After working as a carpenter for a couple years there was a downturn in housing. There was less work for us so I applied and got hired again at Celotex. This post isn't about working at Celotex because that's boring as fuck!
What this post is about is how I got talked into joining the National Guard. (Me, who thought the military was fucked up got talked into playing Army!) Anywho, my cousin had gotten out of the Navy for the second time and for some unknown reason joined the National Guard. He told me about this program they had called Try One. Those that had prior service could sign up for one year to try it out. Also the extra bucks for a weekend a month would come in handy. He managed to get me and his brother-in-law signed up. After I was officially in the Guard I found out the real reason he talked me into signing. The Fucker got a weekend off with pay!
At first it wasn't too bad, I got assigned the job of truck driver because I could double-clutch the diesel truck. Most weekends we would sit around bullshitting and drinking beer. One weekend we were supposed to learn how to do camouflage. Three of us climbed into a 5 ton dump truck and headed out. First stop was to pick up a 12 pack, then we drove out into the country. By the time the 12 pack was gone we all agreed the truck was camouflaged and headed back to the Armory.
Some times we would have real projects to work on for the community. We were a Combat Engineer unit so it usually was some kind of construction project. That didn't happen very often and during the Winter months we were pretty much limited to doing stuff in the Armory.
Then came Summer camp. The trucks and the equipment got loaded. The first day on the way to Summer camp we only went 50 miles and stopped at another Armory. Most of the guys slept on the floor in the Armory. I slept in the truck, something I would do a number of times during the 2 weeks. I had a large cooler that took up most of the floor space on the passenger side where my cousin was riding shotgun. We had some food in it for lunches and road food, but most it was full of beer. By the time we got to camp my cousin was saying the first thing he was going to do was go to the commissary and get a smaller cooler. When he did he came out with a cooler that was bigger than mine. I bought a round cooler that was smaller. It was about a foot in diameter and maybe 18 inches high. (I still have it.)
One thing I'll never forget is the latrine at camp. It was all open, the urinals and the toilets were all out in the open, no partitions in the whole place.
We had to go out on bivouac out in the field. I had a shelter half and another guy had one. We put them together into a tent. I slept in the truck so the other guy had the tent to himself. We also had to dig a foxhole next to the tent.
One day because I wasn't too knowledgeable about what the unit does, I got sent on a recon mission. Got to go rafting down the river in a rubber raft with another guy. We were scouting out ford sites (found a Chevy site too). At one point we were pushed by the current up against a tree that had toppled into the river. When I pushed against the branches to push the raft away I pushed myself out of the raft. It was a warm Summer day so a dip in the river was refreshing. Also got to go for a helicopter ride and it's a weird feeling when it banks to make a sharp turn and you're looking straight down at the ground. Makes you wonder how it stays up when it's sideways.
Anywho, I survived the Summer Camp where they actually expected me to act like military? About a month and a half after my year ended. I turned in all my uniforms (I did manage to trade my old field jacket for a newer one) and told them Adios.
Not long after I quit my job, loaded what we could into a station wagon and hit the road for Seattle. That will be my next post and hopefully it won't be a year or so from now!
