Right Back Where I Started
Three years, one month and ten days after I’d left 930 Mill Street, New Madrid, Missouri, I was back. This time I was a veteran, hung over, broke and living with my parents. I had a few physical scars from my experience in the Shithole, but I returned with more stains on my psyche than when I’d left. There I was relying on my parents to feed and shelter me, which was ironic considering my whole reason for enlisting in the Navy was to get out of New Madrid and to become a productive member of society. When I’d graduated from high school, my father was clear he was done supporting me, but there I was again.[1]
I did nothing during those three years, one month and ten days to secure or even prepare for a future without the Navy providing me money, food and shelter. I’d departed the military as I’d entered it — without much thought, just trusting or hoping, however naively, that something would work out. Fortunately, no one asked me what I was going to do when I arrived back in New Madrid. Otherwise I think I would’ve cried.
One hot and humid September afternoon, about two weeks into my return home, I was sitting in my parents’ living room doing what I didn’t normally do: thinking while sober about something other than my next drink. I sat there in a chair that I had sat in many times before when my life was a lot simpler, but this time I was doing something I don’t remember having done previously. I was thinking serious thoughts, adult type thoughts, “What the Fuck” kinda thoughts.
I am in a worse place now than I was when I left for the Navy. I’ve saved no money, I have no job prospects, I am staying in the same house I was staying in before, I have a fiancé whom I don’t really know but know I don’t particularly like. But suck it up, you have made your bed. What are you going do now dumb ass? Ok, calm down, you can do this. You got yourself into this mess so let’s assess and think about fixing it. No, no booze, ok. Job? Around here, what is there? No one needs a combat medic. My Navy Medical training will not get me anywhere here. I don’t want to run bedpans at a hospital. I need some type of training to get me somewhere. Ok, first thing Monday I’ll go to Cape Girardeau (aka Cape State) and enroll in school. I will check on training for X-ray technician at some hospital in the area. I will get a job. I will get back to Cathy and let her know that this is going to be a long engagement.
Monday came and went, and I was still in the same chair. I convinced myself it would be too busy on a Monday, so I hung around the house, smoking, drinking coffee and eating food someone else had paid for. Tuesday would be better, I assured myself. So Tuesday I set off to Cape Girardeau to seek fame, fortune and/or a job. I arrived at the campus and found an office that I thought would have all of the answers I needed. The person behind the counter was Mrs. White. Much like Mrs. White, the nurse at the dispensary in New Orleans,[2] she was matronly, friendly and nice. Unfortunately, she couldn’t give me the answers I needed to hear. Instead I got:
“Classes are full. They’re not accepting any more students this fall semester, but maybe if you get all of your paperwork, including your high school transcript and anything else you need, you could apply for the winter semester.”
“No, I’m a veteran, and I don’t have time to get all this together.”
“Yes, we hear that a lot here. Many veterans have applied and all have said the same. There are also the ones who have recently graduated high school and were accepted back in February, March, and April.”
“Jobs?”
“I’m not sure, try at human resources. They might have something. With your medical experience, you could try the VA hospital. They might have something, but there are a lot of veterans around here seeking employment while they attend college. Good luck honey.”
That didn’t go as I’d hoped. So I sat in my car, smoking cigarettes and feeling rather despondent after looking at the job board. I went to the VA Hospital only to discover their X-ray technician training program was full, and they weren’t accepting applications until after the first of the year for openings the next summer. Their job board was full, but I didn’t have a degree in medical administration, nor was I a board certified physical therapist, psychiatrist, or orthopedic surgeon. So I set out to do what I was good at: drinking, brooding and thinking negative thoughts.
By the time I arrived at Rosie’s back in New Madrid, it was mid-afternoon. I proceeded to the end of the bar and ordered a Wild Turkey with a beer chaser. As soon as I downed the shot of “turkey”, I noticed my dad and one of his drinking buddies sitting about mid-way down the bar. Out of their line of blurred sight, I sat and observed them.
I can’t remember exactly what was going through my mind as I watched the two old men, but it suddenly hit me: “I’m Right Back Where I Started.” I was broke, had no foreseeable employment opportunities, and everyone I knew from school had left town. And there I was sitting in Rosie’s getting drunk several feet away from my drunk father who was oblivious to my presence. (I’ve no doubt my mother would’ve been less than proud of that moment).
All I could think was: I am becoming my father, slowly, steadily and for sure.
When you’re ignorant, unimaginative and unhappy with yourself, and sprinkle in spoiled and selfish thinking that no one understands you, you have another reason to turn to beer and whisky to push down whatever feelings or thoughts you have. BUT this particular afternoon, I had what can only be described as an epiphany.
Yes, I had a fucking epiphany at Rosie’s Bar and Grill in early September of 1969. I realized I was slowly but surely heading in a direction that I had feared my whole life: I was turning into my father. I took a bar napkin and a pencil I’d found and made two columns: What I have and When I should go. I sat there for a moment still sober and made up my mind.
I left Rosie’s, my father and his buddy who never noticed me and went home and thought about it some more. All signs pointed to one decision being the safest one. I was going to re-enlist in the Navy.
I knew the basics, and I figured that no matter what the military would throw me into, it couldn’t be any worse than what they did the first time around. I told my mother, who wasn’t too happy about it but nevertheless understood. The next day, I went back to the Recruiter in Cape Girardeau. Although this time I went alone.
“All your little bubbles have been burst, huh?” The recruiter asked. Then he asked where I wanted to go to start my new life. I remembered the great time I’d had in Manila during R&R, so I said the Philippines sounded good.[3]
I signed the paperwork, strangely feeling good again. I mean, I felt good about myself. Once again I was employed, had some purpose to my life and was serving humanity by doing something other than being a lump of flesh sitting on a bar stool.
Feeling good about one’s self does not mean you have time for smugness. On the drive home, I thought about two phone calls I should make — one for sure I needed to make.
The first was to Senior Chief Simkins to let him know that he was right. He told me that I would and should reenlist and that when I did to let him know and he would help me get what I wanted if he could. He was good with me being back in and understood why I couldn’t go back to New Orleans. He didn’t trust the Recruiter and promised to call a friend of his in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery’s Corpsman Detailers Office to get me to the Philippines by hook or crook. We hung up, and I never spoke with him again. I hope he lived a long and happy life. I liked him.
The second call was to Cathy Hartley, a girl who was so sweet, so nice and so naïve as to think that a drunk like me would make a husband, let alone one who would help her raise a football team sized family. That was one lesson I learned: before you become engaged to someone, talk to them about the future. That was something we did in sporadic moments. She was religious, I lost mine in the war. She wanted a lot of children, I wanted none. She wanted me sober, I didn’t like who I was when I wasn’t drunk. There were other things, but the gist of it was she deserved better than me. I hope she got what she wanted out of life. She was a good person.
Unfortunately, when I made the call, I couldn’t bring myself to be a complete ass and say what I needed to just say, so I told her that job prospects in New Madrid were nil, I had nothing to offer her, she was better off without me. That was weak of me, I know. I also told her that I had reenlisted and was heading overseas. Maybe we could reconnect when I get back and see if I had any personal growth, as I was a mess right now. She cried and hung up. That was it. I never heard from her again, but I have often thought about how her life turned out. I hope it was the life she wanted and deserved.
Ten days later, I left New Madrid, once again on the Navy’s dime.
