There was no legacy of higher education in my family whatsoever. I was the first in the history of my clan to finish even a traditional High School. But barely. I did so mostly because I knew it would make my mother happy after the hell my two older brothers had given her. I attended the minimum amount of days to graduate, had no one urging me towards lofty aspirations like college, and few tangible black male role models to look up to.
I was in trouble, vulnerable to all kinds of traps laid out for young, black, directionless people like me, and I didn't even know it.
It was about then that I became the target audience of a TV commercial campaign I'd been watching for some time. Whereas it used to go in one ear and out the other, suddenly, one day, it went in one ear and hung out for a few weeks, kicking it back and forth with my ego, addressing my unacknowledged desires for respect, adventure and escape, not to mention higher education, all in 30 seconds of images, song and carefully chosen narration. It didn't exit my other ear until I had gone to the recruiting station in downtown Brooklyn and signed years of my life away on a dozen dotted lines.
Yep, it was one of those "Be all that you can be" Army commercials.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QplWbNg57h4?si=kmp0M4M5a85EMKRv" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> Before I knew it, I was standing at attention alongside 50 some-odd boys from 'hoods and ghettos, trailer parks and farms, mountains, plains and prairies all over the United States. Half of us were Black, the other half White, with a dash of Latino, and an Asian on top. We came in all shapes and sizes, prejudices and predispositions, talents and temperaments, Christians and atheist, Jews and gentiles, gay and straight. We were a snapshot of America’s huddled masses all thrown together, in not so much a melting pot as a propaganda pressure cooker, for 10 weeks.
Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in an area known as Tank Hill, is where I did my Basic Training. In World War II barracks we were lodged and on Vietnam War era weapons we were trained. You couldn't help but think- lying there in your bunk in those ancient quarters- that legions of dead soldiers had lodged there and trained there just like you, learning things that would either save their lives or cost them dearly. Here, too, they were proselytized and programmed to put country before themselves and even their families.
The brainwashing took hold easier with some than with others. Seemed a lifetime of watching too many John Wayne movies, singing the National Anthem and pledging allegiance to the flag had laid the groundwork and prepared some recruits to gladly serve, and serve with pride. But, I hated John Wayne, only knew the National Anthem from watching sports (and didn’t even know all the words,) and the only Pledge of Allegiance I’d ever committed to memory was the one from my elementary school that began: “To the fruition of a Black Power...”
Needless to say, I was a much harder sell than most of the other recruits in my unit.
I was there strictly for the college money and a little adventure. I wasn't about to allow my brain to be washed. Not again. Hell, my brain was still in the spin cycle from the Five Percent, and the residue of my elementary school's race-baiting in the name of love was still stuck to my psyche like the April fresh fragrance of fabric softener in my T-shirts.
I made that position clear on day 1 to anyone who'd listen.
But, my Drill Sergeant, by the name of James, must have thought I'd said something else- maybe something like "I'm gonna kill you, Mrs. James and both of your little crumb snatching rugrats first opportunity I get!" because that's pretty much how he treated me from the moment I answered, "You know it!" to his sarcastically asked question, "So, you think you're special cuz you come from New York?" Everyone else had wisely answered Yes, Drill Sergeant or No, Drill Sergeant as per his instructions, and as I should have if I wasn't one of those folks who apparently know no other way to learn shit than the hard way. For some bizarre reason, I'd felt I had to challenge his authority. The Brooklynite in me screamed: fight the power, fight the power...
So, rather than get brainwashed, I just got tortured instead. I was the drill sergeant’s whipping boy, my name tattooed on his shit list.
Further efforts to turn me into GI Loco also met with resistance. I just wasn't built for self-sacrifice. I could march, shoot, toss grenades; salute the flag...hell I could even get with the team spirit. But, I drew the line at dying for any cause I didn't choose, or even pretending to be willing to. That was my relationship with military authority.
As for my relationship with my peers, well...
There are always those characters that stand out. While most people I meet tend to fade into the subconscious or become part of some elaborate amalgamation in my mind, some retain their singularity and vividness.
Private Frick was such a guy.
He was the first white person I'd ever met without any shred of sophistication. He was so hick he was practically a caricature. But, he was the best soldier in the Company, maybe the Battalion, hands down. Went from Squad leader to damn near Drill Sergeant status in about two weeks it seemed. It didn't hurt that he was 25! (Most of us were 17, 18 and 19, wet behind the ears and sticky in the boxers.) Plus, though he was only about 5'6 or 7 , he was chiseled, cut like some Olympic athlete who does those ring things without breaking a sweat. And he could do as many push-ups as the Drill Sergeant. (And my Drill Sergeant could knock out a hundred without even pausing, 200 before he started to slow down.)
Frick's character was just as strong as his body. Most of the white boys in the platoon were a little intimidated by us black folk...in the beginning, anyway. But, Frick? As he would say "Sheeeeet!" He didn't give a fuck about anybody.
I remember the first time he spoke to me directly. A bunch of us were in the shower one evening. Frick assassinated all my ideas about size and race. He was as hairy as an orangutan and hung like a horse.
I...was not.
"Damn, Loco, I thought all you guys had bazookas...sheeeet, you ain’t got nothing but a BB Gun!"
"Damn Frick, " I fired back, in rhythm...ranking is something we did daily back in Brooklyn when I was kid. Usually Mama jokes, though. "Your Moms must get pissed when you use the whole jar of mayonnaise to choke your chicken!"
Everyone, black and white, laughed. Frick and I became real cool from that night on.
Frick specialized in off-color jokes and comments...though I doubt he even knew he was being off-color. He used the "N" word casually, yet somehow he never came off as a racist. In fact you just knew that, though he was chock full of stereotypes and misconceptions, he didn't have it in for people based on color. And whatever preconceptions he'd held (like dick-size, for one) were being addressed on a daily basis right there in South Carolina. (He was from some flyover state, can't recall which...)
One time he told me his racial philosophy...it went something like this: "Back in my hometown, we all live together, niggas and crackers alike, and it didn't bother me none. Most of my homeboys, dumb rednecks mostly, they don't like niggas...blame everything on niggas. House gets robbed.... Mustuh been dem niggas! Truck gets hijacked...mustuh been dem niggas! But, sheeeet, I knows for a fact that them redneck bastards was robbing people houses in the next county. And them hijackings, sheeeet, half the time it be the drivers theyselves set the shit up. Knowhutimean? Way I see it, as long as you don't fuck with me or mine, and take care uh your own business, I don't give uh fuck what color you is!"
I never told him that I wasn't comfortable with his use of the "N" word. (This was in the pre- Political Correctness- years.) I'm not sure why. Thinking back, maybe I was a little scared of him.
It would cause problems later.
There was another standout in my memory. A black cat named Burns. Private Burns was from L.A. But not Los Angeles. On Tank Hill, L.A. meant Lower Alabama or the black equivalent of a Okie from Muskogee. I think he was actually from Louisiana. He was about 6'3, and with the general disposition and build of some guy who'd been given a choice: “finish out the remaining 10 years of your 15 to 25-year sentence here in L.A. State Penitentiary, or join the Army and finish your time there, being the best damn soldier Uncle Sam ever squatted and squeezed out.”
He'd chosen the latter.
There were three New Yorkers in the platoon, myself and two others. We were the platoon celebrities. NY being a rather famous city, everybody wanted a piece of us. Mostly out of curiosity, but we generated a great deal of resentment and jealousy, too. Burns was seething with it (though that may have been just my arrogance.) He had a deep inferiority complex, though, I believed.
And, I wasn't any help.
In addition to my resistance to the authority he'd genuinely sworn allegiance to, and my friendship with the one guy who beat Burns out for most of the leadership positions he'd strive for, I had the nerve to USO the troops with my mediocre Popping, Breakdancing and Rapping skills (this was the glory days of Hip-Hop, pre-bling-bling /gangster rap.) Plus, I'd occasionally feel the necessity to dig into my Poor Righteous Teacher / Five Percenter bag and pull out some jewels, something impressive.
"Dropping Science" we called it. And I'd have a posse of the brothers seated around me scratching their heads. Though I'd already "fallen victim" (what the Five Percenters say of people who drop out) I had brothers ready to convert and become my students.
I think it's fair to say Burns hated my ass...with a passion.
This is an part 1 of an excerpt from my first book: "Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist" Part 2 coming nnext week. Or if you can:t wait, you can cop it here:
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