US ARMY AND VETERAN’S ADMINISTRATION, IDENTITY 2
Actually, the US Army formed my identity in a negative way. When I turned 18 I was given a selective service number and an identity card. I was new to the USA but understood that at some point I would have to serve in the armed services so after graduation from college I volunteered to get it over with.
But when I got in I found that I was in a strange new country. The army geography of the North America was’t Jersey City, New Jersey or Colombia, South Carolina or San Antonio, Texas but tne names of army bases, Fort Dix or Fort Benning or Fort Sam Houston, and on and on with no mention of the rest of American in between. The rest of the United States vanished. Everyone in the Army went from post to post. And within these army encampments all the elements of normal civilian life were stripped away starting with your first buzzcut. The traditional American values of individuality and freedom and equality and personal expression were immediately suppressed. Everyone in the army has a class rank and the lower ranks bow down to the upper ranks, “Good morning, Sir” with a crisp salute and total obedience. All elements of democracy were denied even though it was supposedly democracy that we were defending. All personal expression was denied, every item of clothing was prescribed, always khaki, even which buttons had to be buttoned and when you could wear a jacket and when not regardless of the temperature. The most important army qualities are obedience and conformity. Boys who had been taught all their lives not to be violent and for whom murder was the worst of crimes had to be taught to kill, murder, their fellow humans as if it were a glorious act. “What is a bayonet for,” I was bellowed at even though no one used bayonets any more. “To kill, to kill,” I shouted back with enthusiasm.
One of the things that struck me about the army both during basic training and then while in Germany was how drab and lifeless army bases were. I guessed this was because there were so few women in the army. There were no flowers, no paintings on the walls, no music, no art, no beautiful textiles, nothing tasteful or beautiful, all drab olive green, while around me in Germany, where I was sent, were beautiful store windows, gardens everywhere, beautiful architecture, lively restaurants. The enlisted men were mainly Southerners from impoverished backgrounds, often conscripted into the army when given a choice between going to jail or going in the army. I never became friends in my dormitory room full of enlisted men each with a bed and a footlocker with any books, if they had them, hidden and no photographs. Any sense of individuality was stripped away. We didn’t even have the comradeship that comes in wartime with defending each other and having to stick together. Half of my medical battalion, with no doctor’s or patients, cleaned ambulance tents and the other half cleaned their ambulances. It was mindless work. I was a clerk because I could type. My job was to type up the morning report for our battalion, a listing of the former days activities, which had to be typed with no mistakes in several carbon copies. It would take all morning, starting over after each mistake, to type the one page report. Everything about the army as far as I was concerned was mindless. I was sure that anyone who stayed in the 20 years to retirement, a lifer, would have his brain rotted away and be a zombie for the rest of his life.
So it is pretty obvious that my army experience only formed my identity in a negative way creating a deep distaste for authority. I am sure it would have been different if I had been in a war like the Second World War that seemed to make sense and if I had depended on my fellow soldiers for my survival and they had depended on me. I am guessing that others in the army had a sense of patriotism and duty and a feeling of pride in defending their country, right or wrong, but I didn’t.
When I went to the VA hospital with my new VA membership card last week all I was interested in was what I could get out of it: cheaper drugs, eye glasses, a hearing aid and most of all admission, when I turn senile and could care less, into the Black Mountain Veteran’s Home for longterm care so that I wouldn’t be a burden to my family.
But an odd thing happened. Most of the people working there were not veterans and everyone I met was cheerful and caring and thoughtful. But all the patients were veterans and I had the feeling, against my will, of somehow being comrades in arms. I was in a tribe of people who cared about each other and cared about me only because they had been in the armed services. Everywhere were the words, “Thank your for your service,” and I wanted to tell anyone I met not to thank me, that I had done nothing and deserved nothing and was the sorriest soldier that had ever been. But I didn’t. I smiled and felt loved and cared for.
The woman who took my blood for a blood test had been in the Army in Germany, taking blood there. She had loved Germany, riding on her bike, driving fast on the autobahn. She and I actually had something in common, the stimulation of a great time in Germany. It was only after I left that I realized that I did have something in common with the people in the VA hospital. Sure, there was the same bureaucracy and rules as there are in the army, but this time I felt I was connecting with people as people. And I realized that I could understand these people and even feel empathy with them because I understood the army that they had been in. We had something in common. I was, in an odd way, part of this extended tribe, so different from my other tribes. It didn’t matter who there was MAGA or democrat. The army cut across polarized differences.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 