My Life (part 2)
Ok, lemme back up a bit here......
Finally managed to graduate High School without being killed, hooked on drugs, becoming a father at 16, or being beaten to badly by the gangs. Whew, was a bit close, but I made it, even managed to make the top ten percentile.
There I was, fresh outta school, a free man, ready to take on the world. Biggest thing I remember was that very next day, waking up, staring at the ceiling and thinking to myself "Self, your now looking at a lifetime of work, paying bills, and responsibility"....I pulled the covers back up over my head !!!
Actually, I enjoyed that summer, drank a bunch of beer, spent a lotta time at the lake, got me laid royally by a sweet little blonde (was my girlfriend), and then joined the US Navy.....yahoo !!!
LOL...I remember being at the AFEES station in Dallas, there for my physical, standing in a huge room with about 50 other guys, all of us in our tighty whities. 25 on one side of the room, 25 on the other, all facing each other about 20 feet apart. The guy in charge told us all to turn around, face the wall, drop our skivies (Navy for underwear), bend over, grab our cheeks, and spread our legs.
As I was spreading em, the guy in charge said, "I would suggest you NOT look between our legs cuz we probably wouldn't like what we saw", and of course....everyone did....including me.......learned a new respect for the black man that was opposite from on the other wall, in the same situation I was that day............sigh.
Anyway, I made it to boot camp, thought I was being smart in my choice of camps. Went to Orlando Naval Training Center, the same place all the Waves (Navy for female sailor) went to for boot. Hehehe....figgered I might get me a little whilst I was there....oh hell was I WRONG.....The inter-mingling of the sexes was a big VERBOTEN there...you get caught, your out, no excuses...bye bye.
Then you hadda deal with the fact that they were there, nearby, looking good, and all you could do was march around with a hard-on, and occasionally sneak off to the head (Navy for bathroom), and find a little "relief".....nuther sigh.
Made it through boot, wasn't all that bad, 7 weeks of marching and learning Navy terms like Skivies, Waves, Head, Fore, Aft, Port, Starboard, and so on... Went to my "A" school in Meridian, Mississippi after two weeks of leave back home where I got pretty good and laid again.
Oh, btw, forgot to mention, that girlfriend, she was my first love. Kathy or usually called her Kat. A little blonde with a sweet body on her, loved to do the bedsheet boogie with me...oh yeah. Well, a couple days before I left for boot, she all of a sudden, broke up with me, crushed me lemme tell you! Was my very first broken heart !!! Sure made those first few weeks at night in boot long.
When I got home from boot, Kat called me, and we went out to the drive-in. That was where she told me that the reason she broke up with me, was that she had gotten pregnant by me, and while I was in boot, she had an abortion.........damn......! Not good.
Well I made it to "A" school, did pretty good, and graduated in the top three, so I got my choice of duty stations, still can't figger out why I picked VQ-4 at Patuxant River Naval Air Station??? But I soon rolled out and headed up north to Maryland, where I found my first ever blizzard waiting. At 18, driving in unfamiliar territory, I was having a hard time seeing past the hood of my car. Let alone trying to figure out how to control the damned thing on icy roads !!!
Ok, long story short, I was diagnosed with bone cancer up there, and spent about half of my first year in the Bethesda Naval Medical Facility, up in DC. Wohoooo!!!
Whilst laying there in the ward, they rolled this gnarled ol' bastard in next to me after he came outta surgery, I asked the nurse what the hell happened to him??? All she said was "gunshot wounds". That man had more bandaged places on him than King Tuts mummy! Gunshot wound hell, he looked like swiss cheese !!!
I won't say his name here outta respect, but he was the guy responsible for getting me to join the Navy Seals. Nuther long story, but, 9 years later........I couldn't take any more, saw all I could stomach, did more than I care to remember, did things that most men shiver at the thought of......I rang out, turned in my papers and never looked back.
I'll just say this about what I did and saw in there.........I love my country, I still have nightmares, and there is one young man, who I hope will forgive me some day for being a soldier and doing my duty.
Still here, still have that dark place, will never forget what I had to do.....
To Be Continued
