The son of my cousin marched off to the Army today. Fresh out of highschool like I was in 1986, Theodore, dressed in a class A uniform and an olive duffle bag strapped over his strong shoulders, got on a plane in Harrisburg at 1 p.m.. He is about to serve his country like others in his family.
Theodore had Basic Training last summer, so today he was off to Texas where he will receive Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and learn his Military Occupational Speciality. Theodore is going to be a military policeman. The family prays that Theodore will not be sent to Iraq, but chances are, he will walk the desert. I convinced Theodore’s grandmother, Aunt Roxie that Theodore was going to be sent to the Mexican Boarder and not to worry. Roxie lost her first husband to the Vietnam war.
AIT is much more relaxing than Basic Training. I hope Theodore was not nervous today like I was when I was shipped to Ft. Gordon, Ga for radio/teletype training. Arriving at a new duty station is like going to college. Everyone is a new face. Unlike the little town where Theodore grew up, he will meet lots of fresh faces in Texas. There are no friends in life like the friends we meet in the service. I only wished I had stayed in contact with my Army buddies, but that’s how the magical life of the military works to keep soldiers joining and re-enlisting. In life, there is nothing like new beginnings, new people and new places. For kids like Theodore and me, it is the only way to escape the solitude of dead-end worlds where the only work is at places like McDonald’s, a gas station or perhaps as a greeter at Wal-Mart.
He will take that first trip to the communal showers like I did at Ft. Gordon and see lots of naked, well-shaped buttocks for the first time. Theodore will likely be more focused on soap and water.
Theodore will join new friends for nights on the town. There will be lots of drinking in Texas. Perhaps, like in 1986, trainees will go off post and rent hotel party rooms. I wish I had stayed in touch with the young man from Hawaii, the Samoan with green eyes, the soldier who placed my hand on his soul. Under the sheets of the hotel room packed full of at least twenty snoring G.I.’s, he touched me lightly with his dark fingers and slowly increased his grip until eventually it seemed my hand was hovering above an oracle on a Ouija Board.
I was too nervous to go down to read whatever was written below. This was the Army. I came here to escape those sins. I quickly returned my hands to a half vampire, half prayerful clasp between my rock hard nipples.
Everyone was passed out but us. I remained motionless under the sheets until my hands started to move in robotic fashion. It seemed as if I had been ordered to salute or a demon had possessed my soul.
The belt of his ejaculation filled my palm with a sticky thrust matched only by that of an M —16 rifle.
We were too nervous to talk about what happened when we were drunk as thirteen weeks passed in Army college. We blew it off as experimentation and pretended that it never happened.
I sat near him in the recreation room with the other guys, watching re-runs of the Walton’s on television while I carefully spit shined my boots, trying not to think about what these hands had saluted.
I salute Theodore. I hope he watches out for those Don’t Tell guys like his father’s cousin.
