Free at last
They avoided having to send me to another
base, because by the time I got settled my time would be up. So they let me go,
and I got my honorable discharge. I came home with a two and a half pack a day
nicotine jones.
When I got back smokes were about .75
cents a pack. So I cut down to about a pack and a half a day, and eventually to
a pack a day. Prices kept going up, and I remember thinking
that if they ever went up to a buck, I would quit.
My family, my pals they all thought I
smoked too much. But they hadn’t been through what I had
been through. They hadn’t walked in my shoes, so they didn’t know. You grow a lot
after four years in the military, you learn real quick not to take anybody’s
bullshit. So I guess a lot of peeps may have seen me in a negative light. I wasn’t the
same kid who went off to work for Uncle Sam. No, I was a full grown man who smoked
an awful lot.
The first thing I did when I got back was
to lose all my military gear. One cold winter morning I got up, gathered all my
air force issue, and stuffed it into my duffle bag. There
were several pairs of shoes, some brand new; my brogans, fatigues, dress blues,
khakis; my heavy dress blues; my heavy wool overcoat; the whole lot of it. I dragged the bag down the stairs,
marched to the corner city trash can, and dumped it. Good riddance I was free
at last indeed. At the time there wasn’t a lot of
respect or appreciation for vets. Some cats at airports, returning home, were even
spat at or had garbage thrown at them.
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