Basic training at Fort Dix, NJ was no picnic in the seventies. We were at war and our drill sergeants worked very hard at preparing us for the experience. Fortunately, my unit was never called up. I got in the best shape of my life after six months of basic training. Up every morning before dawn, a couple miles of running around a track in fatigues and boots, great breakfasts as I remember them, several miles of marching in 90 plus degree heat with a full back pack, countless sit-ups, push-ups and other exercises – including something called gorilla stomps which is a sort of joyful punishment. I had to do fifty of them once as a battalion captain whispered not such sweet tidings in my ear. I had fallen out of cadence during a march. I really never did get the marching beat and rhythm down correctly – but I messed up in front of the wrong officer that day.
There were rewards though. During grenade training I managed to throw a live grenade through the hole of a truck tire at about 30 yards. The drill sergeant yelled “who did that” and called me out of my unit. I figured I was in for more gorilla stomps – but instead he congratulated me and ordered me to sit down and “smoke em if I had em”. I had em and I did.
Half way through training we actually got to leave the base for weekends. My buddy Ron and I headed for New York City in a bus – probably the first one we could get. All dressed up in our formal specs we walked into a nice restaurant and waited to be seated. After a while the maître de came over and asked us to leave – he explained that they did not serve people in military uniform. I believe I remember him saying it might disturb some of the customers. We were surprised and embarrassed but not really shocked. We were only 21 and we left as asked.
That was in the early seventies and we were in an unpopular war. Soldiers returning from active duty were sometimes spit on and often spurned by their fellow Americans. Most everything associated with the military was not infrequently treated with disdain. Seems hard to believe when I look back at it.
But tides and times do change. Years later during the mid-eighties I walked into the Hanover Mall and was very surprised to see a full military display in the middle of the floor. Posters, weapons, pictures, a jeep and other military items where all on exhibition. I hadn’t thought of the military in years but the open military display stopped me in my tracks – I remember instinctively looking around for demonstrators only to realize that now the military was being admired not scorned. A circle was closing. A reawakening was in process – and after everything I had seen in the sixties and seventies it felt strange.
Today, after several new wars, of one form or another, public opinion of the military has come full circle. The military is now amongst the most valued of our institutions. Military men and women are widely admired and respected. The thought of asking someone in uniform to leave a restaurant is simply inconceivable in today’s America. One would more likely be offered a prime table and a free meal.
Looking back at all this, as I often do around Memorial Day, I try to make sense of the two America’s I have seen. One where our military is disrespected and one where it seems often idolized. The contradiction rests uneasily in my mind and I have never been able to resolve it.
I have no profound conclusion to make of the changes I have seen and been part of over the last 40 years. I wished I could but the only thought I have is that I sometimes wonder if we didn’t go too far in one era and then swing too far back in the other era when the best place to be would be in the middle – where we could enjoy a lasting peace through a strength we wouldn’t have to use.
