It was one of the longest days…. My Uncle Don pretty much slowed his pick-up down just enough for me to hop out in front of the Bring Me Men ramp, where I was greeted by a very attentive group of loud people with berets and white gloves.
I waited in a line for a bit till we had a gaggle, then went in serpentine fashion to some office where they told me none of my paperwork had made it to in-process me. So, I had to sit down and spend the next hour or so trying to recreate it… As if an 18 year-old knows much more than his Social Security Number.
Because the registrar thing was such a SNAFU, I didn’t get my buzz haircut till after lunch. I got to sit at tables and gaze “freely” at the building chaos around Mitchell Hall. That was the end of normal life for the next 40 years!
Time passed. My head was shaved, lines were stood in, uniforms, toiletries, bedding, underwear were accumulated, stuffed into duffle bags and dragged around campus until at some point later, after learning what a “smiling sock” was, I found myself crowded high up in the Field House with my hand in the air mumbling something noble about “…protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America! So help me God’”
Then it was a shuffling ‘march’ back up to Vandenberg Hall, where my Element Leader dumped me and my two new best friends into our room, with the direction to “write your parents.”
I was hot, exhausted and pissed!!! My Dad saved that letter. I read it not too long ago. Oof! 😂
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