Illustration by RJ Dombrowksi
Adventures at Fort Hamilton
By Doug Rigg
It was only a matter of time before comparisons were made between the current Iraq War and Vietnam. Media-juicy as such parallels may be, there are few similarities in two such distinct campaigns. Except, of course, for the death and destruction that are byproducts of every war. And the issue of recruitment.
Like many of my contemporaries, I needed to work to pay for college and couldn’t always maintain the necessary credits to qualify for a student deferment. In the fall of 1970 I was in such a situation, but had planned to return to full-time student status the following semester. I didn’t think the Selective Service would be efficient enough to catch me during such a short hiatus. But when a brown envelope turned up in my mailbox one morning, telling me to report for a pre-induction physical, my assumption bit the dust.
Being a soldier wasn’t among my preferred career choices. Strange as it may seem, the idea of fighting didn’t scare me as much as the thought of being forcefully removed from my world and immersed in a regimented military culture. Maybe it was the 12 years I’d spent in Catholic schools that poisoned me, but I cringed at the thought of returning to uniforms, line-ups, and hovering superiors.
Not until I opened that letter did I consider the plight of all those who went before me. I had begun to think critically about Vietnam and its human cost while listening to all that anti- and pro-war rhetoric that pervaded the media in those days. To me it seemed as if the more attention I paid to the issues, the more muddled they became. I was inheriting somebody else’s war, and that made me scared and confused. Yet I had learned on the streets of Brooklyn never to show fear in the presence of your adversaries, so one week later found me walking in the cold shadow of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge toward the guarded gates of Fort Hamilton.
At 7 a.m. the examination building was filling up fast with restless boys. The institutional atmosphere had a humbling effect on most of us who knew enough to sit down and keep our mouths shut. The few who tried to exercise a cocky street demeanor were quick to learn a valuable lesson: Try to ram your thick, young skull against the U.S. military and they’ll butt back twice as hard. The government personnel that hosted these little parties were tough, in control, and not about to take any guff from longhaired wiseguys. The aggressive, in-your-face style of the Army’s experts in intimidation quickly compelled us into a state of quivering compliance.
Action started during a brief orientation when an angry lieutenant ordered the “guy with the camera” to turn it in as photography was strictly forbidden. We all looked around. No camera appeared. The lieutenant then raged up and down the aisles, searching random individuals. He cursed, threatened, and screamed, but still found no camera. Apparently frustrated, he disappeared behind a shower of burning expletives. Those who were considering applying for Officers Candidate School freaked.
We were herded into several smaller rooms for intelligence tests. A circulating joke questioned the necessity for such exercises, suggesting that anyone dumb enough to get himself into this mess must be well qualified for military service. The administering sergeant encouraged us to do our best, claiming better scores would produce better jobs for those ultimately inducted. Despite our youth, most of us were already cynical about government assurances; I’d bet that 80 percent of those smart enough to figure out which end of the pencil to write with were also trying to score lower than those happily scrawling with the eraser.
Things rolled into high gear when we reached the medical examination area. After hurriedly stripping down to shorts and shoes, we began our prodded trek through the procedure. First we were ordered to pee into little cups. Not ordinarily an arduous task, urination becomes virtually impossible when you’re standing around an open trough, bare shoulder to bare shoulder with 20 other flustered guys. Most of us had trouble finding our chilled appendages, let alone getting them to function. After producing a few drops, we presented our offerings for analysis. A cranky little orderly in a white coat dropped strips of test material into the cups, never actually looking to see what color the paper turned. Everybody passed. I wondered what constituted failure. Maybe if your juice jumped out of the cup and attacked the orderly you might fail. Or be immediately sent off to advanced commando school.
Next we endured having our privates groped and poked, then had the pleasure of bending over to expose our rear passages as the gaping collective looked on. One unfortunate big-mouth asked the examiners if they were considered the Army’s “rear echelon.” He was plucked out of the line and probably found himself cleaning latrines in Saigon the next day.
Even the more familiar medical rituals were carried out in a manner that made us as miserable as possible. Blood pressure cuffs were pumped up to truck-tire levels, and tongue depressors were shoved so far down your throat that you might have thought you were getting a colonoscopy the hard way. Worse, our demented captors seemed to bask in the dark glow of our suffering.
The psychological profiling station was a singularly intriguing stop. Still nearly naked and closely lined up, we could eavesdrop on the interviews of colleagues. To my amazement, many of the “normal” Brooklyn guys I’d been marching with suddenly turned psychotic. Some heard voices, others claimed strange visions or plots against them – the variety of stories was incredible. But competition was fierce, and only the most polished talkers got in to see the psychiatrists.
As luck would have it, my stay was extended so that a real doctor could further evaluate me in the afternoon. Uncle Sam provided lunch and I soon found myself eating beside another held-over member of the morning parade. I had noticed this guy earlier because of his unusually distraught condition. Though tears had been flowing freely down his face, his large, muscular frame convinced his peers to reserve comment.
Over lunch he explained that he wasn’t against being drafted, nor did he have a particular fear of combat. What was bothering him was his mother. She’d had to stop working because her blood pressure was dangerously high. With no other family income, he was forced to quit college and get a job, losing his protective student deferment. He figured his induction was his mom’s death sentence. Soon his name was called and he walked off, two more potential casualties of the war.
The doctor examined my trick knee and scratched some codes on my paperwork. Ignoring all my attempts at conversation, he never uttered a word. Afterward, I was escorted to the final evaluation area. The room, which contained several banks of small metal desks and chairs, was unoccupied this late in the day. My escort pointed, I sat and waited. A few minutes later, in stepped the same lethal-tongued lieutenant who’d conducted the morning orientation. Instinctively, I stood. He glared, and I sat.
The lieutenant sat down and began inspecting my papers. He didn’t talk either. I concluded that these guys had lost all normal speech function – they either shouted or remained silent. As I watched, he checked this and circled that, scribbling notes and transferring data from one sheet to another. I badly wanted to inquire about the elusive camera, but wisely decided against it. He then wrote “1-Y” as my classification, handed me a receipt, and waved me out the door.
As soon as I got past the front gate I jumped with glee. A 1-Y classification meant I was available for military service only in the case of national emergency, which had not been declared. I was free. My car was parked some distance away, and I started a happy, relieved run, bad knee and all.
I had gone about half a block when I heard someone calling from behind me. A huge black man was running up the street, waving his arms. I started to look for an escape route, until I realized that it was my lunch partner. As he caught up he told me, amid heavenly praises, that he had also been freed – suffering from high blood pressure like his mom. We celebrated our good fortunes with a blissful trot down the street, and when his bus met us at the corner we shook hands before he climbed aboard. As the bus pulled away he leaned out the window and waved, shouting something I couldn’t make out over the groan of an old engine. It didn’t matter; his broad smile said it all.
For many years, every time I crossed the Verrazano Bridge I’d look down on the Fort and wonder how many “normal” Brooklyn guys went on to serve in Vietnam, and how many names scratched on official forms that cold November morning would end up etched into the black granite wall in Washington. But the grace of recall is its tendency to pale over time. The adventure slowly faded.
Yet now the evening news again serves up combat footage and images of broken women clasping folded flags. Another conflict with no perceptible end has renewed old apprehensions and triggered forgotten memories. And recollections of Fort Hamilton freshen as I see more Brooklyn boys and girls march off and come home, some walking, some not – heroes all.
After 25 years in the computer industry, Doug Rigg abandoned technology to focus on the “softer pleasures of life.” He currently serves as staff writer for a private university in New Jersey.
