An Odyssey in Basic Training
by Charles Merkel
Part 1 appears in this issue
conclusion
But no! I was hiding from a damn fort cab. The taxi rolled along slowly, nonchalantly. I hesitated, wondering what might happen if the cab was part of a secret police system. I mean, the cadre really had our young minds fearing everything, real or not. But I figured I had no other option. I rushed it with all I had.
“Taxi! Taxi!” I called loudly.
He stopped his window all the way down. “Hop in.” he said easily. “You can ride up here if you want.”
“I’m lost. I need to go to C-5-3.” I said as I climbed into the front seat.
A smile crept onto his face. “Damn alive, boy!” he bellowed. “That’s a basic training company. You’re AWOL, aren’t you?”
“I had to call my sister. She got diagnosed with blood cancer.” I said reaching for my wallet. “Just found out, special delivery.”
“Get off that shit, man. Your orderly room woulda let you call in a case like that. You’re out cattin’ around. Absent without leave. Where you been? Waynesville?”
The guy was cocky yet seemed like someone who wouldn’t screw me over. A fellow traveler, if you will.
“Hell,” I said still out of breath. “What I did was make a call from outside of a PX. We’re supposed to have a weekend pass if we do well on our Friday morning inspection. There’s a free bus to Saint Louis, if we want. I called my chick in Kentucky to see if she’d meet me there.”
He laughed pounding the steering wheel. “I knew it! I see it at least once a week, that’s why I patrol the boonies just outside all the encampments. There’s no business after the movie house and the PXs close. But I could read it in your eyes. Some guys got instinct and could never get lost, but some of you couldn’t piss without soaking your pants then not finding your zipper.”
I pulled six bucks from my wallet — all I had — and shoved it towards him.
“You keep your money,” he said. “Costs a quarter for a ride any wheres on this lovely installation at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. If you want, you can give me a buck. C-5-3’s not that far, if you know what you’re doin’. But you ain’t gotta go back right now unless you wanna.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that, and I’ll give you two bucks. But damn, I gotta get back right now.”
He smiled, reached down into a tiny cooler I hadn’t noticed between us and handed me an ice-cold beer.
“Jesus!” I blurted. I loved beer and hadn’t had one in nearly six weeks. I stared with all my heart at the white and red can of Budweiser and slowly stroked away some condensation the way I might’ve touched Penny’s face. I took the church key he offered me and punched two holes in the can, then chugged half of it. My eyes closed, “Oh God,” I said with a sigh once the chilled carbonation had cleared my tongue and throat.
“Tough to beat when you ain’t had one in a while. A little like ass,” he said philosophically.
“You’re not kiddin’.”
In the next minute, he whirled around a corner, sped up for about a quarter of a mile, made a sharp left at a stand of trees, then slowed to a crawl. “This is a good place to get out. See through this company, to the one between those two barracks facing us?”
I nodded, taking another sip.
“That’s your company. This one that you’re going to cross through is C-5-1. Now, if I rounded the corner, we’d be facing C-5-3. That’s not the best way to get into their area. You do it through the side. Now, you’re better off to run through this unit, slow down, then float into your barracks. Go into the latrine. Wash your face, take your shirt off. If by chance your CQ or your barracks fire guard questions you about being outside, deny you left the company.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Say you needed some air to keep from crackin’ up. Or that you thought you might puke. They’re not going to do anything. Besides, everybody’s dreamin’ about doin’ what you did.”
Nodding, I gave him the two dollars. He opened another can and told me to chug all I could. I managed to down most of it. “Geez man, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Forget it. I went through it, too. Six years ago. Got out and came back to the area. Fell for a high school chick when I was stationed here. We’re married now, live in a trailer park just off Route 66.”
“Wow, that’s really neat.”
“Yeah, I work at Sears during the day. Do this a couple nights a week. Prudence worked at Krogers till our little bundle of bawling stink was born. Man, I need my time away from that damn trailer.”
Taken back a bit about the description of his child, I simply said, “Well, thanks again. So much. You saved my life.”
“Forget it, chief. You know, it’s mostly bluff and bullshit. Half the shit they tell you ain’t even true. But be careful about this kinda thing, you could really lose your ass. I seen ’em send guys back to week one, day one. Boy, that ain’t good, because your new drill sergeants will hate you from the start for being a reject.”
I followed his instructions and, in five minutes, I was safely in my bunk. I stayed awake for a long time, savoring my great adventure. And Penelope.
On Friday, we squeaked through our inspection in fourth place. I was to be free for two days.
The Greyhound was one in a long convoy of endless buses headed a hundred-forty miles into the city. We all had to dress in our Class A uniforms with a poplin shirt and black tie. A regiment of buck privates were told that we’d earned a special privilege, and we’d better remember that we represented the United States Army. Any trouble — an arrest, a fight, the missing of a return bus — would be dealt with accordingly.
I avoided conversation. I was shaking with excitement and anxiety. Would she actually be there? An eighteen-year old, hundred-pound kid who drove like a demolition derby contender and spooked easily when out of her comfort zone. Crap, a lot to hope for, damn if it wasn’t.
We pulled in, a good hour and a half late. The station was swarming with hundreds of forest green jackets with gold buttons. My gaze was frantic, then my jaw dropped. Dear Jesus! Penny stood, quite ashen in the crowded, hectic terminal. She looked so helpless, like a tiny, honey-blonde angel dressed in a red and green pleated skirt, red knee socks, a v-neck red sweater with white blouse. Oh God! She shrieked, obviously relieved. I grabbed her like Butkus about to squeeze the life from a quarterback.
After a quick kiss, she blurted, “Andrew! This is a terrible place for a girl. The Saint Louis bus station! I got here three hours ago and been propositioned about fifty times. Plus, two soldiers got into a nasty fight, and there’s bums everywhere.”
“But, you did it! You did it, girl! Sorry, we’re late. The bus driver couldn’t seem to drive even one mile per hour over the speed limit. He was like sixty-years old with coke-bottle glasses and loudly sang crap like, ‘When it’s apple blossom time in Orange, New Jersey, we’ll make a peach of a pair.’ Like, that was supposed to cheer us up.”
“Let’s go. I’ve got some pink champagne on ice in our hotel room, and, well, I may be wearing something pink.”
“Oh Pen, I’m there! Where’s the Mustang?”
“You kiddin’? I left it at the hotel and took a cab over. I’m not driving in downtown Saint Louis any more. Its traffic is way worse; it’s bigger and crazier than Louisville.”
“Both named after the same guy, though.”
“Smart Aleck,” she said with her haughty Sandra Dee-like smile.
“Dang, I mean, if I knew the hotel, I coulda just taken a cab myself.”
“I wanted to greet you off the bus, Mr. Buck Private. No way to communicate. I took a big, scary chance, but it woulda been scarier if I’d brought the car.”
A buddy from my company, Stan Alford, walked over and stared at Penny up down. “Jesus, McClain, how in the world? You must’ve been somebody like St. Francis in a former life.”
“I guess. Never thought of it that way,” I said. “Thanks. Oh, and this is Penny. We, ahh—”
“Went to high school together.” she finished. “And, geez, I appreciate the uniquely-put compliment. But if Andy was St. Francis back then, I guarantee you he’s hiding from God behind some pillar watching this version of his old self.”
“Come on, Alford,” someone yelled. “There’s a bar just down the street, and word is they don’t check IDs.”
“You two comin’ with us? Have a few and head over to Gas Light Square, where there’s s’posed to be a lot of chicks. I’m buyin’. At least the first one.”
“No, thanks, Stanley. We got plans,” I said.
“Let’s go,” Penny said. “While there’s cabs still outside. It’s only a few blocks, but it’s starting to rain.”
Everything about that four-star hotel she’d picked and stuck on a credit card seemed so foreign to me: mysterious and magical. As we were ascending to the fifth floor in the elevator, she glanced up at me and asked, “Well, here we go. Are you excited?”
“Yes, very much.” I managed.
“What are you thinking about?”
I started to spout something more accurate then recovered nicely: “You, Penny.”
Inside the room, which she’d stocked with three bottles of champagne that a friend had bought for her back in Louisville; soft drinks and some miscellaneous snacks, we faced each other. I kissed her gently, then with my focus solely on the unprecedented moment, we slid onto the bed.
Holding her seemed so intensified by her happiness which was unlike I’d ever seen her. For the first time, she told me she loved me. And I responded for the fiftieth time.
“I bet this will be something you’ll never forget.” she whispered as we kissed.
While I’d greatly enjoyed our previous necking and petting sessions, this was different. The softness of her lips, the smoothness of her legs under that pleated skirt felt new and heavenly and seemed to take me to the verge of sensory overload. And then everything I’d ever imagined happened.
We went out only once to walk around a few blocks downtown on that brisk October Saturday. We had dinner and breakfast in the hotel’s plush dining room but other than that, we spent the best two days of my life in that room.
Nothing lasts forever and, on Sunday morning, the anxiety over her trip back to Kentucky overwhelmed her. “Andy, I’m nervous. You have to drive me over that bridge into Illinois and get me on the road back. I made so many mistakes coming in from East Saint Louis, I don’t think I can do it.”
“Well, Pen, sure you can.”
She reddened. “I-64 isn’t finished and damn, one minute I’m on and off Highway 62, then Highway 150, Highway 460. Even though I had the page-by-page AAA road map, I really had to pay attention. But coming across that bridge over the Mississippi River and finding this place was really confusing.”
“Well, Sunday traffic will make it easy, I—”
“Please, I need you to do this. Don’t even think about talking me out of it.”
I wasn’t about to argue, not after what I’d been granted. “Of course,” I said, realizing my blissful plans for the morning were shot. But, so what? It was all okay in the scheme of things, I just had a honeymoon; though I did begin wondering how the heck I’d get back to the Saint Louis, Missouri bus station by 1:00 p.m.
Our goodbye was bittersweet. We assured each other that Christmas vacation, should I get a two-week leave, would be wonderful.
My splendid luck held. While I was hitchhiking in uniform and clutching my lightly packed duffel, a man pulled over, and I jogged up to his Buick.
“Where you headed there, soldier?” the driver, a well-dressed black man asked.
“Downtown St. Louis, the bus station, sir.”
“Oh, Leonard Wood? Let me guess you’re on a short pass.”
“Yes, sir. Have to make that bus and sign back in before six this afternoon.”
“Hah. Been there. Went in after college in forty-five, got out in fifty-six. Did Korea. I was a captain. Now I have a business near Busch Stadium. I’ll take you right to the bus station.”
“Oh, wow, thank you, sir.”
“You know your MOS yet?”
“Yes, sir; infantry. I volunteered for the draft, I’m only eighteen.”
He bristled. “Well, do what they tell you. I was infantry. Never relax in the field. ‘Alert—Alive’ as the saying goes. And get down lightning quick at the first sounds of fire. I’ve read about it, and I’ve lived it. You’re ninety-five percent more likely to be hit upright than being prone. Kids don’t always get that. They panic and try to run for cover, but to where?”
My bus trip back was one of rare contentment. I felt like I was truly somebody. The other sixty or so guys on the bus were mostly glum; hungover, depressed and living the life every soldier knows about finding a glimmer of happiness during free time.
But, even knowing I might be dead within the year and that my relationship still faced a low probability of lasting beyond the end of my two years, at least for this one point in time, I had love, and even more — I had hope.
Copyright © 2026 by Charles Merkel
