The Mill
May 20 2012;
As Damon Runyon said, "a story goes with it."
Sometime last week, I believe it was, I was
congratulating myself on this site for some
extremely minor achievement (I can safely say that,
never having accomplished anything major) and
decided to anticipate what many of you must have
been thinking by typing in a line of, 'yeah, I do want a
medal for that."
No later than the next morning I received a pipe
order from a customer, plus the promise that "the
medal is in the mail." I took that as nothing more
than a humorous reference to my comment and
forgot about it. But, a few days later, in my P.O. Box
was a padded mailer with a medal in it, and not just
any medal but an Army Marksman medal. It may
have been a bit of a joke to the sending party, but it
has some significant value to me.
During basic training at Ft. Gordon, Georgia in the
summer of 1966 (and please, let me sing the praises
of low crawling in the Georgia clay when the temp.
and humidity are both at about 100 degrees) one of
the required exercises was earning a passing grade
with your weapon (an M-14 I believe it was) on the
target range. Without that skill level, you could not
graduate Basic and the Army would put you through
the entire program again, or in the formalized
language of the Drill Instructor, "recycle your ass."
So, the day we went to the range, I was in a serious
state of mind and got down on the ground in the
stable, prone position and did my best to put each
bullet into the center of the target. I may have had
the bad attitude of a draftee, but I was not a
malingerer.
No amount of effort availed me of a hole anywhere
on my assigned target. I hit nothing (I dismissed the
thought that one of my strays might maim some
innocent Permanent Party on the base who was
leaning on his jeep enjoying a cigarette before
officially goofing off for the day) and thoughts of
spending my entire two years going through Basic
circulated in my brain.
However, I was being scored not by a Drill Instructor,
but another trainee, and when our group finished
shooting, we would switch places and I would be
scoring his effort.
Thus, I achieved a passing mark. Apparently, the
bright lad figured that if he played honest, and
flunked me (or maybe he was a draftee, too. It was a
long standing tradition that draftees do all in their
power to create snafus as a way of protesting the
servitude. Officers, not exactly America's intellectual
elite, were always an easy group to screw with. It's a
good argument for an all-volunteer military) I would
flunk him in revenge, regardless of his performance.
I wouldn't have. I'm Honest Marty.
Nonetheless, I was given a passing grade, and the
Marksman medal, about which I was always
ashamed, not having earned it. I was so abashed
that I buried that medal somewhere among my gear,
and promptly lost it. Nor, in the fog of war (and
marijuana smoke. There was lots and lots of
marijuana smoke on army bases in the 60's) did
anyone ever ask me about the absence of that medal
on my dress uniform, which I wore to work every
day, I think.
Until I had to appear before a promotions board to
make E-5, the pay grade equivalent to Sergeant.
They asked the empty spot above my pocket, and
were pissed at my pathetic excuse that I didn't like to
wear it because I worked in the Mental Hygiene
Clinic and I didn't want to scare soldiers who were
already freaked about the possibility of getting shot
at by people they didn't even know in a country they
had never previously heard of. Boy, was that
promotions board incensed. Especially because
they also didn't like my haircut, my insouciant
attitude and general ignorance of Army regulations
and protocol. To my way of thinking, they should
have asked me some baseball trivia.
In an attempt to mitigate the damage, I went back
and told the Sergeant in charge of the clinic that he
might hear from the promotion board. He did...they
told him that if he ever sent anyone that unprepared
again, his ass would be jacked up so high that he
would need a bomb site to take a shit.
This might lead you to believe that I did not get the
promotion, and you would be wrong. Although I
might have been the least competent man in a 3
million man Army (I'm guessing at that number) a
slot was available, and rather than lose that slot, and
lose it in perpetuity, the Division gave me the
promotion, but I still didn't have my Marksman medal.
I have it now, thanks to a customer, and if I want to,
I'll wear it, without any guilt. But I will not publicly
ask for any more medals for my deeds, worthy or not.
Marty
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