U.S. Army
So I'm in the Army now at Basic Ordnance Officers Course at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. If you consider the Chesapeake Bay as the asshole of the world, then APG is 40 miles up it. As an officer and gentleman by act of fucking congress, it wasn't too bad a life. The classes were mostly mickey mouse, and I had somewhat of a new lease on life. I even excelled, coming in 2nd out of a class of about 100. I had more money in my pocket than I ever had, and the Army provided three hots and a cot. The Class VI Store and O-Club meant I could drink, top-shelf even, quite cheaply, shots of Johnny Walker Black and/or any beer I wanted at 10 cents a slug-a-chug. Despite much of my current disdain for the past thirty-five years of all things military, I was in those years very gung-ho, very much committed to the Kennedy ideal of "Ask not what your country can do for you, yadda-di-dadda-da." I had my Southern heritage guiding me, plus my Father had been a Naval Officer. More on this in a bit.
Turns out I met the woman who became my first wife and the mother of my two daughters, K., while at APG. Here's what happened. One of our gang, can't remember his name, rather a stuff-shirt, high-brow scientist type from Harvard or Yale, maybe Brown, went to a sock-hop down at Goucher College in Towsen, Maryland, about a 45 minute drive down the then new JFK Expressway. He made a connection with a young thang who had four close friends. The next weekend he brought four of his friends down with him to go on a quintuplet date. Problem, how do you sort out four young damsels with four young swains? No problem, if you have a deck of cards. Hey this is America, of course there is a deck of cards available. So we cut cards to pair the matching quartets of damsels with swains. I ended up with K.; I've always been unlucky with at cards, learned early on that not only do I not have a poker face, my dyslexia prevents me from counting cards much less remembering whose played what, where or when. I don't really remember what we did earlier in the evening, but we ended up in a college pub, and she drank me under the table. That should have been a clue. I have a vague memory of us making out with heavy petting in the backseat of P.'s car, a semi-customized white, '55 Ford coupe.
The rest of the couples hit it off swimmingly, became steady freddies. She apparently was much more taken with me, wanted us to keep dating. I wasn't really that interested but peer pressure persuaded me to invite her to the Basic Ordance Officer's Course Ball a couple of weeks later. The five of us couples rented a room in the Quality Inn Motel of Aberdeen. We went to the ball, and I got drunk; we all kept drinking and went back to the motel room. One thing led to another. K. and I ended up alone in the bathroom naked in the bathtub behind a locked door. There I lost my virginity, finally at age 24, while G. was pounding on the door yelling something like, "C'mon, Brinson, hurry it up; I gotta take a huge dump." Tres romatique.
So, we started dating. I was not impressed with her, did not really have any energy for her, even though it was the easier first date leading to heavy petting I ever had. And then we were actually doing it, all the way. I had no qualms about sinning with her, either for me or for her. If I still had any energy for a one and one only love, I certainly didn't connect it with her. We were polar opposites, she Republican blue collar from Connecticut who worked on Spiro Agnew's campaign; me a faux southern aristocratic member of the progressive intelligentia. It was not one of those opposites attract thangs -- it was pure, unadulterated lust. I was getting some, and she was readily giving it. At Thanksgiving we went with S. and P. to Atlantic City where Susie's parents ran a cheap motel before the Casinos wiped out all of that business. I had a mystical moment alone under a chilling full moon communing with the ocean for the first time.
During the Christmas holidays, P. who had an Aunt in Cincinnati and I drove there for the holiday break between Christmas Eve and January 2nd. Drunk in one of my old haunts, on impulse I decided to see if I could connect with Carole, the young actress love of my life during my Freshman year who dumped me when she was cast opposite someone else. She was home from Grad school in theatre at Ohio State, or was it University?, one of the two. We saw each other and instantly renewed our soulmate connection, at least in my eyes. We spent a delicious several days together. Since I respected her, I didn't push making love. She was with someone else at school; I was with K. in Maryland. It was very bittersweet in a star-crossed lover's kind of way. I knew I wanted to be with her. I had great energy for her, but back at APG with her back in grad school, we drifted apart. She went back with her boyfriend; I continued seeing K.
I mentioned I was very gungho, very strac, wanted to do the warrior gig to the max. I did not like being an Ordnance Officer, so I volunteered to switch to one of the combat arms, infrantry, armor or artillergy -- Nyet, choose again young trooper, your 20-200 vision requiring you to wear glasses disqualifies you from being in a combat branch. Okay, then I wanna go to Ft. Benning to jump school. Welp, young trooper unless you go Voluntary Indefinite in which you sign a one-way contract with Uncle Sam no can do. No Sir, I am a US two-year citizen soldier. No jump school. Okay, well can I go to Vietnam? Absolutely, young trooper we are glad to send you to Vietnam, a hostile, guerrilla war zone as your first duty station as a supply officer. Huh? That's not too cool. Yup, a REMF -- as in rear echelon mother fucker. Not too gungho or strace being a supply fucking officer even in a guerrilla war combat fucking zone. So whereas I was second in the class in basic officer's course I was probably near second from the bottom of the class for my four week Supply Officer's Course at Fort Lee down in Petersberg, Virginia, during February of 1967.
While I was at Fort Lee, K. would either come down to Petersburg, or I would go up to Maryland, and we continued to hit the sheets, making like bunnies, taking absolutely no precautions whatsoever. After I was done with Ft. Lee, while I was on my 30 day leave before deployment to Vietnam, we spent a week together in Cincinnati. During that time she was a couple of weeks overdue with her period.
She left to go back to Goucher College in Maryland, and I left to go to Mississsippi to visit with the family. On the third or fourth day I was in Mississippi I got a call from her in a mild panic state, informing me that the rabbit had died; she was preggers. I did what any self-effacing drunk would do. I bought a 5th of Inver House scotch, went over to Jo-Jo's house, in the same swimming pool where several years earlier I had been smitten by Barbara, got thoroughly shit-faced, and came to the only decision I could make: I would marry K., legitimize our child, save her honor, and prevent my from having a paternity suit slapped against me in Vietnam, which would not have been too cool for an officer and gentleman, etc. etc. etc.; besides it didn't make no never mind because in my head, in my heart, I was going to Vietnam to die, cuz in '67-68 Vietnam for a 2nd Lt. was a pretty safe place to die. So I did -- left Jackson, got to Cincinnati, and instead of going west to visit friends in Chicago and then on to San Rafael to try to connect up with R., I went east back to Baltimore. K. and I were married in the Baltimore City Hall by a JP on April 3, 1967, and on April 5, 1967 I flew a big Northwestern 707 to Sea-Tac airport manifested for Vietnam.
Recent Comments