Remembering An Old Grump Who Might Have Saved My Life
Posted: Thursday, February 05, 2009
by Mike Fak
http://mikefak.com
On February 6 th I will have officially been discharged from the U.S. Army for 38 years. That almost seems impossible as anyone who has been in the military will tell you those days; good, bad or indifferent etch themselves into one's memory.
I was one of the lucky ones during that VietNam era. I ended up being a stateside soldier guarding atom bombs, playing sports for the post and having a day off each week to write for the post newspaper. I had made myself valuable as a soldier as well, learning all the nuances involved in electronic surveillance.
I didn't though. I needed to get back home, go back to school and make some real money which wasn't available back then for soldiers.
Like I said, I had it easy during my service but it could have so easily been something much worse if it hadn't been for one of the crabbiest, meanest human beings God ever allowed on the Earth. Let me tell you how.
As a teenager, I worked in a hardware store for a mean, cantankerous boss who was always on his 70-cents-an-hour help. I learned much from him. How to thread pipe, replace window glass, what electrical is all about and much more. I learned most of it while he was yelling directions at me. I took the education to heart as my entire family was in the trades and it gave me knowledge that dad or other family members had yet to pass on to me.
When he wasn't lecturing us on being too slow or being too dumb, we would have to listen to him tell one of his dozen or so favorite stories-over and over again.
One of the old man's biggest lamentations would be when he got on the kick of his being in World War II and how the army screwed him during the initial testing when a soldier first gets to basic training.
He told the story repeatedly how when he was taking the GI' test that the drill sergeants kept distracting everyone. They would chat and ask where the recruits were from and they would tell the soldiers stories all the while the young privates should have been concentrating on the test which actually was the Army's IQ test.
He would agonize over the fact that someone as smart as he ended up with an IQ rating of 98 which popped his butt smack dab in the infantry.
It was the days of the draft and he repeatedly would tell me if I ever got sucked into the service to take those tests seriously or I too would end up a grunt like he was getting shot at by Germans.
I remember when we had our testing days soon after I was drafted that many of the tests made no sense to me. In one, they handed you a Morse code sheet and then would have you listen to a radio signal in code and have you write down what it said. Most of us had no idea, but there were a couple who speedily wrote down everything being said. Those poor stiffs ended up going to radio operator school which in those days included a bull's eye painted on your helmet.
There were some other tests not worth mentioning but finally there was a test that looked like a standard IQ test and I prepared to hunker down since I knew I had failed miserably with all the others.
Lo and behold as the test started, a drill sergeant started going through the room chatting with everyone taking the test. Some bit the bait and started conversations. I remembered the old man telling me this would happen and here two decades later it was actually occurring.
I kept my nose to the pages and ignored as best I could the sergeant telling everyone of his two tours in Nam.
I was one of those that always did well on tests. Even if I didn't know the answers, I seemed to be able to guess correctly more than most. The test was much like ones I had taken in school before and I had no problem finishing up before time had expired. Many didn't come close.
To make a long story short, I was one of the three highest scores on that test and after Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training I was sent to Army Material Command to keep an eye on our nuclear weapons. The balance of our 104 man company went to Viet Nam except for one soldier who worked for the phone company and got to stay at Fort Gordon fixing telephones that didn't work.
I never saw that old boss after I got back. He had sold the hardware store and moved down south. I never did get to tell him that he might have saved my life. I guess I am doing that now.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)He reminds me of my first "employer" at my first "job," working for a beekeeper and getting paid in honey! Thank you for your service, Mike.Thanks Ken. All I gave up was a couple years. So many gave so much more than that.Mike
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