The moon is pretty in June

Commies Need Not Apply.

Most soldiers either don’t remember their first day of induction into the armed forces or just don’t care to. Well, I’m one of those old soldiers who remembers his first day quite vividly. I was with a group of guys from New York and we were all wondering what was going to happen next. We had all completed our physicals and were sitting in a large room. A soldier marches into this large room, where all the pre inductees are lounging in. He raised a clipboard from under his left arm and started to bark out some instructions.

“If you hear your name called out then step over the yella line. Harecourt, Sipenmeyer, Citroen, Barfman” 

“Sergeant, my name is Bronfman” said the young recruit trying to correct the pronunciation of his family name.

“Listen if you have a problem with my English, boy, then you can come up front, take a piece of chalk and write your name on the blackboard.”

Bronfman was a tall skinny guy with horn rimmed glasses who looked like he would probably major in Russian literature if he were in college. I kept thinking to myself, why didn’t he just keep his mouth shut and let the Sergeant think he had called out his name correctly. He nervously picked up the chalk and with a trembling hand wrote his name, B-r-o-n-f-m-a-n. He looked at the sergeant with a wane smile on his lips. The sergeant stared at the blackboard for a few seconds and said

“Ok, thanks for spelling your name for us, Barf-man! You can return to your position.”

One recruit standing next to me laughed aloud at the whole scene.

“You!” barked the sergeant at the laugher in the group.

Being that I suffered from an out of control guilt complex, I immediately thought he was pointing his clipboard in my direction.

“Me”, I replied.

feeling as if I needed to run to the men’s room to relieve my bladder.

“No”, said the sergeant, “The idiot standing next to you. Who are you laughing at boy!” the sergeant snarled.

“Nothing sir” replied the idiot, trying to stifle his laughter.

“What’s your name soldier” the sergeant demanded.

“Halloran” He replied,” Sam Halloran”.

The sergeant looked down on his clipboard he then looked back to Halloran.

“And don’t call me sir, do you unnerstand me boy!”

“Yes sergeant”, he replied.

Sam appeared to be a quick learner, something I admired since I was somewhat of a late bloomer when it came to following orders.

The sergeant called out twenty names in all and told them to take their belongings and line up in two rows, by the wall, on the right side of the room. A marine corporal then entered the room and marched off with the twenty men to a transport that would take them to Camp LeJune. The basic training camp of the United States Marine Corps. I then realized that I was fortunate not to have had my name called out. I signed up for the U.S. Army, well not exactly, I was drafted. I was a willing draftee.

“Ok, now listen up”, said the sergeant with the clipboard, “the rest of you dickheads follow me.”

We were all pseudo marched down the hall into a smaller room that looked like a classroom with two American bonafide Betsy Ross flags. Another soldier came into the classroom and we were told to stand up and take an oath to the army and the United States of America.

I”, Bill Shomaker , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to law and regulations. So help me God.”

Well, it’s been over forty years and that’s what I remember as part of the oath we all took. I was sure that if any one of us refused to raise our right hand and say the Military Oath of Induction, they would be pulled out of the group, branded as a communist and forced to stand trial. At the end of the kangaroo court the convicted “commies” would then be marched off and summarily shot by a firing squad.

Come to think of it, if my memory serves me correctly, no one was really executed for not taking the Military Oath of Induction.

 

A Day At Uncle Harry’s Dinner.

My uncle Harry owned a dinner that I worked in as a teenager. I got my job via nepotism. My Dad begged uncle Harry to take me on as his helper, so that I wouldn’t waste my time playing ball with my friends and hanging out with the neighborhood losers. (Losers, according to my dad, are those kids who always seem to have expendable income and know they are already slated to go to the best colleges, but don’t give a rat’s ass about it!) My dad wanted me to earn my own keep. His idea of being “responsible” was paying for the bed I slept in and to kick in some more “greenbacks” for the food shopping. I generally held my keep only long enough to see it being passed on to my dad. What remained of my salary was just enough to get me into a movie, once or twice a month. Ok, it also paid for my date, when I had one.

On this particular day, Uncle Harry’s dinner, was packed, to a fire code violation. The kids from PS 107, across the street from our store, were clamoring for their lunches. Most of them ordered hamburgers with crispy French fries and today was no exception. They were all waving at us from behind the counter yelling.

“I’m next!” one of the boys would shout.

“No, I’m next”, a spunky pigtailed girl shouted back.  

I was standing at the smoky grill cooking burgers while Harry’s sister, Terry, was preparing the platters and sandwiches. The boy who yelled “I’m next”, stuck his hand out and Terry, mistakenly, thought that it was his order.  The boy whisked the burger from Terry’s hands.  It should have gone to the spunky girl in pigtails. I tried to tell this to Terry but the din of the screaming kids was overwhelming.

“That was my burger”, yelled the spunky girl as the boy took a quick bite out of her hamburger. Sparks started to fly. I could smell trouble and it was not coming from the smoky grill. The two kids started yelling at each other and the rest of the kids began to take sides. I thought it was best to break it all up before it gets worse.

I was already seventeen and these were only eleven or twelve year old kids. I started to make my way around the long countertop. By the time I reached the spot where the two kids were tussling, food was flying all over the place. I caught one small boy, who was shouting,

“kick his black ass, sistah!” by the nape of his neck and pushed him to the entrance but didn’t get too far, when another boy sprayed ketchup on my grease stained white apron. Well, that was a clear sign, that the raging bull in me was ready to charge, “death to the perpetrator!” I thought to myself.

I looked at the ketchup squirter and could feel my adrenaline pumping. I grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket with my left hand and pushed his head back, with my right hand. Looking insane and wide-eyed, I whispered in his ear.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Do you want me to kill you?”

The boy looked terrified. His pallor went from black to pale white. I let go of him. “Don’t ever come in here again!”

 I shouted, as he scrambled out of Uncle Harry’s dinner. Once outside the dinner the “perp” screamed “Momma, Momma, he tried to kill me!”, but his mother was nowhere to be found.

 

Next time….

I always use the phrase “next time” as a retort when I am not sure of doing something. For example, the time my sister called me up one night and asked me why she didn’t see me at our cousins wedding. I replied candidly,

 ”Because I wasn’t there”.

The next phrase I muttered was, “oh, s**t, you mean the wedding was tonight!”

“Yes, it was tonight!” my sister said matter of factly.

 I was trapped.

 ”Are you still at the wedding?” I asked.

“No”, my sister replied, “I am in the car on the Hutchinson River Pkwy on my way back to Connecticut. The food was great”, she went on to say.

“They had Foie de Gras and duck confite, it was like eating at a four star restaurant. Why don’t you put on your suit and get over there, there is still plenty of food.”

“You mean your husband didn’t eat all of it?” I replied.

My sister, having no sense of humor said,

“Don’t you know Jack is on a diet. Why he lost 12 pounds in two weeks”.

“Sure” I said, it must have been the weight of his brain that he lost”.

“Well, Merry I guess I will be seeing each other at the next wedding that we are lucky   to get invited to”.

“Dave”, my sister advised,

“You need a better system to remind you of  these events.”

I told her she was right about that but next time, I wont forget the wedding date.