In a weird firing of synapses I reconnected with a friend from AOCS and flight school.
I was in the kitchen getting ready to make some blueberries muffins, Chicago PD was on in the living room. Some loud conversation was happening on the show and one of the voices reminded me of Mikey.
So I went to FB and looked him up. Even though his profile picture is of him a teenager, there is no mistaking that mug. I did the friend request thing, and got an immediate response. I called him a few minutes later and we ended up talking for four hours.
He was the second guy I met at AOCS. Starting AOCS was an awful experience. You have no idea what is going to happen, and the graduating class is running the show as the entering class is trying to check in. The patients are running the asylum.
Yelling, running, sweating. Constantly conflicting directions. Go here, go there, drop that, pick that up, left, right, stop, why did you stop?
It is a weeding process. I know that, even though it is considered hazing in the newly pussified USA. You don't want to have to rely on someone who can't handle being yelled at when people are shooting at you.
After an hour or so of running all over the regiment carrying my bags I was finally assigned a room. The rooms weren't air conditioned, this was Pensacola in May '89 and I am a big sweater anyway - in fact my AOCS callsign was "Cashmere" aka a high quality sweater.
In the room were four racks, each in the outer corners of the room. Beside them was a locker. In the middle of the room were four desks pushed together to form a square. There was one guy there. He was frantically copying notes from a binder into a little 4"x2" memo book.
We weren't allowed to speak in anything other than third person for three and a half months. It's a lot easier than it sounds. You basically start speaking a different language.
The guy who was already in the room, Tom, had to let me know that I was supposed to copy everything into my "Poopie Gouge Book" - the little green memo book. "Poopie" being what we were before being in uniform. "Gouge" being information, or things you needed to know.
"The candidate will take the binder and copy the information into the Poopie Gouge Book letter for letter" he said.
It was orders of a sentry and random jargon and code of conduct. It would be soon apparent to us how serious memorization would be. Everything in the gouge book was fair game and failing to answer correctly cause the entire class a lot of pain.
A half hour later I heard the next guy show up out front and the drill started all over again. I can still hear him yelling his six-syllable Italian surname and thinking he was going to have one hell of a time.
An hour later they seated him across from me as i finished doing my copying. And I repeated the "The candidate will..."
Some friendships defy explanation. I finished the spiel. He smirked. And I smirked. And we both knew they couldn't beat us. Both of us sitting there sweating and smirking.
Our class started with 45 candidate. The picture taken in front of the NASC shows 16 candidates the hour before we were commissioned.
I was married at the time. Mandcub was two. Mikey was a chick magnet, so it is with some guilt I wished I had his situation. Once in flight school he had a different hottie every week. And I did my studying in the laundry room.
I finished off my career, and he bailed after 6 years - going on to be a private military contractor. He'd only gone to AOCS because he wanted to be a SEAL. He never got to BUDS but he did the next best thing.
Now I live in a two bedroom condo in town I was born in. He is married and has three kids ranging in age from 5-12, and also lives in the town he was born.
Stephen King, in "The Body" said that no one has friends like they had when they are 12. I think the same can be said for friends you had at 25.
It was nice to catch up.
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