had absolutely no contact with my
recruiter.
Here's how this happened. I ended up
having to take summer school because teachers are bad at teaching. I
refuse to take any responsibility for having to do summer school...the
first time. It had to do with one teacher being abandoned by a Middle Eastern guy and another hating me and there not being a seat for me
to sit in. This equals me having to take geometry and history and
driver's ed. tossed in for good measure. An attempted suicide insured
I failed all three but that's another story.
So I tell my recruiter that I have to
go to summer school. He says okay and that he'll take care of
everything. Lies! All lies! I used to head home right after school at
this time but decided to hang out with folks for a while for whatever
reason. When I got home my mother asked “Why were the police
looking for you?” In her mind I'm sure she thought I had completed
my transformation from strange child to criminal overnight. I was
like, what?! She said that I was AWOL. She didn't know what that word
meant but I'd watched enough Bugs Bunny cartoons to know exactly what
it meant. So I called my recruiter and asked him if he had told his
people that I was going to summer school. When you are in school and
underage, I was almost 17 at this point, no matter what school comes
first.
He probably assumed that my goofy ass
was out of his hair and on my way to Fort Jackson, South Carolina
already and that if I had a problem he wouldn't have to deal with it
for three months. Nope! Dante was still in L.A and pissed. He
stammered his way through an explanation but not saying that he
fucked up and never told anyone that I was going to summer school. I
couldn't just quit because I'd signed a four year contract that I couldn't get out of. This is when I decided that I needed to get the
fuck out of the National Guard. What seemed the next easiest was the
Amy Reserve. Before I continue, let me remind you that I stopped
being smart about two years before all this occurred.
My ex wasn't a dumb ass like me so she
didn't have to go to summer school. She flew out to basic training
after me and her parents dropped her off downtown. She sent me a
letter every single week which I still own till this day. She told me
about the exercises they did, the forced vomiting up water, the
drinking water until you vomited, and the room where you experience
tear gas. Fuck that. The exercise I would have done but I know that I
would've been kicked out for disobeying orders.
During my drills on the weekend where
we exercised, read, and raced to see who could put on a full outfit
to not be poisoned by gas I would talk to recruiters and drill
sergeants all the time. They called me Bookworm because all I did was
read during free time. They told me that I was different and that
basic training was gonna be rough for me. As one drill sergeant put
it to me on a ride home “You are gonna get your ass kicked,
Bookworm. The point of basic is to break you down and make you a team
player. Take away your individuality. Your ass is too much of an
individual. If somebody break your ass they gon' get a medal!” This
wasn't an issue of me not being able to follow orders. I just don't
follow orders that don't make sense to me. Because I'm a dick.
When I joined the National Guard I was
about 5'10” and 150lbs soaking wet (compared to now being 6'1" and 220lbs). I had tried to gain weight
before this and failed miserably. It wasn't that I didn't eat, I just
couldn't put on weight. I took a weight gain powder from my father
and lost two pounds. When I went to the physical they were mad that I
was the weight I was like I was starving myself for the hell of it.
They had us do things like straighten our arms out and squat. At this
point one guy, the one who was the most enthusiastic about joining,
was booted because his arms physically couldn't straighten out. No
muties in the Army!
They did a piss test and the lady that
took mine saw my name on the side and knew who my mother was. When I
took the blood test the guy jacked my arm up because he couldn't find
a vein. This is a thing that has gone on my entire life and keeps me
from being a heroin addict the way I plan during my last few months
alive. He tied me off, waited as others came and went super fast, and
got mad at me like I was playing hide and seek with my veins. After
almost ten minutes he just stabbed my arm, took some blood, and told
me to get out of there.
I knew this going in but it was
solidified the more I read about the military experience and talked
to people who had been there and done that. If you are someone that
can allow yourself to be sent across the world shooting people in
places you've never even considered visiting then knock yourself out.
I'm not that guy and I'm not upset about it. I know the military does
more than that. I'm just being glib. They do good work when they
aren't killing people or spying on civilians. Glib!!!
At a certain point I stopped going to
drills and got checks for zero dollars. One of those $10 checks is
what led to cops aiming guns at me (click here to read that adventure). After four years I was about 20 years old and my mother
called to let me know that I got a big ass letter from the Army. I
was like “Oh shit! The chickens have come to roost!” or however
the fuck that saying goes. I got the letter and it pretty much said
that there was a new recruiter, I could sign up again, and my time
was up and I was discharged. Now, I've power danced before. After my
first great blowjob, after having anal sex, after kissing someone I
never thought I'd kiss, after making a chick come who never came
before, after getting my tax return last year, and when I was
discharged from the military. If I could go back in time I never
would have enlisted.
Click here for previous Five Things I Learned.
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