My father had been with Patton in the Third Army. He'd raised me with a sensible and very pragmatic brand of patriotism that held suspect of any politician’s ardor for war. I had discarded my draft card before leaving Spokane even though, by introspection, I can see I had no feelings for or against what was going on in Southeast Asia. I couldn’t see any sense in being a pacifist but I hated the idea that the government could force me to take arms for anything less than a dire national emergency. This jungle shit did not seem to warrant sacrificing my life or anyone else’s. Even at that early age, from what little I did know, I did have no compelling reason to believe Ho Chi Min would, with his brand of Stalinist/Maoist authoritarianism, be any better solution for the Vietnamese people than the corruption the people presently lived with. However, the idea that the USA would be able, by force of arms, to improve things there would be anything but a waste of effort and lives.The day that I made the decision I was damned near starving…scouring Sunset Beach… huge combers rolling in sets of five or six… thinking maybe there might be clams… yes, a good clam-bake on the beach. I saw myself in a pit dug down in the sand out of the wind with a fire blazing and a bunch of juicy clams… like Frankie Avalon with a voluptuous Annette and two or three bikinis across the fire. But the beach was cold that day. There was little or no firewood to be found; nor any clams… It was wet… one of those wet-wind-blown-mist days that had my long sleeved flannel shirt soaked through to the bone. I’d left warm, sunny, downtown with in tee shirt with my flannel tied around my waist by the sleeves. I knew by now that every block on this peninsula had a different weather system… cool on one side of the street and hot on the other… windy here and balmy there. Just crossing over hills was a weather adventure in San Francisco.
I took stock of what I had: a good windbreaker in my room back in the Saint Charles; a half loaf of Wonder Bread; one jar of chunky peanut butter; and strawberry jam… and that would be the closest I would get to my clam-bake that day. I wondered if I could sneak up to my room without being challenged. It is a writer’s cliché by now, the rent was due and I only had some change and bus fare in my pockets.
Through my journeys I’d passed a couple of storefronts housing the Navy and Marine Corps Recruiting offices in the Sunset District. Wet, skinny as a rail, with red hair and goatee… dark brown roots beginning to show, I entered the door and sat down at the desk of CPO Church. He was a clean-cut, all business looking man in his forties who, by the board of ribbons on his coat, had likely spent time during WWII and Korea aboard ship. I took the seat he offered in front of his desk.
“I want to join up.” I heard the words come out of my mouth but wasn’t so sure… I was just going to check out what he could offer.
“Why,” he asked, eying me over.
“We got a war going down and I want to do my part.”
“Then, why don’t you join the Marines instead?”
“I don’t think I’d make the cut with the Marines… you know, brawn over brains.”
“I can see your point.” He shuffled through some papers and slid them across the desk to me. I can’t say that I could read his mind but a basic poker player ability to read faces told me he wasn’t so very enthusiastic about my offer of service, “Go over there,” he gestured towards an empty desk, “Fill these out and we’ll know more about what we got going here.”
I could see that my answers didn’t impress him. The interview so far wasn’t going well.
The forms had questions about where, when and how I was sitting in front of his desk dripping wet.
There were forms to fill out… high school, extracurricular activities… clubs, awards, arrests, convictions (felonies and misdemeanors). I was careful not to mention that I was a sharpshooter in Junior Rifle Club. I didn’t want to be behind anything that might get me shot at… even if that was the only thing of merit I had going for me. I did fill in the spaces about my arrest in Dayton.
The next pages were standard multiple choice questions that were surprisingly easy to figure out: psychological profile questions, basic math, literacy and so on. I finished it up in less than an hour and handed them over to him. His countenance changed dramatically after he scanned the test. Pulling out a cardstock page with holes that covered the test, he checked through with a red pen all the holes. After he was done he appeared to have a shift in attitude. He stretched his hand over the desk to offer a hand.
“You picked a good time to join. There’s gonna be a draft before the year is over.” He knitted his brow as though he had hit an unexpected snag, “Why didn’t you finish high school?”
I knew my answer to that was crucial, “I had to go to the harvest before finals.” It was a lie but it was one he would most probably not check.
“Harvest, eh? You ain’t afraid of hard work then.”
“No sir, I thought I’d like it at sea because I’ve handled boats on the lakes all my life.”
“You did well enough on this preliminary test to qualify for practically any school but schools are part of the package promised to high school grads.” He pulled on his chin as though he had a beard too. “Shit, boy, you aced this test… 100%! You ought to shave that off before you get sworn in downtown.”
“No problem.” I remembered a Dobie Gillis episode in which Maynard fights shaving his goatee after they join the Army reserves.
I had to go over the Bay Bridge to Oakland for a physical. It was an ordeal to remember as I stood in line with a hundred or so young men in our underwear. Some had not bathed in weeks beforehand… dodging the draft. It was a general physical for everyone… volunteers and draftees. One draftee, immediately in front of me, even had shit in his jockey shorts. It wasn’t at all pleasant as we were all processed together. He laughed when I mentioned my disgust at the smell.
“I did that on purpose, pretty good, eh?”
“No, I wanna vomit!”
One of the Army NCOs that was hewing the line to each side of a partition heard my complaint and snorted, “Another fuckin’ draft dodger!”
“Yeah, and I’m queer too, asshole!” Shitpants fired right back at the sergeant… or corporal… or whatever.
They don’t tell a guy whether or not you pass the physical… I was sure, however, that I would. My starvation problem wasn’t solved and I had to stick it out until I was sworn-in downtown. The Chief called me on the phone at the desk a few days later with good news; I passed the physical and would be sworn-in the next day with one hitch: I’d made a mistake on my dad’s place of birth. I would have to call home and get the right information before going to the Federal Building to be sworn in.
The next day! I was elated and ate the rest of my bread and scraped the last of the peanut butter out of the jar. The chief had given me a paper telling me to ship my possessions home and to bring nothing, not even a douche bag with razor and soap. The Navy would have all that. The only thing I would be allowed into boot camp would be a Bible or similar reading.
I called home, reciting ahead in my mind everything I had to say… I had to make some amends… but the phone rang only a few times before I heard my mom’s voice on the other end, “Mom, I hope you won’t hang up, its me, Sean.”
She cried so hard and long it scared me. “Of course not,” she sobbed at last, “I’ve waited for this call for so long. Where are you?”
“I’m in San Francisco. I’ve wanted to call you too but I was afraid…”
“Why no Sean, you're my son!”
“I’m calling from a pay phone Mom; I don’t have much more change. I joined the Navy and I need to know Dad’s birthplace.”
I cried too. I couldn’t help myself or stop that choking wash of sobs and tears. We spoke some more. Dad wasn’t home but that was okay… I could patch things up with him when I got out of boot camp. Hell, I’d used thirty cents… dropping a nickel at a time in the slot. It hadn’t occurred to me then that my folks loved me far more than I could have imagined and that I had deeply hurt them.
Chief Church showed up at my door my last civilian morning. I had my trunk packed full of my paintings on canvas board and a few pairs of jeans and so on. I wore my slacks pressed perfectly under my mattress; put on my pair of wrap-around sunglasses I bought the first day in San Francisco that seemed to be ages ago, a black turtleneck and dark suit coat. Those sunglasses were my most valued possession. We were going to go straight to the Federal Building.
“Do we have time to ship the trunk?”
“No, were have to be there 08:00 or you miss the boat.” The chief saw my predicament and offered generously, “I’ll get it there for you but they won’t take C.O.D.”
“Shit, chief, I don’t have any cash at all.”
“I’ll pay for it but you’ll have to pay me back when you get your first check.” He then dropped me off and directed me to a line that wound its way around the corner of Leavenworth down some steps to the basement on the McAllister side.
We waited in a room to stand against a wall until one by one they called out our names. Some left and hit the street while others were directed into a larger room where rows of folding chairs awaited them.
Another behind me looked worried, “I have a couple of arrests that were reduced to misdemeanors by the time my case went to court…”
“I don’t think they’ll hold them against you,” I reassured him, “what were they?
He was so caught up in the anxiety of waiting that he didn’t hear me and went on, “I gotta get in or it’s the Army… Man, I don’t want to be shipped to Vietnam.”
I then struck up a conversation with the guy in front of me. We talked small talk about where we were from and so on. They called him first, “Rodriguez!”
“Let me know how it goes. Sure.”
Others were in the room for ten or fifteen minutes but Rodriguez came out after only a few and he flashed me a thumbs up before going into the other room.
“Sean McKee!”
“Right here, sir,” I thought my high scores on the tests would show that I was as qualified as Rodriguez and expected it to be as short an interview.
A couple of old salts were seated behind a desk. Salt One took a look at me, “Sit down McKee,” and exclaimed, sneering a glance over to Salt Two. “What the fuck do we have here?”
I took the seat and waited to be asked about whatever it was on the stack of papers in a file in front of him.
“Why did you lie about you dad’s birth place?” he demanded first off.
“I wasn’t sure then. I just guessed and didn’t have time to check. But I have the right one now…” stuttering slightly from nervousness. What would happen if I don’t get in?
“Well, what is it if it isn’t Trail, B.C.?
“Merit, B.C., sir.” I’d seen enough WWII Audey Murphy and John Wayne flicks to know I ought to put sir at the end of each answer.
Salt Two flipped through the file, “Checks out, Chief.”… then he asked, “Is your father a citizen now?
“Yes sir, he served with Patton at the Battle of the Bulge.” I was suddenly proud of my dad and was sure I would be sent to the big room.
Salt One still sneering then interrupted, “Are you a queer?”
I snickered, “Hell no.”
“Why did you laugh, you think it’s funny?” Salt one demanded looking over at Salt Two. “You want to ask this queer anything?” homophobia was the accepted norm in those days.
“We have to think this over, go to the lobby until we call you.”
I sat out in the lobby until everyone in line was interviewed. I was the only one that wasn’t either sent to the big room or to the street. Rodriguez came out of the big room to take a sip from the fountain by the door, “What are they doing?”
“I don’t know, maybe it is the way I’m dressed.”
“Might be,” he said and went back in.
Another fifteen minutes passed before the door opened, “Come in McKee.”
Salt One opened up, “We have some disagreement, I don’t think you’re Navy material. My shipmate here thinks you might be okay though.”
Salt Two scowled at Salt One and then directed his questioning to me, “You scored pretty high on the tests so far,” and then paused for what seemed like an eternity and I felt I stood in the balance of certain doom. “Why do you want to be in the Navy?”
My mind raced. I couldn’t tell him the truth that I would rather spend four years at sea than two years in a rice paddy, “I want a career, my dad was in the Army and I have military blood. I’m a sharpshooter rifleman in the Junior NRA. I could be a Marine but the Navy has better career opportunities.” I poured it on. Shit, I didn’t mean one word of it and spilled the beans about my gun range experience. I was pleased to note that neither put a mark on the papers about that.
“Go back to the lobby, we have to discuss this.” Salt One’s sneer had gone away.
This time I barely sat down before I was called back. “Okay, go to the Oath Roam,” Chief Two said.
Chief One was silent and showed his disapproval by spitting a mouthful of chaw into a cup. They were done for the day and now could do what they do when they have nothing more to do.
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