Do you remember what I had for lunch this past Monday?
Neither do I. I was thinking about that yesterday morning while driving to a
paying job. I still do a few in order to make a little extra money for silly
things, like guitars lessons, Four Roses sipping whiskey, and good cigars.
I was wondering if they would pay me money if they knew that
I couldn’t recall recent meals.
Ah, but I can remember other things. As I drove, my mind
drifted off to December 29, 1966 when I awoke to my first day of Navy Boot Camp.
It was one of the most awful days of my life. Of course, I knew what I signed
up for.
Actually, I didn’t. I thought I had signed up for four years
of sailing into exotic ports aboard one of my country’s most prestigious
warships. I signed up for feeling the sea rolling beneath my feet and of my channeling
a Joseph Conrad character. I signed up for shore leave among the glorious
capitals of the free world, the museums, the art galleries the … uh … entertainment venues, and the classic building and ruins I had studied in college.
I had even eschewed seeking officer training or service schools in order to “sail
the seven seas,” so to speak.
In retribution for making plans without official
authorization (MPWOA), the United States Navy sent my sorry ass straight to
Vietnam to perform a task it didn’t even have a rating (same-same MOS) for, thus
assuring no promotions for a year. We
were trained for a month as “rent-a-grunts,” by real grunts, flown over, handed a
rifle, and sent out on towers, bunkers, or patrols to act as targets. So much
for knowing what you signed up for.
Anyway, back to boot camp. After they woke us up that first
day in a most undignified manner, they pointed to a blackboard. They told us
that every day there would be a nautical term on that board and the first thing
following “reveille,” we should memorize that term and that a fate worse than any
that Dante himself could have imagined awaited the seaman recruit who failed,
that entire day, to repeat that definition if requested by one of his keepers.
Memories were important to the Navy.
So, here I stand. I can’t remember Monday’s meal, or the
last movie I saw, or even the name, on occasion, of a favorite author. I forget
my wife’s birthday. I forget to take out the trash. I play hell remembering a
password to any account I own. Heaven help me if the police ever ask me what I
was doing on any particular night of the last month. I’d be toast, although I vaguely remember what toast is.
Oh, but want to know what that first nautical term was that
I had to memorize nearly fifty years ago? It was “athwartship,” or at right
angles to the fore and aft centerline of the ship. I can still see myself in
newly-issued skivvies staring at that blackboard with the others and thinking “athwartship?”
I can even remember a recruit from Cumming Georgia named
Durant turning to me and saying, “What’s a right angle?”
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| Where did I get lost? |
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