The Long Escape Page 3

I thought about this for a moment and then I asked him, “How can you live this way, always having to worry about the next bigot that comes along?

  It was his turn to think for a minute. Then he said something that I will never forget. He said, “This is America. It’s a melting pot of people, most of whom are pretty damned good. I’ve read a lot, and been around a bit, and I’m convinced that, eventually, all of this will pass. Not during my time, and maybe not during my kid’s time, but certainly by the time my grandchildren are my age. You see, this is America. The good guys always win in America and, one day, they’ll win this battle too.”

  I don’t remember what I said then, nor do I remember much of the conversations that we had after that. But I sure hope that man lived to witness the changes that came with the Civil Rights Movement just a few years later. He was right about America. He just thought that it would take longer than it did.

  I got off the train in San Diego, ready for boot camp. But again, someone had called the authorities. I was met at the train station in San Diego by a Navy chief petty officer who gave me a return ticket and told me to come back when I was old enough. Frustrated, I went back home and worked odd jobs through the winter.

  When the spring of 1957 rolled around, I went far and wide looking for work. A friend, Joe Thompson, and I drove across the state almost to South Dakota, looking for day jobs or any kind of work. It didn’t happen. By the time we gave up and returned home, we had traded everything we owned for gasoline and we had lived for days on celery stolen from a farmer’s field. I had never felt so beaten.

  Finally, in May, a friend of a friend came through for me and hired me as a ranch hand in a small town about a hundred miles from St. Regis. I was given room and board and worked part time, as-needed, for the ranch. There was no pay, but at least it kept me eating and it didn’t cost Mom anything. I took care of their goats and moved their cattle from pasture to pasture. During my down time, I managed to get a part-time job piling lumber in a local sawmill. It was a small mill, so I was able to juggle the jobs and keep both employers happy. The mill paid me by the board-foot as the lumber was stacked, so I had enough money for necessities and a little to send home.

  Both jobs were work and I really appreciated having them, but God, how I hated those goats! It seemed like I couldn’t get the smell of them off of me. I have to admit, I was not unhappy when winter set in and these jobs came to an end. When that happened, I went home again, restocked the bunkers, and started working odd jobs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Army

  I came home from the ranch job just before my seventeenth birthday. I had long planned to join the military when I was old enough because, in my mind, this was the only way I would ever escape the life I was living. I had done some reading and learned about the benefits of a military life. I thought that the twenty-year retirement would give me a great start in life, after which I would have some independence to decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

  In my mind, any kind of college was simply unattainable. College was for the rich kids, and I just was not one of them. At that time, I had no concept that my high school record (or lack of one) would make any difference.

  I was totally dedicated to the concept of a military career, but I hadn’t decided on a branch of service. I had some friends in the Air Force, but airplanes just didn’t interest me. The Marines were far too macho for me. Besides, Dad was a former Marine, so that was out. The Army and the Navy were my preferred services, but I was having trouble deciding between them.

  Then the National Guard began advertising a program under which you could join the Guard and spend six months on active duty with the Army. They also guaranteed that enlistees would receive an Army school during the six months. This sounded good to me. It would give me a chance to evaluate the Army, and the school might start me on the road to some sort of career. So, a few days after my seventeenth birthday, I joined the Montana National Guard and requested the six months’ active duty.

  It took the Guard a few months to arrange for my active duty billet. In the meantime, I hunkered down at home and worked odd jobs when I could find them. Mom was pregnant again (with my youngest brother, Danny), so I helped around the house a bit and tried to keep the bunkers in shape to provide refuge when we needed it.

  In March 1958, I reported to Fort Ord, California, for Basic Training. About all that I remember about those first days was the total awe that I felt. Everything was simply overwhelming. I had expected the loud sergeants and the regimentation; I had read enough and seen enough movies to know that this was coming. What I didn’t expect was the range of people that I was suddenly exposed to.

  The six-month Reserve Forces Act (RFA) Program, coming when the draft was still a reality, had captured a totally diverse bunch of people. My fellow recruits ranged from people with serious social problems to people with advanced university degrees trying to slide past the draft. All races and religions were represented, which was a bit of a shocker for me. To make matters worse, most of them were from larger cities and talked about things I simply didn’t comprehend. I was very small for my age (5’8”, 115 lbs) and was naturally a bit bashful, so I tried to stay as unnoticed as possible.

  I did everything that I was told and managed to get through the first couple of weeks almost unnoticed. Then, on a Saturday, my bad teeth betrayed me and I had to ask for help. My jaw had swollen to about twice its normal size and I was in serious pain. So I went to my assigned recruit platoon leader and asked to go to Sick Bay. The platoon leader was at least ten years older than me and was one of the more educated recruits. He immediately took pity on me. He asked and received permission to escort me to the Base Dental Clinic and we set off.

  It turned out that, because it was the weekend, I was the only patient in the clinic when we got there. A young soldier who turned out to be a dental assistant looked me over and decided to call in an on-call dentist. All of this was new to me. I had never been to a dentist before, and it was a bit of an adventure. I had been ashamed of my teeth for years, but this was my first shot at getting work done on them. I was both scared and excited.

  The dentist, when he finally showed up, was a tall, slightly overweight man with major’s leaves on his uniform. He stank of booze, an odor that I knew only too well, but I was not about to do anything to antagonize him. I had never seen anyone with this much rank before, and he scared me silly.

  The major took a cursory look in my mouth and started yelling. He called me every name in the book. Apparently, I was some type of “low-life, draft-dodging, motherfucking RFA bastard” who had absolutely ruined his Saturday afternoon.

  The dental assistant tried to calm him down, but to no avail. The major got so loud that my platoon leader came in from the waiting room to see what was happening. The major called him some choice names and made him leave the room. Then he got busy on my mouth.

  I was petrified by fear at this point. I did not know what the correct dental procedure was, so when he told me to open my mouth, that was exactly what I did. He inserted some type of brace that kept it open and began work, still cursing. Before he finished, he had pulled twelve of my teeth, six on each side. He had not bothered to use any Novocain or any other type of anesthetic. My face and my uniform shirt were covered with blood.

  I will never forget what the major did then. He just looked at me as if I were an animal, spat in the sink, and walked out of the room. Luckily for me, he stopped in the waiting room and told my platoon leader, “Get that little cocksucker out of my clinic, and do it now!”

  At this point, the platoon leader smelled the booze. He rushed in to where I was still in the chair. The dental assistant was getting ready to clean me up, but the platoon leader stopped him. Instead, he told me to sit still, and he called back to our barracks duty center. He told the duty sergeant (a real Army sergeant, not a recruit) what had happened. I learned later that the duty sergeant had then called the base’s Military Police. I was still in the
chair covered in blood when two MPs showed up in the door. I was very woozy, but as I remember it, they took pictures and statements. Then they took us to the Base Hospital where a doctor cleaned me up and gave me some painkillers. Then the MPs drove us back to our barracks.

  I was placed on light duty for a few days, during which the platoon leader told everyone what had happened. In the meantime, the MPs had placed the major on report for a whole list of infractions, including being drunk on duty. The dental assistant, platoon leader, and I all had to provide testimony about the major’s actions. It seemed like this went on for weeks.

  My mouth healed rapidly and to tell the truth, I was glad the teeth were finally gone—but the Army was not so forgiving. I never found out what happened to the major, but I doubt seriously that he stayed with the Army after that episode.

  Soon, I was back to the routine of Basic Training. A little later, I was singled out, along with about six other recruits, to interview for Officer Candidate School. Apparently, we had scored exceptionally high on the general-knowledge tests administered the first week of Basic. My platoon leader was also there and was selected to go to OCS after Basic. I was interviewed, but when they found out that I hadn’t graduated from high school, they sent me back to the barracks.

  I remember the weeks that I spent in Basic Training as mass confusion. I was learning the Army’s basic information as they fed it to me. But, at the same time I was learning a whole new way of life. I was learning to talk to people as an adult and equal. I was learning about ways of life that were entirely alien to me. In this place, I was encountering cultural differences, racial differences, religious differences, and even language differences. With my background, even seemingly insignificant differences like personal hygiene and the use of hygienic products were of major interest to me. It seemed like everything, absolutely everything, differed radically from anything that I had experienced before! The social experience alone made Basic Training one of the most intense learning experiences of my life. I kept my mouth shut and watched, listened, and learned.

  Finally Basic was over. I went home on my first military leave. Dad seemed to be actually a bit proud of the fact that I was a soldier. He never bothered any of us for that entire two weeks. My youngest brother, Dan, was born while I was home on leave.

  While I was home this time, I saw another side of Dad that surprised me. As background, I should mention that Dad, before he started drinking seriously, had been a voracious reader who had actually studied the Bible extensively. But he never talked about religion, so I hadn’t a clue as to his actual religious beliefs.

  Dad was home one morning, still sober after eating breakfast, when two Protestant missionaries came to the door. Dad answered the door and invited them in. Soon the three of them were earnestly discussing religion. Dad listened politely as the missionaries talked about how Christ could save his soul, interrupting occasionally with questions that they eagerly answered. I was listening closely because I could not believe that Dad was really discussing religion.

  Gradually, Dad steered the conversation onto biblical tales and then on to what had happened to the apostles after Jesus was crucified. He zeroed in on the Apostle John and the legend that John had been placed in a cauldron of boiling oil, but had survived. The missionaries were more than happy to discuss this, and started to go on about “God’s miracles,” but Dad interrupted them with, “You know, when you think about it, they really french-fried that bastard, didn’t they?”

  The missionaries were totally taken aback, staring slack-jawed at the man in front of them. Dad leaned back in his chair, cupped his hands behind his head, and said, “That’s what should happen to any son of a bitch that tries to preach this superstitious crap to someone who isn’t interested.” The two missionaries beat a hasty retreat, never to return.

  The rest of my leave was uneventful. When it was over, I reported to the Army’s Field Communications Crewman School at Fort Ord. There I spent eight weeks learning to climb telephone poles, splice wires, operate field radios, and drive large trucks. The school was very easy and I breezed through it. The thing I remember most from the school was going to see Elvis Presley in concert at the base theater. Elvis was awesome. School was boring.

  I served the remainder of my six months working in an Army short-wave radio station and returned home about a month before my eighteenth birthday.

  The Army intensified my desire to have a military career. I had the idea that I could go into the military, spend the required twenty years, and then work the rest of my life in some new field that I would find during the military time. In other words, the military was to be only the beginning of my escape.

  But I still had not decided which service to join. I had tried the Army and was no longer excited by it, but the Air Force and the Navy recruiters were both promising me good schools. Then fate intervened and made the decision easy.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Boot Camp

  I had only been home from the Army a couple of weeks, and I was walking along the highway in St. Regis when my old friend, Joe Thompson, drove up. He leaned out of his car window, grinned, and said, “I’m going to Missoula to join the Navy. Want to come along?”

  I didn’t hesitate; “Sure, got nothing better to do.” With those six words, I sealed my fate and started on a track that took me into a world that lasted far beyond the next twenty Navy years.

  We had to wait several weeks between our trip to Missoula and the day that we actually shipped out for San Diego. Somehow, I managed to run into a lot of excitement during this short period.

  A good friend from the Mormon Church, a really nice girl named Sue, had made a mistake and was pregnant. The father was an older guy who had absolutely no intention of interrupting his life for a minor thing like a baby. So she was in trouble. A group of us found out about it—before anyone else did—one night while we were sitting together in the local truck stop café, just being teenagers. Sue was there and she broke down; telling us about her problem. She was very emotional and humiliated, and she hadn’t told her parents yet, so she was scared. We put our teenage heads together and came up with a plan.

  In all of our teen wisdom, we decided that Sue and I would claim that I was the father and then we would get married. Since I was going to be in the Navy, she could get medical care during her pregnancy. Then, after the baby was born, we could make a decision as to whether we would stay married or not.

  This plan made good sense to us at that time, so we put it in motion. First we told my parents. I have to admit that they took the news better than I thought they would. Dad even took a day off work and went with me to discuss the situation with Sue’s parents. All four parents accepted our story as the truth, and both fathers insisted that we wait until after I completed Boot Camp before we actually got married. So that became the plan.

  I was very excited by this development. There was nothing in the world that I wanted more than a real family like the one that I’d seen at the Bennett’s home. My old daydreams of the family in the little cottage with the white picket fence came alive again. I had always known that, one day, I would have a real family—a good family—of my own. With Sue, this could become a reality much sooner than I had thought possible. I knew that we didn’t love one another. But I was certain that love would come with time.

  The days passed rapidly, and I prepared to leave for San Diego. Then, on the day before I was due to leave, I realized that Mom was low on food and I decided to go deer hunting one last time. Needless to say, it wasn’t hunting season, but that’d never really been a big thing in the past if the family needed food. So I headed off and, before long, I’d killed a nice whitetail buck. I was about a half-mile off of an old dirt logging road when I shot it. I cleaned it and buried the unwanted parts, then hauled it out to where I had left the car. I was in the process of trying to load it into the trunk of my car when the county sheriff pulled up behind me.

  I was in major trouble. I knew that I’d be arr
ested for poaching the deer and that would put the Navy beyond my reach. In those few seconds, I saw my future falling apart.

  I knew the sheriff by reputation only. His name was Francis Tamietti, and he was legendary in that part of Montana. He was a slim man that always wore carefully-pressed brown and tan clothes topped by a white cowboy hat. He ran a tight county and no one disobeyed the law there without paying the price. When he pulled up, I just stood there. I knew I was on my way to jail.

  He got out of his car and stood there, looking at me. “Jeff! What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  I almost fainted. How does he know my name? Somehow I pulled myself together enough to answer. The words flooded out in an embarrassed, scared, stream: “Hi, Sheriff. I’m leaving for the Navy tomorrow and the family needs food. I wanted to leave Mom with enough to eat while I’m gone.” I was stammering.

  He just stood there with his stare going through me. It seemed like forever before he finally spoke. “Well, let’s get it loaded before someone comes by here and sees us.”

  I almost fainted again.

  We loaded the buck into the trunk, tying down the lid so it couldn’t be seen.

  When we finished, he gave me that long, steady, look again and said, “Son, this never happened.”

  I agreed and shook his hand. Then I headed for home with the family’s winter meat. I don’t think I ever saw Sheriff Tamietti again, but I’ll never forget him.

  Early the next morning, Joe and I reported to the recruiting station in Missoula. Our recruiter was a little, skinny, guy (about my size) who had introduced himself as Gunners Mate First Class Hinkle. At that time, the title meant nothing to me, but he was older and had an arm full of red stripes, so I just assumed that he was a minor god and we got on with it. I had already taken the Navy battery of tests and had done well, so Recruiter Hinkle had promised me that I would get an electronics school after Boot Camp. I actually believed him!