Keeping It Quiet

The sign on our local gas station/convenience store says “Thank You, Veterans.”

This seems ironic - outside the business world veterans can be thanked, but inside the business world, veterans are supposed to keep their veteran status quiet.

An employer should not be asking for your veteran status, especially during a job interview…the same way they should not be asking for your age or your religion.  By law, a company cannot discriminate on the basis of age, cannot discriminate on the basis of religion, and cannot discriminate on the basis of veteran status.

My employer did not ask me if I was a veteran during my job interview.  But they did ask me after I was hired.  Revealing the status is voluntary, and the list of veterans in the company is kept confidential.

I decided to tell the company that I was a veteran.  I wondered how many people around me were also veterans, so I decided to write an article for the company newsletter.

To solicit requests for veterans’ stories, I could not look at the confidential list; Human Resources had to send out a request for me: if you are willing, please tell me about your military service.

The responses were eye-opening.  Maybe only veterans with eye-opening experiences wanted to be in the company newsletter, but it did make for a good article.

One guy survived the 1967 fire onboard the USS Forrestal.

One guy, after 64 weeks of intensive Russian language training, was stationed in Scotland to intercept Soviet submarine communications.

One guy was a Nuclear Weapons Officer.

One guy surveyed roads in Vietnam.

One guy was a helicopter pilot who helped rescue a crew of Apollo astronauts in the Pacific Ocean.

One guy ran an airfield in Kosovo.

One guy talked about how he couldn’t wait to get out of the military, but looking back he realizes that the military taught him teamwork, and how to do things he didn’t want to do, and how to treat others the way he wanted to be treated.

Walking around the office, I see that these guys, just like me, have blended into the company just fine.  It seems odd that we are supposed to keep our veteran status quiet.

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Veterans Day: it is time to remember the people who never lived to tell their stories to a company newsletter.  Here is a 3-minute video of “Lullaby For A Soldier (In The Arms Of The Angels)", a song written by Dillon O’Brian.  It is sung by Maggie Siff during an episode of Sons Of Anarchy.  Maggie’s photo is the first one you see, followed by photos of the other cast members:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmucVmr60HQ

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Zymurgy's Day Job Is To Raise Spirits

The United States Army spent a lot of time and money to teach me how to repair jet turbine engines - something I knew nothing about.

After training me to repair jet engines, the Army assigned me to the Fort Lewis School Command, where I would teach remedial reading - something else I knew nothing about.

I did have some experience teaching, but I taught mathematics, and I did not see much crossover from math into remedial reading.  The Army expected me to raise soldiers up from illiteracy to literacy.  According to the Federal government, a literate person is someone who can read at the fifth-grade level.

To find out how teach reading, I had to do a lot of reading about reading.

One day I came across a list: The 200 Most Common Words in the English Language.  I thought the list was interesting and decided to share it with the other reading instructors at the Fort Lewis School Command. 

So, I proceeded to type out the list, which was in alphabetical order: "a", "about" "after", "again", "an”, down to "write", "you", "your".  I typed them in six columns.  When I finished, I thought that column six looked a little sad because it was two words shorter than all the other columns.

Just for fun, I added "zwieback" after "your".  Then I turned to the last page in the dictionary and added "zymurgy" to the bottom of the sixth column.

Zymurgy is the branch of chemistry dealing with fermentation, as in beer brewing.  Someone once described zymurgy this way: “Its day job is to raise spirits, while it moonlights as the last word in the dictionary."  

I passed out copies of my list to the other instructors.  I was certain that they would get a kick out of my little joke at the end of column six.  Instead, my list caused confusion:

    "Doug, are you sure that zymurgy is a common word?"

   "Doug, I have never seen the word zymurgy before; how can it be a common word?"

   "Doug, I have no idea what this word at the end of the list means.  Surely, it can’t be a very common word."

My joke had backfired.  How could people think for even a moment that zymurgy is a common word?  

Then it hit me: they saw the word in black-and-white on my list.  If you read it, it must be true.  

The printed word has power.  

So much power that a few instructors at the Fort Lewis School Command, for a brief moment in 1968, actually believed that zymurgy was one of the 200 most common words in the English language.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter

My friends are incredulous when I tell them that I want to visit Protem, a small dot on the map of Missouri, ten miles north of the Arkansas line.

“Why would anyone want to visit Protem, Missouri?”  How the town got its name would be a good reason to go.   Founded in 1870, the residents at that time could not decide on a name.  They turned to Latin and called the town “Pro Tempore”.  Temporary became permanent; hence: Protem.

But I want to visit Protem is because it is the birthplace of Sharon, whose maiden name is Brown.  I met Sharon when the Army sent me and thirteen other Helicopter School graduates to Fort Lewis in the state of Washington.

Being stationed at Fort Lewis meant living in a constricted world.  There were no children.  There were no females, unless you counted the fort librarian or the ticket taker at the fort’s main movie theater or the WAC’s, who were sequestered in a distant part of the fort.  There were hardly any civilians unless you counted the bus drivers or the people working at the dry cleaners.

One of my buddies from Helicopter School was allowed to live off-post because he was married.  Sharon was his wife.  They had an apartment in Steilacoom, Washington, a town built around a ferry dock on Puget Sound.

This apartment was a short distance from Fort Lewis and became our refuge.  It was a chance to get away from the Army barracks.  Sharon took on the role of mother hen to her husband’s Helicopter School buddies.  She was gracious and welcoming.  For us, she was the female presence that we lacked at Fort Lewis. 

And we appreciated her.  We would sing Mrs. Brown You Have A Lovely Daughter to make her smile.  Although sometimes we would arrive at the apartment when she was lounging on the Murphy bed and we would fold her up into the wall, which would make her mad.

One weekend, four Army guys and Sharon drove 45 miles up to Seattle to see the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  At a restaurant before the movie, the waitress looked at our table, pointed to Sharon sitting amidst four soldiers, and called her “a rose among thorns”.  I expanded on the waitress's comment, and said that Sharon would even be "a rose among roses”.

Her husband was shipped to Vietnam.  After he came back, the Army stationed them in Oklahoma.  When her husband left the Army, he did helicopter repair as a civilian and they moved to Bolivia.  He worked on helicopters all over South America, including Patagonia, where inquisitive penguins would watch over his shoulder while he did his repair work.

After Bolivia, came Oregon.  Their last move was to Los Angeles, where Sharon’s husband repairs helicopters that take crews out to offshore oil rigs. 

Sharon told me that when she was growing up in the 1950's, Protem consisted of two buildings: a post office and the Brown family's house.  

Sometimes I wonder if little Sharon Brown gazed at the Post Office, which was the town's connection to the outside world.  I wonder if she dreamed that she would get to see a lot of that outside world: the plains of Oklahoma, the deep forests of Oregon, the exoticness of Bolivia, the busyness of Los Angeles, and the calmness of a ferry town on Puget Sound where the quiet was broken only by a bunch of soldiers who would fold her up into the wall.

This month I am going to visit Protem, Missouri, as a tribute to Sharon, the rose among roses.  Wikipedia tells me that Protem is no longer just two buildings.  I can look forward to seeing a post office, a fire station, and a few houses.

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YouTube video of Herman's Hermits singing Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter (3 minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8k0VI9tBc

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Counting Countries

When the Army assigned me to the Fort Lewis School Command, I was pleased to find out that I would be working alongside civilians.

One of the civilians, Ada Miller, was married to a retired Air Force officer.  The Millers often invited soldiers from the School Command to come to their house to socialize.  They knew what a pleasure it was for soldiers to get away from the barracks and be in a home atmosphere.

I always accepted the Millers’ invitations.  My favorite thing about their house was a giant world map that took up one entire wall of their kitchen.  There were a lot of pins in the map, marking the places where the Millers had either lived or visited.

I saw a pin in Reykjavik and got excited.  “You have been to Iceland!”   “Yes,” said the Millers, “Our plane refueled there.”

I was shocked.  These nice people who invited soldiers to their home were cheats!  How could they say that they have been in Iceland if all they did was sit on a plane while it was refueled?

I keep a list of countries.  Not refueling countries, but countries where I have spent time. 

Years ago, I met some friends in a restaurant in Zomba, Malawi.  The restaurant was at the top of a hill and there was a one-way road leading to the restaurant.  The road was one way up the hill from 6:00 to 6:59 and one way down the hill from 7:00 to 7:59, and so on.  You had to plan your journey to the restaurant carefully.

At dinner, my friends’ nine-year-old son challenged me.  He wrote out a list of countries he had been in.  I wrote out my list and came up with 33.  The kid came up with 28.  He was downcast.  So, I proceeded to make out a different list: a list of countries I had been in when I was nine years old.  There were 2 countries on this list --- the USA and Canada, and I didn’t remember any of the trip to Canada because I was an infant at the time.  The kid felt better.

My next step in counting countries came when the woman sitting next to me in the waiting room of the Johannesburg Airport told me about the Century Club.  If you have visited 100 countries, you qualify to become a member.  Her husband was a journalist and had been inducted into the club. 

My list has now grown to 51, and I had forgotten about the Century Club until last week, when I stumbled across it on the Internet. 

Their website has a list of 321 countries.  Since there are 194 countries in the U.N., it is obvious that the Century Club is generous in its definition of a country: for example, they don’t list the United Kingdom – they list Scotland, Wales, England, and Ulster separately.  That ups my count to 53.

Wait!  Look!  At the top of the website, they say you can count a country even if you were there just for a plane fuel stop! 

So, my list grows by added Haiti, where I was herded into the airport gift shop while the plane refueled.  And I can add the Cape Verde Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where the plane refueled at 3 in the morning and I drowsily stood at the airport terminal door listening to the sound of waves crashing on the beaches near the runway.

Of course, if it is OK to count a country even if it was just a plane fuel stop, then I need to revise my opinion of the Millers.  They weren’t cheats.  They really were nice people.  

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In a 3-minute YouTube video, "Moderate Fighter" explains why he wants to qualify for the Travelers Century Club (but not for the Drinkers Century Club, which you join when you drink one hundred shots of alcohol in one hundred minutes):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxnPsfJp2wo 

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Curse Of Cursive

My kindergarten teacher only taught me two letters of the alphabet: the letter "D" and the letter "O".  She never mentioned that there were more than two letters in the alphabet.  She never even taught me "U" and "G", so I could spell my name: D-O-U-G.

Looking back, I think what she needed was an identifying mark for me to put in the corner of my finger paintings so she could tell my finger paintings from all the other finger paintings in the class.  I am guessing that there was no Donald and no Doris in my Kindergarten class, so “DO” was distinctive enough. 

It was up to the first grade teacher to teach all 26 letters in the alphabet, both capital and small.  Now I could write Dick and Jane and Spot and Doug.  Things were going great until I hit third grade.

The third grade teacher told us that the system of handwriting that we knew, called printing, was inferior.  We now needed to learn a whole new system of handwriting, called cursive.  Suddenly, I had to think about shape (a capital cursive "A" does not look like a capital printed "A"). I had to think about connectivity (you were not allowed to lift your pen from the paper until the end of a word -- unless the word started with a capital "D").  I had to think about proportion (two-thirds of a small cursive “f” must be above the line and one-third must be below). 

Worst of all, the teacher graded me on how my writing looked --- not on what my writing said.

I went along with the program until sixth grade.  I was eleven years old, and I knew that I did not want people to look at my writing --- I wanted people to read my writing.  

I went up to my sixth-grade teacher and whined: do I really have to write in cursive?  She struck a deal with me: I would write in cursive in sixth grade, but once I graduated and went on to junior high school, I could print everything.

I looked forward to junior high with great anticipation.

From age twelve on, I never wrote in cursive again. Once I broke the chains, I was a happy writer.  Not only was I a happy writer, I was a focused writer.  My printing was very legible --- I was aware that other people could easily read what I wrote, so I had better write something worth reading. 

I lived cursive free until I joined the army. 

To get my monthly pay from Uncle Sam I had to salute, speak my serial number, and sign.  I would salute the commanding officer and say, “US52764669 reporting for pay, Sir.”  Then I had to write my name in the pay book in cursive; the army called this a “payroll signature”.

I still haven’t gotten rid of the cursive in my signature, but to me cursive is dead.  It died on the last day of sixth grade in 1955.  I don’t miss it one bit.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

If The Viet Cong Invaded Hershey, Pennsylvania

It was the morning of the third day of being inducted into the United States Army.  I knew that this was the day I would lose my moustache.

We would be marched to the post barber shop where all our hair would be cut off and our faces shaved clean.  The Army was going to destroy my moustache.

I decided I would beat the Army to it.  On that third morning, I shaved off my own moustache.  The post barber still cut off all my hair.  After the barber, we were marched to the post photographer, who took photos for our Army IDs.

I missed my moustache, and yearned to get it back.  I found a set of Army regulations and looked up facial hair.  The regulations said that a soldier can have facial hair only if he has facial hair on the photo of his ID.

How could I get around this Catch-22?  I looked at my ID with my clean-shaven photo.  I noticed that the birth date on my ID was off by one day. 

I took a risk and started growing a moustache.  As soon as I thought the moustache was long enough to show up on a photo, I went to post headquarters and demanded a new ID with my correct birth date.  A new ID meant a new photo, and now my newly-grown moustache was on my ID. 

I was safe.  Or was I? 

The Army made us watch a Scary Training Film about Communists.  It was in black-and-white, poorly acted, and reminded me of a junior high science film.  

Communists took over a town in the middle of the night.  The next morning, people were thrown in jail without trial, and lots of other bad things happened.  The Communists were easy to identify: they had uniforms, they carried rifles, and every last one of them sported a moustache.

My moustache was legitimate because it was on my Army ID, but it put me under suspicion.  Nevertheless, I continued to wear a moustache.

A friend of mine told me about the time he applied for non-combat status.  Then it became clear why the Army had shown us a film about Communists taking over a town

My friend did not want to go to Vietnam and kill people.  He wanted to become a medic and go to Vietnam and heal people.  He went before a board led by the adjutant general, where he was grilled about his beliefs, culminating in the Big Question.

My friend was from Hershey, Pennsylvania.  So, the Big  Question the board asked him was: “What would you do if the Viet Cong invaded Hershey, Pennsylvania?” 

He did not really answer the question; he just said that Hershey was in no danger of invasion.  They granted him non-combat status anyway, and he served as a medic in Vietnam.

After his time in the Army, my friend went back to Hershey. 

I always wondered if the Scary Training Film and the Big Question had an impact on him.  I wondered if he spent any time watching out for boats coming up the Susquehanna River --- boats filled with Asian-looking men, in uniform, carrying rifles, every last one of them sporting a moustache.

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Here is another Scary Armed Forces Information Film: "How To Spot A Communist" (one minute long):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkYl_AH-qyk

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Knee Deep In Rice

A dear friend from high school was watching a Johnny Cash tribute on television.  When the show featured the song “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town”, my friend started to laugh.

Laughter was uncalled for.  A show about a beloved icon of American music demands reverence.  The song itself is tragic; a young cowboy, ignoring his mother’s plea, takes his guns to town, where he is shot and he repeats his mother’s plea as he lies dying.

My friend was laughing because the song on the television show took her back 50 years --- back to the time when we were in high school, and I wrote a parody of Johnny Cash’s song.

Our sophomore year English teacher was named Barker Herr, and he had a pernicious case of halitosis.  I could not resist:

      A young cowboy named Barker Herr grew restless on the farm
      A boy filled with wanderlust who really meant no harm
      He changed his clothes and shined his boots
      And combed his dark hair down
      And his mother cried as he walked out

      Don’t take your breath to town, Bark
      Leave your breath at home, Herr
      Don’t take your breath to town.

Parody also served me well in the Army.  In Basic Training, you were expected to vocalize: chanting along with the sergeant as he counted cadence: “I want to go to Vietnam; I want to kill a Viet Cong”.

However, when I finished Basic and started Helicopter Mechanics Training, our platoon had no sergeant.  We had to march ourselves from the barracks to the training area and back again.  And we got to choose out own vocalizing.  The blood-thirsty cadence counts we chanted in Basic Training were dropped. 

We first turned to whistling.  You would be amazed at how nicely you can march to the theme song for “The Addams Family”.  The finger snapping helps keep people in step.

When we weren’t whistling, we were singing.  It was a grand time for parodies.  First came The Monkees, who used to think that love was just in fairy tales.

      I used to think that Army was just in fairy tales,
      Meant for someone else but not for me
      But Army was out to get me
      That’s the way it seemed
      The military haunted all my dreams.
      Then I saw my sergeant, now I’m a believer
      Not a trace of doubt in my mind
      I’m in the Army, I’m a believer
      I couldn’t leave it if I tried.

This song did more than make us snicker as we marched.  It encapsulated our mutual experience.  A few months earlier we had all been civilians, surrounded by happiness.  Now we were soldiers, surrounded by a world over which we had little control.

Next up: “Sealed With A Kiss” by Gary Lewis And The Playboys:

      It’s gonna be a long lonely summer
      Over there in Nam
      Hiding from the Cong
      Working on my helicopter
      Knee deep in rice.

This was harder to march to, but it expressed the angst that we had about being deployed to Viet Nam.

Parodies are nice and easy.  You don’t have to invent a tune.  You know the pattern your new words should fit into.

Parodies are powerful.  You can create a parody that encapsulates a mutual experience or a parody that expresses angst.  And, maybe, you can create a parody that will make someone laugh during a Johnny Cash tribute 50 years after you graduated from high school.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The United States Army Trusted Me

Two events told me that the United States Army trusted me when I was a typist for the 109th Aviation Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.

The first event that told me I was trusted: the Army gave me a Secret security clearance.  This was the level right below Top Secret.  I was thrilled to get the clearance, not because it meant I could type secret documents, but because it meant I could read secret documents stored in the 109th Aviation Division’s vault.

The thrill dissipated quickly.  I was shown the Secret Document Vault: it was just a filing cabinet with a lock on it.  When I typed my first secret document, the information in it did not seem very sensitive.  The enemy could probably find out just as much information by going to the nearest gas station and buying a roadmap.

I never got a Top Secret clearance.  Maybe Top Secret documents held sensitive information that could do us harm if it fell into enemy hands.  Or maybe there was nothing sensitive to say about an aviation division that spent most of its time trying to keep 120 helicopter mechanics busy while there were only 5 helicopters for them to maintain on all of Fort Lewis.

The second event that told me I was trusted: the Army gave me a key to the barracks bulletin board.  I needed the key to put the KP roster on the bulletin board.  Everyone on the 109^th Aviation Division was an avid reader of the KP roster, checking it to see when they would have to pull kitchen duty.

However, I had my suspicions that people did not read anything else on the bulletin board.  I got a chance to confirm my suspicions.

Fort Lewis is a large fort.  I was being transferred to a unit on North Fort Lewis, far away from the 109^th Aviation Division. 

Before my transfer, I sat down at an Army typewriter and created this notice:

IT HAS COME TO THE ATTENTION OF THE COMMANDING OFFICER THAT PERSONNEL ARE RAISING CHINCHILLAS IN THEIR FOOT LOCKERS.  THIS PRACTICE IS TO STOP IMMEDIATELY.  ANYONE CAUGHT TAKING EXTRA LETTUCE RATIONS FROM THE MESS HALL WILL BE SEVERELY REPRIMANDED.

I posted the notice on the bulletin board and asked a friend to let me know how long it remained there. 

I turned in the bulletin board key, put my duffel bag on my shoulder, said good-bye, and got on the bus to North Fort Lewis.  My friend said that the chinchilla notice stayed on the bulletin board for five weeks before somebody took it down. 

My suspicions were confirmed.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Colorless Soldier With A Bedroll

I was sitting with a group of friends from New Hampshire, and they were talking about ghosts.

Actually, they were talking about their personal ghosts.  “My ghost follows me down the hallway, and I can feel a cold breath on the back of my neck”.  “My ghost makes a lot of clanging sounds”.  “My ghost is female and she lives in a trunk in the dining room.  Whenever she gets too annoying, I tell her to go back in her trunk and things settle down”.

My friends were certain that ghosts exist.

I am willing to believe that ghosts exist because I saw one in Alabama in 1968.

Mary Ann Smith was coming down from Michigan with her boyfriend to spend the weekend with her widowed mother in Grand Bay, in southwest Alabama.  I was in the Army at the time, stationed in Dothan, in southeast Alabama.  I hitchhiked across the state, met Mary Ann and her boyfriend in Mobile, and we traveled together to Mrs. Smith’s house.

I slept on the sofa.

In the middle of the Alabama night, I woke up to see an early 19^th-Century soldier standing in the center of Mrs. Smith’s living room.   He was tall and colorless.  He held a rifle, with a thin bayonet fixed.   On his back was a small knapsack with a bedroll on top of it.

He faded away when I screamed.

I immediately regretted that I had screamed.  Here I was, a guest in the house of someone I had never met before, and I woke everybody up with my scream.

“Are you OK”?  I quickly decided not to reveal what I saw.  Instead, my answer was a bland “Yes, I’m fine.  Everyone please go back to sleep”.

In the morning, I did not tell anyone about the early 19^th-Century soldier.  So, I did not find out if Mrs. Smith had ever seen the soldier.  I did not find out if he was Mrs. Smith’s resident ghost.

More likely, the soldier appeared to me because I was also a soldier.  He was dressed for the War of 1812; I was dressed for Vietnam.  The soldier probably was from the north, sent south by the US Army --- just like me.  He probably struggled with the Alabama climate --- just like me.  He probably counted the days until he could leave ---just like me.

Maybe he wasn’t Mrs. Smith’s ghost.  Maybe he was my personal ghost. 

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com