OWL-DRAGON

I will be going to a wedding today. The father of the bride has been a friend for more then 25 years. We met during basic training at Ft. Dix. It was pure happenstance that we ended up together in the same room. Most of the rooms had four people but somehow we ended at the end of the hall in a two person room. It turned out that we were both headed for the same MOS (military occupational specialty) - intelligence. We were both older (23 in my case) then the average recruit. There were a couple of others in that unit (including my future brother-in-law) who were older. We were mostly college graduates whose deferments had run out and had opted not to avoid the draft and in fact decided to enlist. In those days the draft was done by lottery. Get a low number based on your birthdate and you knew the draft was in your future. Some of us decided that enlisting would get us more control over our military careers.

The Drill Instrucrtor never did quite figure us out. For the most part older guys were more unflappable. We knew just how far to push and when to back off. Because we were slated for intelligence MOS I think the drill instructor gave us more slack than he would others. Once the drill instructor asked me why I seemed so calm in the face of all the abuse. When I told him I had been a monk for six years (not quite but it was a shorthand he could understand and that getting up early, following a strict schedule, and knowing howto be silent was old hat. I think it only added to the mystery.

It was a good thing that he was willing to give us some slack. Dale and I figure out the combination to a storage closet in our room. We stored all our extra junk in the closet. This made inspections a breeze. We had almost nothing in the room making it easy to keep neat. Well one day the drillinstructor went into the closet. All our stuff can tumbling out. He was amazed and enraged and confused all at once. How the hell had we gotten into the closet. I was sure we were in deep trouble but after a lot of yelling and threats all we had to do was clean out the closet. I think he was more impressed that we had the guts and the brains to break into his closet. Beside this was late into the training and he'd be getting rid of us soon.

Dale and I went through intelligence school together but then went our separate ways. Dale studied Spainish and ended up the the Canal Zone and got out of the Army as soon as he could. I ended up in Japan and ending up staying in the Army five years. But we stayed in touch and when we got back to the States we visited often. Gradually our lives took different trajectories. But we never lost touch completely and when we did meet it was as if no time had past - we easily took up where we left off. Last year when I ran the Baltimore Marathon we had a great reunion.

I am glad we are going to Megan's wedding. It will be a tie to the past that will bring great pleasure.