SOLDIER BOY

 
I wish I had been in the military. I could have been in, but I didn’t go. I was against Vietnam. I learned quagmire — the word — from Walter Lippmann in Newsweek.

I can take orders and I don’t generally sass people, and I’ve never argued with cops or umpires.

Some of my high school classmates went into the service.  Some are on the war memorial on Green Road. By and large, these deceased guys weren’t in the college-prep classes.

One high school friend — a Jewish guy — went to Annapolis, though. He eventually became acting head of the FBI in Cleveland. I visited him at his office, and we brainstormed on ways to thwart terrorists. I didn’t have much to contribute.

When I was in elementary school, I sent away to the Air Force Academy for photos, and the academy mailed me an application.

I was mistaken for a military man only once, when I represented the Armed Forces at a sign-review meeting at Lakewood city hall. The Armed Forces rented a store from us. A sign-review board member said, “You walk like a military man.”

Atten-hut! Thank you.

The Armed Forces recruiting center housed the four major branches: Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force. The Army turned its basement area into a gym with punching bags and a Nautilus.

In 2008 the recruiters moved out and went across the street to a newer building, and left us with three ratty sofas, a rusty Nautilus, barbells, a mini-trampoline and a punching bag. For starters.

I wrote to the Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, re U.S. lease W912QRM504000025:

There is 40 years’ worth of  junk in the basement: 27 chairs, a punching bag, American flag, scrap shelving, metal framing, boxes of “Army of One” promotional material, two bikes, six pieces of Nautilus-like weight equipment, barbells, a mini-trampoline . . .

A 1970s stereo system, file cabinet, and a lot of assorted paperwork, of which I’ve enclosed an invoice from 1991, just to give you a flavor for what’s down there.

The government paid for the hauling. That was my last dealing with the military. “Sgt. Stratton” never happened. Nor did “Private  Stratton.”  I feel somewhat guilty about that. (I know, typical ex-hippie revisionist thinking.)