What Do You Mean, Live Grenade?

I was orginally in the army from 1966 to 1970. Then, I went back to college and got my degree in accounting. After working five years as an accountant, I went back in the Army in 1978.

I was sent to Fort Leonard Woods, MO for what they called "Minute Man" training. This was a two week course for prior service people from all military services who were coming into the Army. It was during this time I learned why people who had been there referred to it as Fort Lost-in-the-Woods.

Most of us in my training company were ex-Army, but we had a few who had been Navy, Air Force, or Marines. One fellow who had previously been in the Air Force had been a little worried at first. According to him, he had been born with a silver spoon in his moutn and had never really done anything physical or adventuresome, and this accelerated version of Basic Training was almost too much for him.

However, he held up pretty well, and, as the end of the course drew near, he was beginning to feel quite the soldier. One night, he was wondering what was going to happen the next day, so he wandered down to the end of the barracks to read the training schedule posted on the bulletin board.

As he read, he asked, "Hey! What does this mean? 'Live Grenade Throw'!"

Most of us did not realize at first that he was totally serious. Finally, as he stood there expectantly, one of us said, "You throw a live grenade."

Silence on his part. Then, "What do you mean, 'live' grenade?"

Then, he asked again, "Do you mean a REAL LIVE grenade? One that actually explodes?"

Getting several yep's, yeah's, uh-hu's, and nods his face crumbled. I think his last words before the barracks lights went out were, "Oh my God!"

When I fell asleep, he was pacing up and down the center of the squad bay.

He did okay, by the way. Only one guy fumbled his grenade but one of the guys in the pit with him kicked it through the hole into the sump and nobody was hurt.

My personal hand grenade story occured when I was going through Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, SC in 1966.

One fellow in our unit had never thrown so much as a rock in his life. During practice, I actually saw a dummy grenade backwards out of his hand as he tried to throw it.

When he threw his live grenade, he threw it straight up in the air. Fortunately, it fell just on the other side of the barricade and no one was hurt. Unfortunately, his position was directly in front of a viewing platform occupied by several officers and senior NCO's (Noncommissioned Officers). They were treated to the sight of a live grenade rising in the air directly in front of them.

We who were waiting our turns down below were treated to the sight of all those dignitaries, most of whom were highly decorated combat veterans, scurrying towards the exit at the back of the platform. The guys in the pit with the poor guy who had thrown the grenade did their jobs. They threw him to the ground and fell on top of him.

When he came out of the pits, he was bruised and shaken, but at least he was alive.

A Hick in 'Frisco

It was 1966 and, after two months of army basic training at Fort Jackson, SC, I was sent to heaven. Actually, Monterey, California, which remains one of my favorite places on earth to this day.

There I was, a kid from the sticks turned loose in Babylon!

Having read ever issue of the teenage boy's version of Boys Life, i.e. Playboy, I was aware of the existence of a hedonistic, modern version of Sodom and Gommorah a few miles north of where I found myself. Even the words which formed its name conjured up dreams of freedom...which, of course, included free sex!!!

After all, the topless craze, and the hippie craze, was in full bloom right there in San Francisco.

"Are You Goin' to San Francisco", was a popular song. All the big names seemed either to be from there or appeared to consider the city by "the bay" some sort of Mecca for fun, expansion of one's self, and free love.

Sure, there were all kinds of things to see in San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Chinatown...the list seemed endless. However, for a hormone ridden kid from nowhere, Pensacola, Florida, there was only one place to go...

NORTH BEACH!!!

That's where the topless bars were. That's where the women performed, the women I had already seen bare breasted in the pages of Playboy.

I already knew the names of the clubs; Big Al's, The Condor Club, and Off Broadway. I also knew the names of some of the women who performed there...women who not only had their naked pictures shown in Playboy, but who had been written about in Time, Newsweek, and other, more respectable publications.

Hey! I was a kid whose biggest moments had been shaking hands with Doc and Kitty from Gunsmoke (Milburn Stone and Amanda Blake), and watching live performances by Ace Cannon and the New Christy Mintrels. My sexual experience was a little slap-and-tickle with a couple of girl friends. I had seen New York City, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, who lived on Long Island, and driven past the hotel in Manhattan where the Beatles were staying.

I was ready for some real life adventure!!!

My mom had sent me some of my clothes, including the ghastly, brown, hick-from-the-sticks, three-piece suit off the rack at Sears on Palafox in Pensacola. Now, thinking back on that suit, I am reminded of Red Skelton's character, Clem Kadiddlehopper.

However, in those days, I thought that suit portrayed a worldly, sophisticated, individual...somewhat like the Simon Templar (The Saint) character I had been reading about for years.

Let's not even mentio the basic training buzz cut which was still growing out when I finally took the Greyhound (got that...sophisticated guy, three piece hick suit, buzz cut, greyhound bus), and headed for San Francisco.

I did get to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and I found a hotel room near Chinatown and took a walk through that famous area, but I was waiting for the night.

That night, wearing my heavy brown wool suit of armor, and carrying a few bucks, which rapidly disappeared as "covers" and "minimums" were met, I made my way through Sodom, excuse me, San Francisco, and turned dreams into reality...which, as usual, did not match the dreams.

Oh, I got to watch Yvonne D'Angers' act (term used loosely) at Off Broadway, and almost tripped over Carol Doda as she came out of The Condor Club pursued by reporters asking questions. I apologized for almost stepping on her, she smiled, but did not reply. I saw various young (again used loosely) ladies (ditto) in various states of undress undulate entertainingly, or not, and even had a topless shoeshine, which I had seen written up in some magazine or another.

I had no real adventures, other than satisfying a young man's lust for the view of acres of female flesh, and, on the bus ride back to Monterey the next day, I decided that I was glad I had gone, but wouldn't do it again.
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November 5 - An Anniversary of Sorts

I enlisted in the U.S. Army in Montgomery, Alabama, August 30, 1966. They put me on a bus which took me to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where I was housed in a tent at the reception station for a couple of days until I was assigned to a Basic Combat Training unit, Company D, 3rd Battalion, 1st Training Brigade, or "D-3-1! Best damn company on the hill! Sir!"

While waiting in tent city, I began to be assimilated into the army culture. I got yelled at, got my head shaved, got cursed at, and, when I accidentally called a Drill Sergeant "Sir", got told at a very close range, "Don't call me 'sir'. I work for a living."

I also got to experience the pure joy of the army mess hall, and the communal latrine.

Actually, for basic food, the mess hall was not bad. Plenty to eat, but, as the signs exhorted, "Take what you want but eat what you take" was the rule of the day. Also, eating in silence. They had to push a lot of people through what was a rather small mess hall, so you ate your food and got out. Fortunately, at later assignments, the army actually tried to make dining a relatively enjoyable experience, and a meal with your friends included plenty of conversation for seasoning.

The latrine, on the other hand....

How do I say this?

It was a large, drafty, wooden building. There was a shower at one end...essentially a large room with several very basic (maybe that's why it was called "basic"...basic food, basic showers, basic beds, basic toilets, etc.) shower heads. The shower took up about one-third of the building. The other two-thirds was a large room with sinks along one wall, and toilets, or should I say toilet seats, around the others.

Although AT&T had not come out with the ad yet in 1966, it gives new meaning to the phrase "reach out and touch someone"!

There were no stalls, no doors, no walls separating the toilets. You sat side-by-side with, or directly accross the room from, others engaged in the same activity.

As with every place in the military, there were more signs, but the ones I remember most vividly were the ones which said something to the effect, "Stand Up Before Flushing". I wondered about that one for a couple of minutes until someone did - flush while still seated, that is.

Apparently, they took the water for flushing toilets directly from the hot water line which went to the shower.

He got up rather quickly as hot water splashed against...ahem...delicate areas. Perhaps "leaped up" would be a better description than "got up".

I will write more about basic training later, but to get back to the anniversary mentioned in the title:

I graduated basic training on November 4, 1966. I had orders to report to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California to study German for six months. On the morning of November 5, 43 years ago today, a hungover Drill Sergeant drove me to the airport in Columbia, South Carolina where I boarded a plane for Charleston, where I changed planes. I changed one more time, I don't remember where, but believe it was Chicago, and the third flight took me over the Rockies to San Franciso, where I changed planes again to a little puddle jumper which took me to the Monterey airport.

This was the first time in my life that I had been in an airplane, my first trip to California (of the many in my lifetime), and the first (and fortunately last) time I got airsick.

Not much of a story, perhaps, but it's mine, and I'm sticking to it.
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