INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART THIRTEEN

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This is it. The final episode in the YELLOW WOOD series. It completes the expedition I wanted to attempt. Thank you, my friends, and my dear sisters, for being sturdy companions as I hiked strange paths, taking such odd forks and twists through the forest of memory.

There will be an epilogue in a few days that I am very confident you will enjoy. “Guaranteed to raise a smile,” as the song lyric promises. The epilogue covers events that occur within the chronology of YELLOW WOOD, but also go far beyond the limits of this series. That’s why it’s not included here.

So let’s get on with it, and wrap it up.

Gung Ho

PFC Jenkins, Robert, U.S.M.C.

“The Old Man wants to see you.”

Out of the corner of his mouth Gus Baldwin asks , “What have you done now?”

I gave him my most innocent shrug.

He warned me, “Do not mention my name.”

The Old Man was still First Lieutenant Mike Stevens, and he was still shy of his twenty-sixth birthday. I stood at attention in his office at Cherry Point, North Carolina. The Old Man kept me standing there for what seemed like several minutes.

“Jenkins, what the hell are you doing in my command?”

“Sir, I was given orders to report to this . . . .”

“Shut up.”

I shut.

“You have the top tech rating in the battalion. Your IQ and aptitude scores are off the charts. Why are you a PFC in Delta Battery?”

“I . . . ah . . . got promoted from Private?”

“Do not mess with me, Jenkins.”

“No sir, messing with you, sir, would be a mistake of classic pro . . . .”

“SHUT . . . YOUR . . . HOLE.”

Hole. Shut. Mine. Completely.

Lieutenant Stevens swiveled around in his desk chair and stared out the window as a launcher loaded with HAWK missiles was pulled along by a loader. Too fast. Tank driver fantasies. Gunny Cunningham catches him shit will fly all over base. Wouldn’t want to miss that. Where’s Gunny when you need him?

The Lieutenant didn’t seem to notice. The wall clock ticked. I waited. Marines are pretty good at waiting, even standing at attention.

“At ease, Marine.”

I relaxed, but not too much. What was this about?

“I’m going to recommend you for Officer Candidate School.”

“Sir?”

“We’ll send you to college, on our ticket. You graduate as fast as you can, you malingering fuck, we commission you, you give us five more years, six if you want to go to flight school. You want to go to flight school like your stepfather?”

How did he know about my stepfather, Lu Smith, the “former” Marine fighter pilot? Smith wasn’t even my last name. Well, Stevens was, after all, the Old Man and thereby semi-divine, but his knowledge of my background was, in a word, disconcerting.

He repeated, “You want to go to flight school?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay, no flight school.”

“I mean, no sir, I don’t want to go to OCS or get a commission.”

The Lieutenant stared at me like I had spit in his face. Then he spoke, very, very softly. It is not a good thing when Marine officers speak very, very softly.

“Please, if it’s not too terribly much trouble . . . .”

Oh shit, I am screwed.

“Please tell me why you are declining a free college education and a commission in my United States Marine Corps after I have hung my ass out in the wind to provide you with this singular honor?”

Really, really, really screwed.

“I want to go to Viet Nam, sir?”

“You. Want. To. Go. To. Viet. Nam. (Every word was its own sentence.) What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s the only war we’re fighting, sir, and I want my piece of it.”

“Oh my God, do not, do NOT, quote me that Gung Ho bullshit! Viet Nam is not a war! It’s a stinking dog turd and good Marines are being killed for that stinking dog turd.”

“It’s the only dog turd I’ve got sir, and I’m afraid it will be over before I get into it.”

Contemporary readers will appreciate the irony of that statement.

“Let me tell you how it’s going to be, smart ass. You are going to accept my offer. We are going to help you clean up your cluster-fucked academic record from Florida State, then we are going to put you somewhere else, and that somewhere else just might be the Naval Academy at Annapolis. In four years you are going to graduate with honors and you are going accept your commission in the Marine Corps. You are going to Basic School. And then, and then, you are going lead Marines in the real fight, the fight against the goddamn Soviet Union because that’s where the real war is. Do you read me, Jenkins?”

“No, sir.”

“What part did you have trouble understanding?”

“I understood it all, sir, but I must respectfully decline your offer.”

“Respectfully . . . decline.”

“Yes, sir, and I petition you to grant my current request for immediate deployment to Viet Nam. I have been submitting those requests every week.”

He ignored me.

“Do you even know where Viet Nam is?”

“It’s somewhere in Asia, sir, swampy, I believe.”

“Swampy. Oh my Jesus U.S.M.C. Christ. I have got Chesty Puller’s little fight’n devil dog right here in my own unworthy office. Jenkins, you may be some kind of test-taking genius, but you are the dumbest motherfucker I have had the misfortune, the miserable bad luck, of having in my command. Why is God in heaven punishing me?”

He sat there rapping his knuckles against the desk. Not a good sign. Maybe he wanted an answer to his question.

“I don’t know, sir, why God in heaven is punishing you.”

Sometimes I wish I could just keep my mouth shut. But he didn’t come after me for my wise-crackery. His mood changed.

“Is that your final decision?” Fuck the commission. Fuck Lieutenant Stevens. Send me to Viet Nam?”

Deep breath.

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Caiazzo, get your lazy ass in here.”

Sergeant Caiazzo sauntered in to the Old Man’s office. Disheveled, overweight, Caiazzo was a caricature of the typical admin puke, but he was a pretty decent guy. Just wouldn’t want him on night patrol.

“Cut orders to get this dumbfuck PFC transferred to Bravo Battery, Second LAAM. That’s in Chu Lai, Jenkins. Viet Nam, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

Caiazzo, get him out on my battery before I have to see his sorry ass ever again.”

“Yessir.”

Caiazzo slouched out of the office.

“What are you waiting for, a brass band to play the Marine Corps Hymn?”

“No sir, thank you, sir.”

“Do not fucking thank me. Dismissed.”

I snapped to attention and executed a snappy about face.

“Jenkins. Stop. Caiazzo!”

Caiazzo stuck his head back in the door.

“Sir?”

“While you’re typing up his orders, get his promotion papers together.”

“Sir?”

“We still have one Lance Corporal allocation?”

“Yessir, but you were going to give it to . . .”

Stevens cut him off.

“Give it to this . . . warfighter.”

“Yessir.”

Caiazzo winked at me and disappeared.

“Why are you still cluttering up my office?”

“Sorry, sir, I’m gone with the wind, sir, gone with the wind.”

“Fuck you, Jenkins.”

I was trying not to grin.

Well. We’re done. You’re done. I’m done. The YELLOW ROAD is done. It feels kind of incomplete doesn’t it? Unfinished. Of course, there will be another expedition, a journey to that most bizarre of all American wars, Viet Nam. For those who have been making a certain request, yes, there will be romance. Romance, and weirdness enough for an entire season of The Twilight Zone.

So, let’s get off this Road with homage to the poem that framed it, from Robert Frost,


The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a road, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Sigh)

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INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART TWELVE

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This episode is also the second scene in a three-part series about hunting, and why I stopped hunting. It fits chronologically in the Yellow Wood series, so here it resides for now. I am not proud of this story, but the karma I incurred eventually contributed to a good cause.

Semper Fool

We ran through all our missiles and all our beer in two days. Lieutenant Stevens was pulling in all his favors to get more beer, but the Navy was not inclined to help us out after the Big Drone Turkey Shoot. With almost a week to go on our Puerto Rican deployment, we looked around for other ways to get into trouble.

Nothing.

Viegas is a desolate postage stamp floating on the immense Caribbean Ocean. White sand, a tiny off-limits camp, fleas, and that’s about it. So we took to the clear aquamarine waters, inventing every sport or game that bored, reckless, and irresponsible Marines could devise, drunk or sober.

Having actually paid attention to the stateside briefing, I came prepared with a free-diving rig: snorkel, mask, fins and . . . coup de grace . . . a sparkling new spear gun! Yes, go ahead and shudder. Spear gun wielded by 18 year old hungover Marine.

The water was so transparent it was like swimming through air. The bottom was mostly sugary sand, so it was difficult to judge the depth. Warm, soft, calm, quiet.

I went hunting for dinner.

As it turned out, the big game I sought (anything I could shoot at and hit) was actually stalking me. I turned around in fifteen feet of water to come face to face with a barracuda, about six feet of barracuda, just hovering motionless a few feet away, slightly above me, slowly opening and closing its mouth to show off its many, many sharp white teeth, as if in warning, or, perhaps, anticipation. I resisted the urge to fire a spear at it; a rare moment of good judgment, or terror.

We looked at each other for a while until it dawned on me that I was out of air and needed to breathe. I didn’t want to surface, dangling my legs like plump sausages, and exposing myself to attack from below. The best plan I could formulate was to hoot something that sounded like “blubba blubba blubba” and wave my arms menacingly. This plan I commenced with ferocious energy.

The big-toothed monster didn’t move. I realized my failed “blubba” tactic had cost me my remaining air. I had to breathe, now!

“So, ‘cuda, my brother, I am going for air and I’m going right through you to get it.”

I pushed off straight at the barracuda. In a silent, but violent swirling detonation, it disappeared. I mean, vanished! It was there, then it was gone. I never saw it swim away. I saw nothing. Nada. Zilch.

I surfaced, cleared my snorkel, breathed, and looked back down to make sure it wasn’t coming for me. All quiet on the Viegas front. So, I continued the hunt, embarrassed by my fear of the barracuda. Hey, it snuck up behind me and surprised me! A sneak attack. You’d be scared, too, don’t think you wouldn’t. I was not in a good mood.

That’s when I saw the manta ray.

I was now in about thirty feet of water, and the ray was quartering below me, a perfect shot. No, I don’t know why anyone would want to shoot a manta ray. Maybe it was a different time, before PETA, before awareness. Maybe I just wanted to scare something. Without thinking about it, I leaned back with the spear gun pointing down between by fins, and, as it passed under me, put a spear into it. The spear poinked into the right wing. The ray, about twelve feet across, wing tip to wing tip, didn’t seem to notice, didn’t turn, didn’t slow down, didn’t speed up. It just kept gliding. The spear was attached to twenty feet of line, maybe less, and for a couple of seconds I thought:

“This is really cool. I’m going for a ride on a manta ray!”

Then, as all the line reeled out, and I started moving much faster than I anticipated, these thoughts came quickly:

“It’s going deeper it’s going really fast it doesn’t even know I’m here I’m not going to stop it it’s really really strong I’m running out of air what the fuck have I done?”

Well, nobody has ever pointed to young Marines as examples of good judgment. I had stupidly gotten myself into this fix and I had to make a choice.

I let go of the gun.

For a few seconds I watched the huge creature swim off over the white sand and into the blue beyond, towing my spear gun behind. Damn. I really liked that spear gun. I only shot it one time. Damn.

By the time I got back to the beach, a sad and shameful realization had begun to creep into my mind.

“Why did I shoot that animal? I wasn’t going to eat it. I just like shooting things. What’s that about? What if the wound gets infected and it dies? I’m sorry, manta ray, for shooting you. Oh, fuck. Oh, goddamn.”

Like that.

Sigh.

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INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART ELEVEN

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Sweet Birds of Our Youth

Fly fast and true, you bitch.

We birthed the Hawks at Cherry Point, nested them aboard a LST (Landing Ship Tank) at Atlantic Beach, babied them down the eastern seaboard (shadowed by Soviet subs), cradled them ashore on Viegas, Puerto Rico in the dead of night. Our deadly little fledglings.

You want some extreme bad boy fun? Go on an amphibious landing with the Marines! I’m not being sarcastic; this is the real deal in manly men entertainment. As the first sunrise warmed the Caribbean , we were already moving forward toward our first objective: the four palettes of beer thoughtfully provided by the Old Man, Lieutenant Mike Stevens, commanding Delta Battery, 3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion, all of 26 years old.

“NOW HEAR THIS! THE C.O. (commanding officer) WANTS BIRDS READY TO FLY BEFORE YOU TOUCH THAT BEER!”

Figures. We decanted the missiles from their tubes, locked them down on their launchers, ran through all the assembly and ready protocols, calibrated the radars, armed the warheads, and (shhhhhhh) continued our fire-and-maneuver assault on the beer palettes.

“NOW HEAR THIS! THE C.O. WANTS YOU READY TO LAUNCH AND IN FORMATION IN FRONT OF THE BCC (Battery Control Central) AT ZERO SEVEN FIFTY (7:50 a.m.). TARGET DRONES WILL FLY AT ZERO NINE (9:00 a.m.) IF THE NAVY WAKES UP IN TIME TO LIGHT THE FUSES.)

We laughed. Making fun of the Navy once a day is a Marine obligation.

You need to know this about the drones, jet-propelled targets for our Hawks. Drones are owned and flown by the Navy. They are expensive and the Squids (Navy) don’t like to lose them, especially to Marine Hawks. So the drones tow a highly irradiated sleeve behind them on a very long cable. This target sleeve reads sizzling hot on the Hawk radar system. Looking at the acquisition scope, the actual drone reads as a soft, fuzzy speck ahead of the bright sleeve bogie. Our missiles and the Navy have this in common: they both want the Hawk to lock on and destroy the sleeve instead of the drone itself. The drone has a parachute and is retrieved later and re-used.

“Do NOT,” threatens the Navy, “Do NOT shoot down our drones!”

So, we’re in formation and the Old Man gives us the word:

“Every swinging dick in this goddamn battery wanted to be an infantry Marine, including me, especially me. But the Marine Corps in its infinite green wisdom wanted us here in the goddamn Air Wing, and I’m pissed about it. Any of you pissed about it?”

“Aye, aye, sir!” (This was the Old Corps before “Ooo Rah” came into fashion—whatever the hell that means.)

The Old Man continued:

“I may not be an infantry commander. You may not be grunts. But I will tell you this, I am a fucking warfighter and I am fucking pissed off. You warfighters pissed off?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“The mission of Third LAAM is to get you ready to replace your brothers in the First and Second LAAMs already in Viet Nam. When you get over there, you are going to be in the weeds, sooner or later, rifle man or missile man, you are going to catch the flying shit. My job is to get you ready to fight. To fight, goddammit, like a Marine fights. I don’t care if your MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) is 0311 (infantry) or 6742 (missile), you are going to have the same warrior spirit. You are going to take the war to our enemy and you are going to rain destruction on his fucking head. You are going to kill the enemies of the United States of America. You understand me?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“So, the first thing we’re going to do to get that warrior spirit is shoot down every fucking drone the Navy puts in the air. We are going to blow those fucking drones out of the fucking sky. You understand me, Marines?”

“AYE, AYE, L.T.!” (L. T. is an affectionate, but respectful, honorific for Lieutenant.)

“The we drink beer until our eyeballs explode. Sound the alert.”

The battle sirens began to wail.

And that’s what we did, all day long. Killed drones. The Navy launched, and we shot them down. One after the other. Let me tell you, it takes a dedicated team to keep the bird locked on the soft drone signature when it’s straining against the leash to go after the yummy hot sleeve. You have to “ride it all the way in.” All the way in.

After we secured for the afternoon and were just getting started on the party, Lt. Stevens was paid a visit by the brass, Navy and Marine. First the Navy Commander chewed Stevens a new asshole and stormed off. Then the Marine Colonel started in . . . until the Navy was out of earshot. The Colonel shut it down and stood there laughing with our Old Man. The Colonel was practically doing a jig.

Next day, bleary eyed, we warmed up the birds, locked on the Navy drones, and shot them out of the sky. Every one of them.

We wouldn’t want to disappoint the Old Man.

OooRah! (whatever the hell that means.)

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INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART TEN

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Ambush

Yellow Wood is an image from a Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken.”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

The Yellow Wood series is about choices and consequences. There are many paths in this Wood, some safe, some unknown, and the poem glorifies choosing mystery above security. Sometimes I chose to go one way, sometimes another, tripping, stumbling, getting into this jam, or that situation, and then getting out of trouble, mostly.

Now I have to change this theme to accomodate, as we say in the theatre, an "obligatory scene," something you need to witness in order to understand the climax.

I didn’t know I was being hunted.

Back in the shadows, following my every twist and turn, a beast was silently padding along, waiting for just the right moment. Did I sense the beast? I don’t think so. It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure I never saw it coming. How could I know it had flanked me and found undergrowth up ahead in which to crouch and wait?

Parris Island, South Carolina. Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Boot camp.

I’m not going to tell the story of boot camp. Go rent a movie if you want the Technicolor version. My thirteen-week sojourn in Gung Ho Hell was no different from that of a million other Marines. Except for one event. The ambush by the beast.

Somebody was shaking me awake.

“Who? What?”

It was the “Firewatch,” another recruit who had the duty of constantly patrolling the squad bay to make sure no one was jerking off or trying to escape. We didn’t have the energy for the first or the balls for the second.

“What’s happening?”

“Senior Drill Instructor wants you in his office right now. Boots and utes (utility uniform with a T-shirt). One minute. Get your ass in gear and move.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost zero one (one o’clock a.m.)”

In a panic I fumbled with my boots and trousers. “Oh God, what have I done?” In the semi-dark I could see other recruits silently watching. I raced up the squad bay. As I passed Marion’s rack, he whispered, “What the fuck?”

“I don’t know, man, but it must be bad.”

I pounded on the jamb of the Drill Instructor’s door.

“Come.”

I entered the inner sanctum and snapped to attention.

Staff Sergeant Vernon E. Barker, my senior Drill Instructor was fully dressed in Alpha Uniform and squared away so much he almost sparkled. At this time of night, that was not a good sign. Then I noticed that the other two Drill Instructors, Sergeant Ross and Corporal Costello (who hated my guts) were also in full uniform. This was going to be bad, really, really, bad. What the fuck could I have done to warrant this reception?”

Barker took a deep breath.

“Private Jenkins . . . “

Not Shitbag or Fuckface. Oh sweet Jesus.

“I have the regrettable duty to inform you . . . that your mother has shot herself.”

Frozen. Paralyzed. Out of time. Mother. Shot. Herself. Mother. Herself. Shot. Mother.

“We don’t know much except that she is still alive in a hospital in Tallahassee.”

Herself. Mother. Shot.

“Sit down, Jenkins.” This from Costello (who hated my guts).

Ross brought over a folding chair and a glass of water. “Drink it.”

Barker took over.

“I’m going to take you over to the chapel. The Chaplain is waiting for you. You’re going to stay there until reveille, then you’re going to report back here and pack your gear, all of it. Do you want someone to help you?”

“Sir, yes sir, Private Baldwin.”

“We’re going to put you on the first available bus and send you to Tallahassee. You’re going to get a week’s leave plus travel time. Sergeant Ross, give him travel funds.”

Ross handed me a wad of currency.

“I know you’re not going to like this next part, but there’s nothing we can do about it. You won’t be coming back to the Three Three Eight. We’re going to set you back two weeks in another platoon.”

“Sir!”

“Sorry, Jenkins, bad break.” This from Costello (who hated my guts).

“Sir. Isn’t there something you can do to keep me in the platoon? We have mess duty next week. Couldn’t I miss mess duty and do it later?”

“Mess duty is not the problem. I don’t give a fuck about mess duty. But you would be missing the first three or four days of rifle range. That’s not negotiable.”

“But, Sir, I’m already a crack shot, I know I can catch up.”

“How’s that?”

“My great grandpa, Papa Keel, taught me to shoot when I was a little boy. My Uncle Albert taught me to hunt the backwoods. In high school I was a member of the Junior National Rifle Association and got my expert badge. Please don’t send me back, Sir, I want to graduate with my buddies, I mean, the platoon. I know I can do it”

Barker looked at the other two Drill Instructors.

“What do you think?”

Ross opined, “Well, he was in the NRA. The CO might buy that.”

Barker said, “He would need extra instruction. Someone would have to volunteer”

“I’ll do it.” This from Costello (who hated my guts).

“Sergeant Ross, Corporal Costello, you have a lot of ground to cover. Make it happen.”

Ross and Costello came over and, in turn, put out their hands, which I shook.

“Semper Fi.”

"Semper Fi."

Ross and Costello left. Barker came over and actually put his hand on my shoulder.

“Son (son?), we’ll do what we can to take care of you here. Now, you go home and do what you need to do. You got that?"

"Sir."

"Come on, I’ll walk you over to the chapel.”

I don’t remember much about the rest of the night, the Chaplain, what bullshit he said, the travel arrangements. Gus helped me pack, helped me get uniforms ready, and stow my gear. (When you go to the rifle range, you change barracks and have to take everything with you.) The other recruits, whenever possible, sent me sympathetic looks, or a smile, or found an opportunity to brush against me, or touch my shoulder. The Drill Instructors pretended not to notice.

Nor do I remember much about the long bus ride south to Tallahassee. I don’t remember getting there, or who I saw, or what I did. Fragmented images, memory flashes of my stepfather crying and trying to cope, friends offering support and food. Where were my sisters? I just can’t remember.

But I do remember my mother. She had been moved from Intensive Care. They had already determined that she was never, ever going to wake up again. The bullet had shattered into several pieces and had tunneled deep into her brain. She was already gone, except for the heart pumping and the breathing. I held her hand, so skinny and cold, and talked to her.

You know what you think to yourself in a moment like this? You think, maybe just maybe, way down there she can hear you. It’s dark and she’s scared. Your touch is a rescue line and she’s holding on to it. Your voice is a little flickering candle light that she crawls into, away from the blackness. You say all the things that can be said that might bring her comfort if she can just hear you a little bit, and, yes you use every platitude you know about heaven and Jesus and a better life because you are desperate for something to say and if platitudes are all you got, then that’s what you use.

Hours passed, then days. Her body wouldn’t die. And I hope most of you will forgive me when I say, I wanted it to. Die. Even after all the abuse she had inflicted on herself for many years, her lungs kept pumping and her heart kept beating. There really wasn’t much of her to keep alive, was there? She couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds.

There’s one final memory I want to tell you about because it always gets to me. The first couple of weeks in boot camp, before the shooting, my high school sweetheart, Judy Vance, had sent me a “Dear John” letter. What a cliché! I didn’t mention it earlier, because the event was so trite and predictable, that it’s not in any way remarkable. Judy and Bob. Kaput. Fini. Over and Out. Stick a fork in it. But, at the hospital, some church had provided a guestbook for friends to record their goodbye visits to my mother. There, on the first page, among the earliest to arrive and give their condolences, were Judy Vance, and her mother, Pat, my arch-nemesis. I can’t express to you how much that small kindness meant to me, and still does.

The day came when I had to catch the bus back to Parris Island. Mother still alive.

Back at boot camp, it all worked out. Costello (who maybe didn’t really hate my guts) helped me catch up with the “snapping in” phase of rifle training. On the range I delivered on my promise and fired Expert, second in the platoon, in fact. Top marksman was a skinny little coot from Kentucky with no teeth. That boy was dumb as dirt, but, oh Bubba, could he shoot! Rifle range was good for me. Simple. Focused. Just do it. Don't think about anything else.

But we’re not quite done, are we? The day after rifle qualification, I got the news that my mother had finally died. Her body was being transported to New Bern so that she could be put to rest next to her father, Frank, who had, ironically, also killed himself.

There was simply no way I could take another leave and still graduate with my platoon, and it was impossible to arrange transportation for me to attend the funeral on a weekend pass.

Or was it impossible?

My stepfather, Lu, who never quite got around to adopting me, the ex-Marine fighter pilot, called in a favor from an old comrade. I may be the only recruit in the history of Parris Island to be escorted to a funeral and back in the rear seat of a Marine Corps fighter bomber.

I’m not going to detail the funeral, one of the saddest you can imagine. Small town girl runs away with the dashing Marine pilot, fails at life, dies, and comes home to be buried. Not much grace in that. There’s more to say, but I think I’ll leave that to my sisters, Linda and Lezlie, who were nine and ten years old at the time, if they want to color in my hasty sketch.

Back at the Island for the final weeks of boot camp, the fun part when we were almost Marines, and went out in the weeds to learn war. We all wanted to be infantry Marines, devil dogs, leathernecks, but the Corps had other ideas for a few of us. Gus and I scored very high on certain tests, almost identical scores, and when they announced each Marine’s MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) there were two assignments to the 6742 MOS. You guessed it, me and Gus.

Hawk missiles.

Costello smirked, “Jenkins and Baldwin. Fucking Air Wing pukes. Just what I expected.”

But Gus and I grinned at each other. We were going to our first duty station together! Together! I swear I saw Staff Sergeant Barker wink at me.

So we graduated, two days before my eighteenth birthday. They gave us the sacred Eagle, Globe, and Anchor insignia, and baby, there’s only one way to get one of those. The CO gave the order and the Senior Drill Instructor dismissed us with those cherished words,

“Congratulations . . . Marines.”

We were all standing around feeling twelve feet tall and patting each others’ backs when Corporal Costello walked up to me and said, “Jenkins, you know I hate your guts, don’t you.”

“Yeah, Corporal, I know you do.”

Costello grinned like a demon from hell, stuck out his hand, shook my own, laughed like a crazy man, and walked away.

So let’s wrap it up and move on. Thanks so much for sticking with me through this. The beast you could call grief and remorse and guilt and regret had ambushed me and mauled me. It didn’t kill me. Hey, beast, bite me again.

I promise the concluding episodes will be jolly good fun, and, God knows, you deserve it.

Marion Baldwin, third row from the bottom, second from the left.

Robert Jenkins, fourth row from the bottom, at the end of the row on the right.

Also, Staff Sergeant Vernon E. Barker, Sergeant Ross, and, of course, Corporal Costello

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INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART NINE

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The Battle of the Hinky Dink

A Comic Interlude

The compartment was stuffed with keyed-up recruits on their way to boot camp at Parris Island. As the train jerked out of the Raleigh station, I found an empty seat up front and collapsed. It had been a rough few days getting my under-age enlistment papers signed, enduring the physical exams, and thumbing the tedious hundred-mile hitch hike from New Bern.

Our Marine babysitter, a corporal, slid the door open and stuck his head in, and roared:

“Shut your fucking cakeholes! OK . . . listen up. It’s going to take this train about eight hours to crawl down to Beaufort where we get off and take a bus to the Island. Get all the sleep you can. It’s the last decent sleep you’re gonna get for a week. In a little while we’re gonna bring you boxed suppers. Eat it all. It’s the last civilian food you’re gonna eat until you graduate from Boot. Oh Jesus H. Christ and Chesty Puller who sits on the right hand of God! What am I saying? I am looking at this sorry cluster fuck recruit shit pile, and I am thinking, most of them will get kicked out anyway, so why bother telling them anything? Can any of you dickless wonders tell me why I am wasting my breath giving you this valuable information?”

The guy next to me who appeared to be napping through the corporal's tirade, opened his eyes, and offered:

“Because underneath your false bravado, you’re really a swell guy with a heart of gold?”

The coach car went dead silent.

“What’s your name, recruit?”

“Baldwin.”

“What’s your first name, Bald . . . win?”

“Marion.”

“Marion. Mar . . . i . . .on. Marion. Mary . . . un. Well . . . Mary, let me give you a piece of advice . . . if that’s OK with you?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Thank you so much.”

Marion Baldwin and the corporal were trying to out-sarcasm each other. The rest of us were watching with dread fascination.

“You’re very welcome.”

“The first time you use that smart mouth of yours on a Marine Corps Drill Instructor, he is going to rip out your tongue and eat it in front of you. That’s going to be the last thing you see before he kills you.”

“I’m afraid. Very, very afraid.”

The corporal just smiled and, with a sigh, shook his head as if in sorrow.

“The rest of you ass pimples need to make a decision here and now. You can keep your mouths shut, do what you’re told, and behave yourself like the sweet little pussies that you are, or you can follow the example of . . . what’s your name? Mary? The example of smart-mouth Mary over here and fall into the deep, deep shit. Your choice. Don’t leave this car until I come back for you.”

He slid the door shut. The conversation buzzed alive. I looked over at my companion who was grinning at me. He stuck out his hand.

“But you can call me Gus.”

We shook hands.

“Why Gus?”

“My full name is, get ready, Marion Augustus Egbert Linnet Baldwin the Third, but, like I said, you can call me Gus, short for Augustus.”

“Gus it is.”

“And your parents burdened you with what unfortunate nom de plume?”

“Bob Smith, I mean, Bob . . . Jenkins.”

“Interesting. Don’t know your own name. Either you are in disguise, a spy perhaps? Or just stupid?”

“Probably the latter. I joined the Marines, didn’t I?”

He liked that and laughed appreciatively. For the next couple of hours we talked, as young men do, about ourselves, and why we had ended up on this train, clattering through the night toward a rendezvous with thirteen weeks of torment in the South Carolina swamps.

Marion “Gus” Baldwin was about my height and size. Where I was dark, he was fair, and exemplified his Scandinavian ancestry. He was handsome in a picaresque sort of way and had a glint in his eye that could best be described as ‘wicked.’ I liked him immensely.

The boxed meals arrived and were passed out among the Marines-to-be. I don’t remember what was in each box except for one item, a sugary rolled-up pastry in cellophane. Something like a Ding Dong, this culinary masterwork was labeled “Hinky Dink.” I was taking a cautious bite of mine when, behind me, a recruit began to complain.

“Where’s my Hinky Dink? I didn’t get no Hinky Dink. I WANT MY GODDAMN HINKY DINK!”

As he whined, Gus looked over at me with an evil smirk (I would soon learn to recognize this particular smirk as the prelude to disaster).

“He wants a Hinky Dink.”

“Yes he does.”

“Shall we sit here like sweet little pussies . . . or shall we go to war like United States Marines?”

I made my decision.

“Semper Fi.”

“Gung Ho”

Like a well-trained fire team, we rose in one smooth motion, whirled, and fired our twin Hinky Dinks right into the whiner’s face. Splat! Splat!

In shock, the Dinked complainer sputtered, “Who did that? Who hit me with a Hinky Dink?”

“That guy up front, Mary.”

With an innocent shrug, Gus explained, “You said you wanted a Hinky Dink.”

“You son of a bitch.”

The victim of our assault grabbed a half sandwich from his companion’s box and hurled it at us. We ducked. It hit the guy in front of us right in the back of the head. After a short pause, the injured party picked up the half-sandwich, slowly rose from his seat, and turned around. It was my first look at Lawrence Covington, black as night in the jungle, muscled like a Zulu war chief, little stub of a cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth. From the streets of Chicago. Oops.

“You hit me wid yo sammich.”

Covington was surrounded by a quartet of other guys from the Chicago streets. They got to their feet.

“Get that crackuh!” Covington hurled the sandwich back toward the big-eyed whiner.

And it was on.

The Battle of the Hinky Dink.

Our first Marine Corps combat.

Covington’s gang started throwing every piece of uneaten food in their boxes, indiscriminately hitting anyone seated in the rear of the compartment. Gus and I decided that our best move was to enlist with Covington, and we joined his squad, now swelling to brigade size with new volunteers. But there were more “crackuhs” in the rear of the train. We were outnumbered! Soon the rear guard had emptied their boxes by launching all the contents at us. We were re-supplying with ammunition! Now it was our turn to bombard the unarmed defenders with pieces of food that were getting noticeably smaller and harder to lob with each artillery exchange.

Back and forth the battle raged. The air was thick with flying debris. After a while there was nothing big enough to effectively throw at the enemy. We calmed down, out of breath, and looked around at the greasy chaos that covered the floor, the seats, and each other. Covington started laughing and we all joined in. Someone started chanting:

“Hinky Dink! Hinky Dink! I want my Goddamn Hinky Dink.”

Pretty soon we were all chanting at the top of our lungs. Later we would learn the traditional Corps cadence calls, songs, and routines. But none of those ever surpassed the exultant hymn of our first Marine victory.

“Hinky Dink! Hinky Dink! I want my Goddamn Hinky Dink.”

.

.

INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART EIGHT

Into the Black, Red, and Gold Wood

I got the job.

Assistant manager of the Kinston, North Carolina Hardees hamburger joint. I was a seventeen year old whiz bang cock a doodle doo!

Since hitchhiking up from Florida five weeks earlier, I had hunkered down in New Bern, North Carolina, humid cradle of my Tarheel birth. I was home, just a bubbling little dumpling in the collard pot of my ancestral DNA. Recovered from the bone-deep fatigue of the escape from Tallahassee, I had taken a promising position as burger and fries assembly technician at the Hardees Hamburgers of New Bern. After one week, I was promoted to cashier; another week, shift manager. The burger joint talent pool was thin in my home town. Just shy of a month in my burgeoning burger business, I was invited to Kinston, thirty-five miles away, to interview as assistant manager. Whooooeee!




The interview was a stunning conquest. I knew every word the manager said, even those with two syllables, and I was able to respond to every question in complete sentences. Spitting a delicate line of tobacco juice into a milkshake cup, he expressed his admiration for my education and every confidence in my leadership potential.

I was hired on the spot.

Congratulating myself, I strolled down the streets of Kinston, heading for the bus station, when I saw something me that jerked me to a halt. On a sandwich board in front of the Post Office, in square-jawed splendor, A United States Marine was starring at me, warrior to warrior. On that sign were the words “Ready” and “Join U.S. Marines.”



I stood frozen, deliberating upon the glamour and excitement of my newly acquired position as a Hardees Hamburger captain. I compared that glory to the pain and suffering guaranteed by the Marines mythos. These things I mulled over for, say, three seconds, then executed a snappy . . .

“By the right flank . . . Har!”

(Just a note of clarification here. When calling close order drill commands, Marines don’t actually say, “March!” The call is more like “Huh” or “Haw” or “Hoo” and it’s kind of grunted with a forceful expulsion of air. Each drill instructor does it differently. It’s a personal thing. But it’s never “March.”)

The Marine recruiting sergeant (who looked just like the one outside on the poster ) delivered the obligatory admonitions. “The Marines are not . . . boot camp is the toughest . . .you may not . . . many fail . . . .are you sure about this?” Growing up as a military brat, a Marine brat in fact, I had heard all this stuff before. But was I sure? Was I?

Suddenly I was. I really was. I was dead certain that this was the right choice for me at this empty time in my life.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ I’m a sergeant. I work for a living.”

(Walked into that one.)

“Yes, sergeant.”

There was, of course, the issue of my age, seventeen. The recruiter assured me there was no problem . . . as long as I could obtain parental consent. He was, in fact, eager to help me overcome this minor obstacle. Recruiters have quotas to fill, and I was prime beef stumbling in off the street to the slaughter. No way was I busting out of his corral. He would telephone his counterpart in Tallahassee who would, in turn, pay a personal visit to my parents and persuade them to sign the papers. No problem, my dad was a former Marine, right?

Well that part was fine, but there was a . . . hitch. A mind-blowing, ground shaking, soul rattling, thermonuclear hitch. Dad was not. Was not my dad. Not. My. Dad. Luther S. Smith Jr., Major, USMC (ret.) was not my father.

I had always known that Lu Smith was my stepfather, but he told me that he had adopted me as his son. The truth was . . . he had never quite gotten around to it. I had grown up as Bob Smith, “Smitty,” to my friends, gone to school as Bob Smith, but I was really Bob . . . Jenkins. What? Chew on that, Bubba, at seventeen, with one phone call, you change into somebody else.

My mother signed her half of the permissions, but I had to locate my bio-dad to get his signature on the Semper Fi line. Locating my “real” father, Robert W. Jenkins, wasn’t difficult. I had been sleeping on his couch in New Bern for several weeks.

Let’s stop for a moment. Imagine the joy that washed through the remnants of the Jenkins family when they heard the news that I was still Bob Jenkins. Not only had the prodigal son returned, but he had brought home the family name itself. As the only son of an only son, my alleged adoption had ended the Jenkins lineage. Now the line was back in business!

I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was Smith, but now I’m Jenkins!

(Sorry)

So Big Bob Jenkins signed the permissions for Little Bob Jenkins. Dear Old Bio-Dad even drove me back to Kinston and stood behind me as I stepped up to the gold line and faced the flag.

“Raise your right hand.”

I raised my hand.

“Do you solemnly swear that you will preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic?”

.

The Kind of Woman She Is

.

Far across the Phoenix terminal CJ spots the blind woman. The woman is trying to get a place in line at the airport Burger King. She's about 45 degrees off course, thwacking her cane into a railing.

"I'll be back in time to board" says CJ

Always quick with a retort, I cleverly respond, "Huh?"

CJ swerves and dodges her way over to the woman and introduces herself. Within seconds they are laughing. CJ assertively secures the woman a place in the line. Together they creep along toward the grill. CJ reads the menu to her.

(Later CJ tells me the woman ordered veggie burgers. Did you know BK has veggie burgers? I didn't. Did you know blind ladies eat veggie burgers? Me either. Anyway, the veggie burger order endeared the woman to me.)

CJ loads the tray, helps her check out, and takes her to the condiment table.

"No ketchup, dear, I'd just get it all over me."

CJ assembles two greasy bags, walks the woman down the terminal corridor to her companion, also blind. The three of them chat a while and share another laugh.

Tiny beads of kindness on CJ's long necklace.

Me? I didn't even notice the blind woman until CJ took off to the rescue. I'm too involved in my own thoughts, worries, plans, the very important stuff I do. Even if I did notice the blind woman across the terminal, I probably wouldn't have thrashed across the the river of travelers to help her.

That's the difference between me and CJ.

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