Spiro sat in the pharmacy of The Dalice Veteran's Hospital.  A video screen hung from the ceiling and displayed rows of names in alphabetical order.  The man he'd given his prescriptions to had told him it'd be "about 45 minutes.  You'll know they're ready when ye' see yer' name on the TV".

He pondered briefly how ironic it was America expended big bucks and thousands of lives fighting communism, only to indulge in modern day pharmaceutical socialism here at home.  "I betcha' this place supplies prescription medicine to a million vets scattered throughout North Tejas."  He leaned back in the chair, thinking, "Maybe I can catch a few winks."

He went by bus from Dalice to Camp Poke in The Creole State in November of 1974.  The nearest civilization was a town called "Lee's Ville", jokingly called "Diseaseville" [(a reference to the prevalence of prostitutes and STDs) the acronym for suffering the tortures of the damned].

All the new recruits were put up in a holding area for a week on the south side of the fort  When they started active instruction, they'd go to the other side of the garrison.  With people there from every part of the country, germs from different geographies banded together to form a super contagion.  It affected the sensitive like European diseases did Native Americans 500 years ago.  Spiro had always been plagued by health problems from hayfever and allergies.  Within the week, he was afflicted by a mysterious creeping crud that resembled a severe chest cold.  He and two others went on "sick call".  They waited at the infirmary to see a physician, and chanced to overhear conversation between a pair of malingering malcontents who'd already left the southern "reception" sector and were actively involved in the northern fortress.  They were feigning illness to escape the regimen.  The duo didn't know it, but they were both going to be recycled (placed into another training unit, and have to redo the entire program).  They talked amongst themselves about the grueling hardships they endured.  Spiro didn't know about the others, but it psyched him out.

A person's mind could be their worst enemy.

He would realize later that boot camp wasn't much tougher than junior high school PE.  The hardest part of it was mental.  In the staging area, they did things like get vaccinations and haircuts.  They also learned to march and drew uniforms, then were hauled in "cattle" trailers to the north side of the encampment.  The mood was subdued on the trip.  The throng was apprehensive.  It was only human to fear the unknown.

The first day there everyone was instructed to put on full gear, and draw weapons.  They were then marched into the woods.  The pavement ran out, and was replaced with sandy loam.

It was hard to walk in sand period, especially in combat boots with a 100 pounds of crap strapped on.

The drill seargent barked, "Double time, march!"  Double time was like a trot.  The formation began to run.  Hot days in early November weren't unusual in The American South.  Almost at once, warriors began to flake out.  Before long, they were dropping like flies.

Spiro went as long as he could, then thought, "Muck this!" and slowed to a walk.  At that instant, the wiry DI (drill instructor) bellowed, "Quick time, march!".

No one but Spiro himself would ever know he had faltered.  He looked back.  The group to the rear made up of those who'd flagged was bigger than the crowd he was in.  He was later glad he had persevered.  All who hadn't were marked for extra harassment by the seargent mentors.

The marching was endless, most of it to and from rifle ranges.  Almost every morning, the men went to the armory and drew muskets.  One morning they didn't.  They were marched to a small, plain looking building.  They were directed to put on gas masks, then roll down their sleeves and collars as well as button them.

In groups of seven, they went inside.  The place was full of tear gas.  A drill seargent with a mask on was inside.  One by one, the men went before him, and removed theirs.  They were asked questions until the DI was sure they'd expended their air.  When they breathed in, he would dismiss them.  Some would have to be roughly 'helped' to the exit.

When it came his turn, Spiro drew in a big breath, and removed the mask.  The DI asked him his date of birth, social security number, and other banalities until he used up the air in his lungs.  Finally he had to inhale.  It burned his throat like fire.  He began to hack and gasp.  He felt a hand grasp his collar at the nape of the neck, drag him to the door, and shove him out.  He got in some shade to catch his breath, then undid his sleeves and rolled them back.  He noticed his hands were crimson.  The stuff was a skin irritant.  That's why it had scorched his trachea.  He glanced around at them that had recently come out and saw their faces were scarlet.

If necessity was the mother of invention, pain must have been the father of slapstick comedy.  He took up a position from which he had a clear view of the exit, and watched people come out.  Some were hilarious.  One character ran out in a panic, eyes red as cherries in a snowbank, blinded by tears, and collided broadside with a pine tree.

The bootees went through an obstacle course called the "confidence run".  There was a horizontal hand ladder (aka: 'monkey bars') in the approximate middle.  It was the time of year when there were frosts in the daybreaks, then oppressive heat in the afternoons.  Spiro was the first to scale the hand ladder.  The tops of the rungs were covered in hoarfrost.  On the fourth one he grabbed, he slipped and fell.  His torso had been in forward motion, and as a result, he landed heavily on his back.  It knocked the wind out of him.  He regained his footing, and kept on.  The final impediment was a moat.  A trainee grasped a thick rope tied off on one side, and swung across a pool of murky water.  The DI's said no one knew its depth, it harbored nests of poisonous snakes, and that at least two alligators were seen in it once.  The last individual across lost his grip on the line, and fell into it.  It wasn't even knee deep.

Each morning saw the recruits form up on the parade ground before dawn.  After he called them to attention, an instructor would cry, "Count off!".  Those on the first row turned their heads and sang out, "One!".  The second row then rotated their heads, and clamored, "Two!", and so on, the purpose being to have the odds or evens sidestep so there'd be sufficient room to perform jumping jacks.  In that manner, no one got slapped.

One morn, when Spiro was in the fifth row, an enlistee in the fourth row jumped the gun and shouted his number at the same time them in front of him uttered, "Three!".  For reasons unknown, it struck Spiro as the funniest thing he'd ever witnessed.  He laughed until he cried, and went to his knees.  He wore glasses with tinted lenses in them.  Unfortunately for him, the DI on the elevated podium saw him in the burgeoning daylight.

"You!  Yes, you!  Jackass with the sunglasses on!  What is the matter with you?  What are you breakin' my formation for?  Drop down there, and give me 50 pooshups'".  That particular sergeant called pushups "pooshups"... "pooshin' Camp Poke away...", he'd told someone. "The sea level of Camp Poke is about 30 feet lower now cause of all the pooshups' done here".  He said film "fillum".  Many times the company hiked to an auditorium called 'Bulldog Hall', and he would announce, "Today, we are going to see a fillum'..."

The marching aggravated a congenital mole on his left foot.  It had originally been the size of a marble, but had grown.  He was afraid to go on sick call for it.  If it was something he had to get off his feet to treat, he'd be "recycled".  He didn't want that.

The day after the curriculum was complete, he went to the base hospital.  They admitted him.  The doctors told him they would need to excise the blemish in order to identify it, and determine whether or not it was malignant.  The next morning, they deadened the foot, and removed the flaw.

Spiro wasn't unconscious.  He propped up his head and watched.  The local anesthetic numbed it.  It was gory.  It looked like a sawmill accident.  They tested it, and classified it a "benign blue nevis".  They stitched up the cavity they gouged it from, and he laid in the bed a couple weeks to heal.

After basic, he got to go home for a spell, then it was off to technical school.  He rode a bus from Dalice, Tejas to Camp Rooker, Alabam' on April fourth, 1975.  When it passed through The Mississippian Delta, he was amazed at the lush greenery.  In some places, a man wouldn't have been able to penetrate the undergrowth that bordered the state highway except with a machete.

Once there, he was adjudicated to The Forty Fourth Aviation Mechanics Training Company to attend school and learn to do maintenance on helicopters.   He roomed with a fellow Texan named Baily.

There was always a guy in any group with an imaginary target on him.  It was like the village idiot in merry old England or the town drunk in western films.  Maybe it was a male thing.  Perhaps it was just human.

In the 44th, it was a character named Humboldt.  He was the butt of every joke.  It was harmless bedraggling to the majority, but was probably hard on Humboldt's self esteem.

Humboldt was a northerner.  He wasn't a bad chap.

It was pretty soft:  three squares a day and all the BS one could handle.  "Hurry up and wait", was a popular slogan.  It aptly depicted the military.  The company did calisthenics every morning.  The men did jumping jacks first to get warmed up.  When most of the men's hands were over their heads, Humboldt's would be at his sides, and vice versa.  It wasn't too strenuous.  Everyone wore tee shirts to it.  Once Spiro wore a shirt with a couple of small holes in it, and a big stain on one side.  The platoon seargent asked him, "Where in the hell did you get that shirt, Braven?"

When the laughter subsided, it was announced, "The exterminator will be here tomorrow.  If you see bugs in your barracks, let him know".

"Crabs in Humboldt's room", Baily interjected.

There was a daily gathering at noon.  It was usually abrupt because of the stifling temperature.

Someone decided the 44th needed additional exercise.  Everyone assembled in formation, unaware of that.  It must've been a 108 degrees with 99% humidity.  Spiro began to drip sweat immediately.  One of the seargents ascended the podium, and said, "Now, we are going to have some PT (physical training) in the form of a run.  Seargent Crane will call cadence".

Seargent Crane was a nondescript fellow.  The most salient point about him was the shiny chrome helmet liner he must have had super glued to his head.  He never took it off.  He probably wore it to bed.

He stepped forward and shouted, "Ten hut!"

The troops came to attention, did a right face, and marched out onto the hot blacktop road in "quick time" step.  QT was just an ordinary walk.  The strides were about 30 inches long.  After the mob was on the roadway, Crane hollered, "Double time, hoo ah!"  The "hoo ah!", was a phonic substituted for "March!"

They hadn't gone a hundred yards before people started to fall by the wayside.  The fallout rate was sporadic at first, but rapidly increased exponentially.  The soldiers on either side of Spiro went down like they'd been shot.  He looked at Seargent Crane, and thought, "Surely he is gonna' stop this!  We are destined to be mechanics, not commandos!"

Crane must've thought the same thing, cause he yelled, "Round step, hoo ah!"  In round step, a marcher walked any way they wanted, then, "Company, halt!  Dismissed.  Regroup at the barracks in 15 minutes".

All those left mobile headed back towards the billet.  Some of those who'd fallen struggled upright and headed toward the quarters.  There were a few who were down for the count.  Squad leaders went to them, made sure they hadn't had heat strokes, and got them on their feet.

Miraculously, everyone congregated back at the 44th at the specified time.  It was never tried again.  From then on, the longest stretch the platoons ever covered was from the dormitory to the classroom, about a mile, and that at a walk..

He jerked awake, and realized where he was.  The list on the television was finished, and started over.  "Let's see now...  Baker, Belaros, Binder, Bosley, there we go, Braven.