Marine Corps Lougie

As many of you know I am a former Marine. I served my Country proudly and it was a life changing experience. I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience but I wouldn’t take a million dollars to do it again either. Now for those of you who are squeamish should stop reading here, actually you should have stopped reading at the title probably. This story goes back to boot camp where I first experience both real excitement and real terror. Let’s visit that time.
Its spring of 1984, late February or March I guess, but regardless spring had already started to make the trees and flowers bloom and to give me my first sinus infection of the year. I know it was a Sunday afternoon because it was Parent’s Day on the island. That’s Parris Island of those of you that weren’t Marines. It is where they train us Devil Dogs to protect and serve. The Sunday prior to your “graduation” is when they allow your parents to visit you, tour the island, and see how Uncle Sam has transformed their sons and daughters. On this particular day while all this was going on my platoon, Platoon 1042, was practicing drill on the parade deck. This is where the drill instructor takes his platoon in formation, marching them back and forth across the mile wide /deep parade deck (picture a large empty parking lot) teaching them to turn right, turn left, about face (turn around) and all the intricacies of marching. This of course, with 18 year old boys who generally can’t remember which is their left and which is their right when asked to turn in that particular direction. It was hot, I’m thinking high 80’s with lots of humidity on that day and my sinus infection had morphed into bronchitis where I could feel it rattling around in my chest. After several hours of marching-stopping-yelling, marching-stopping-yelling, then marching some more I wasn’t feeling so great and out of nowhere I had a deep chest rattling cough. At that precise moment out of my mouth flew a giant lougie!
Now there are many things that you want to do while marching in formation at Parris Island with your drill instructor watching on Parent’s Day but unfortunately “hocking a lougie” is not one of them. Immediately, and I mean perhaps before “it” hit the parade deck my drill instructor was screaming, “Halt, Halt everyone @&&^%$ Halt”. I will tell you it turned some of the parent's heads. Rushing up to where I was in formation (luckily for the rest of the Marines I was on the outside rank) we had the following conversation, that is if you can use the word conversation to describe one person screaming at another person that is standing at attention:
Drill Instructor: Recruit White did I just see you hock up a Marine Corps lougie on my parade deck?
Me: Sir yes Sir!
Drill Instructor: Let me get this straight, you actually just hocked a lougie on my sacred Marine Corps parade deck? The same parade deck that thousands of men who gave their lives in the service of their country marched across?
Me: Sir yes Sir
Drill Instuctor: You maggot, in the Pit right now!
Me: Sir yes Sir
Well off I ran to the "pit". The pit is the Marine Corps version of a large sand box. Its probably 50 yards long and 30 yards deep, big enough to have a 50 Marine platoon standing in it at one time. When you go to the pit it's not just to stand around in, the pit is strictly for "incentive PT". Incentive PT (PT + physical training) is just fancy words for exercise until you are about to pass out. Apparently my "lougie" had really incensed my drill instructor and he began to scream different incentive PT exercises to me, "bend and thrust, jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, leg lifts (a particularly evil exercise in which you lay flat and elevate your legs approximately 6 inches off the ground and hold them there). This went on for approximately 45 minutes. I was dying. The rule governing incentive PT that I found out later is that a drill instructor cannot provide more than 20 minutes of incentive PT in one hour. Apparently my drill instructor had forgotten this rule. Then came the most dreaded command for any Marine in the pit, "make it snow, recruit, make it snow" This particularly insidious command requires the recruit to run in place reaching down to grab handfuls of sand and throw them in the air above his head. Now I don't have to tell you the effect this has on someone that has been sweating in almost ninety degree heat and 80 percent humidity. In mere seconds you are covered in sand, it's in your hair, inside your camo uniform, your boots, your underwear, your....you get the picture. Here's the rub if you'll pardon the pun, you only get one shower a day there and this is right before lights out, so you go the rest of the day in this condition. It is miserable! Try this tomorrow. Put on a dress or a suit depending on who you are, run 5 miles, roll around in the sand and spend the next 12 hours at work without a shower. You get the picture.
What the drill instructor didn't notice and quite frankly I had gone into sort of a dazed state from lack of oxygen, is that every parent from that was visiting the island on that day had begun to gather to watch this experience. I can't be sure how many of them there were watching because I could only look straight ahead but by my count it was close to 50 or 60 parents with their Marine sons. This spectacle prompted him to immediately stop my "incentive PT". It might have been the several mothers that had begun to weep and wail while watching or it might have been my weeping that stopped him. Regardless I wish to thank all those parents now and to ask their forgiveness for not being more gracious to them at the time (I hope they'll understand). Where were we? Yes, my drill instructor then ordered me back into formation. You might have thought it was over at this point but trust me it was just beginning. When I got back into formation (oh and if you want to be unpopular with your fellow Marines, just have them stand for 45 minutes at attention while you are being worked in the pit) the drill instructor approached me again:
Drill Instructor: Recruit White did you hock a lougie on my parade deck?
Me: Sir Yes Sir
Drill Instructor: PICK IT UP!
Me: Sir? (imagine a voice that sounds like Pee Wee Herman when he's out of breath here)
Drill Instructor: What part of "Pick it up" did you not understand?
Me: Sir recruit understands Sir
Drill Instructor: Then pick it up.
Needless to say compared to picking up a lougie, hocking them up is a breeze. I will spare you the ugly details but I did mange to get most of it off the parade deck.
Drill Instructor: Now put it in your pocket!
Me: Sir (again imagine Pee Wee Herman)
Drill Instructor: Are you stupid? What about "put it in your pocket" do you not understand? Did you go to school growing up? Are you a moron? Did you mother marry her brother? (I think there were more insults, but I can't write them here and I think you get my point.)
Me: Sir yes Sir
I then placed the scraped up, nasty sticky, sand covered lougie in my pocket. Then as if nothing happened my drill instructor turned barked a command and off the platoon marched. I was grateful thinking the incident was over for me. I was sadly mistaken, but that's for my next blog entitiled; "Recruit White did you hock a lougie on my parade deck this morning?" Sigh......

"I wish you knew my father"

Today is Father's Day and many of you will celebrate it with your father, some of you will not be able to visit with your father, but will celebrate the memory of him. This has been on my mind lately, since my father is getting older and not always in the best of health at times. I've thought many times in the last several years about life and frailty of it and I've come to the conclusion that "I wish you knew my father".
My father was born in Flushing, New York, 1 of 3 children. He was the youngest of the three and was raised there by Grace and Russell, my grandparents. He enlisted in the Air Force in the early 60's and met my mother on the beaches in Florida. He told me the story the other day that after he met her that he got on his Indian motorcycle and rode all night from Pensacola to Sylacauga, Alabama. He said it was raining and he would ride awhile until the rain caught him and he would stop under an overpass till the rain passed and he'd get on his way again repeating this process all the way there. He tells me that his financial situation was such that when he arrived in Sylacauga he actually slept propped up on his motorcycle until the town got to stirring around and then he asked where she lived and paid her a visit. Now I don't know, but I'm not sure many men would go to that length to see a woman they had just met and didn't actually know her address. By the way, they will be married 50 years in December. I wish you knew my father.
They married while he was in the Air Force and they traveled to Japan where they had my sister Lisa and a bought their first furniture, a console stereo with an record player and radio. They had no chairs to sit on so they and their friends would sit on the floor and bed and listen in the evenings as their entertainment. The stereo is still resides at their house. I once saw Patty Duke buy the same stereo on a TV episode that was filmed in black and white. They eventually were transferred back to the states and I was born at Eglin Air Force Base. My mother eventually moved back to Birmingham because my father was sent to Thailand as the Vietnam War began to heat up and eventually after 8 or 9 years of serving his country my father got out of the Air Force as a Buck Sargent and returned to Birmingham, Alabama. He got a job with Drummond Coal where he started working at the coke oven (a process that requires superheating coal to around a bizillon degrees and then cools it quickly). He once told me that he wore long johns in the summer because they helped keep him sweaty and more cool during work. He once helped my bother-in-law lay sod in 90 degree weather drinking a cup of coffee while the rest of us were about to pass out, we were all in our twenties at the time! He worked there for a couple of years and then was in a bad car accident. He was out of work for 18 months, he had over 20 operations during that time to repair his right leg, chest and face where he suffered the most injuries. I remember the first time he was allowed home and he went to sit down on the toilet and his repaired femur snapped and back he went to the hospital. Eventually, he returned to Drummond Coal and the first week on the job a piece of railroad tie was kicked up by a coal car and hit him in the face. He required several more operations and I'm told has mostly wire and very little bone in his facial area. He recovered and went back to work. He mananged to work there for 1 month shy of 40 years when he retired several years ago. I wish you knew my father.
Of course I've skipped many things during this time. He and my mother had two more children, both girls. He coached baseball for me, softball for my sister, worked the swing shift for around 20 years while doing this. He became a deacon in the local Baptist Church and I can't remember a Sunday we didn't go while I was growing up. He lost a daughter to suicide when she was twenty and without hesitation adopted her 5 month old son and raised him. Bobby is twenty-one now and hiking the Appalachian trail. My father is recognized by almost everyone who knows him because he has had a handlebar mustache for around 30 plus years. I've never met a man or woman that didn't love him or respect him. I wish you knew my father.
Around 6 years ago he and my mother were driving back from a high school basketball game where they lived and their car was struck by a drunk driver. It nearly killed both of them and they probably only lived because they were rescued by an incredible man that pulled them both from their burning car. My father sustained two broken legs, burns to his face and multiple other injuries and was life flighted to the hospital. I met the state trooper that worked the accident and he told me that my father might be the toughest man he ever met. When I asked why, he told me that when he got there my father was laying on the ground saw the state trooper, rolled over, took his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants and handed his license to the state trooper. I wish you knew my father.
If a man is measured by his friends, then I can tell you that after the accident they came out of the woodwork. They brought every meal for my parents for one month, every meal. The church men showed up on a day's notice to build a ramp for them be able to get in the house in their wheelchair. They had hundreds of people visit them and I do mean hundreds. My father has had 5 or 6 additional surgeries since the accident, several resulting in a couple of strokes, a period of time where he went blind and a seizure disorder that affects his life. Yet, when I call and ask him how he's doing his reply is the same, "I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in." I wish you knew my father.
I'm very thankful today that I can post a blog that says I still talk with my father and tell him I love him every time we get together. I hope you had a father alot like mine growing up, loving, hard working, a good provider and a faithful husband. If you did I am sure you understand how I feel today and if you didn't "I wish you knew my father."

Zero Turn Lawn Mowers and 72 year old mothers...

Well lets get this started off by telling you how my weekend went last Saturday. Sarah and I drove to our parents (they live exactly 6.8 miles apart I know this because I run it when we are there sometimes). We went to drop my youngest two children off to spend the week with their grandparents and the excuse that I was going to "help" my parents with a few chores. The first was cutting their grass. Now if you have been to my parents you'd know they live in the country and have about 3 acres of land which about 2 of those require cutting with a lawn mower. So when I got there Saturday it was well past the time to cut since my mother hasn't been feeling well and my father can no longer cut the yard. Here's where the tricky part comes in... My 72 year old mother just bought a zero turn lawn mower. You know the ones, have the captain's chair on top of the machine and two space shuttle handles on each side, allowing you to turn in 0 degrees, thus a zero turn lawn mower.
First let me tell you that the handles are sensitive to the touch, when I say sensitive I mean imagine telling Mike Tyson that he has a high and squeaky voice and you'd get the same violent reaction by moving the handles ever so slightly. I found this out when I tried to back the mower out of their garage, it was relatively difficult but uneventful, I feel certain my parents will not notice the dent in their car it's such a small one. Things didn't get much better when I actually got to the grass. I can best explain it by relaying a phone call my father received from one of the neighbors.
Ring Ring
Father: Hello
Neighbor: Hi Jim how are you today?
Father: I'm in good shape for the shape I'm in.... (my Dad cracks me up)
Neighbor: Hey Jim who's cutting your grass? Stevie Wonder?
Father: What?
Neighbor: Who's cutting your grass? Stevie Wonder? I don't know if you realize it but there's some man cutting your grass, well it kinda looks like he's cutting your grass, your yard looks like a Salvador Dali painting, like a giant cow threw up after a all night eating binge....
Father: Oh, that...that's my son he's trying to be helpful so we let him cut the grass...
Neighbor: Wait, hold on..Geesh....he just took his hand off one of the controls to scratch his face......whew that was close. I'd hate to see Jenny's face if we had to pull that mower out of the pond.
Father: Yea, you know he almost slid his car off into that pond last time he was here..
Neighbor: Yea I remember that. Hey Jim I'm not much into interfering but maybe you shouldn't let him help so much....
Father: Yea probably not
Neighbor: Actually let him help, maybe we should just sell tickets next time....

When I finished cutting the grass my mother asked me to wire some electrical outlets in the basement. Before I could start I noticed the neighbors had set up chairs in the drive way. Wonder what that was about?