Shep's Army: Bummers, Blisters and Boondoggles

PART ONE

YOU’RE IN THE

ARMY NOW!

Jean Shepherd told various stories about his first encounters with army life. (He indicated several times that he was seventeen at the time, but official army records indicate that he joined in 1942 at age twenty.) What was it like to face this unfamiliar situation as a young man? These were his first eye-opening days of learning—not the Signal Corps subjects he was there for—but the overriding lessons of what it was like to be in an enormous institution with its inexplicable ways of acting in the world. He also learned something more about what life in general was like:

That’s one of the great things about being in the armed forces. You learn a lot more about stuff than you ever do in real life—in fact that’s real life! The lives that most of us lead are kind of make-believe lives in our world. But in the army it comes right out. There it is. It comes right out. You see, people tend to think that the world that we live in, our daily world—that this is the real world and the army is a kind of artificial situation, when actually, according to Shepherd’s famous one-hundred-eighty-degree phase-shift-theory-of-truth syndrome, it’s exactly the opposite! The truth comes out in the army, and the truth is very muted in our own daily lives.

Shepherd felt disappointed by his induction into this alien world. As his world was about to change, the system didn’t even attempt to promote in him the sense of importance he expected to feel. In one early encounter, naïve as he was, he even tried to be funny—and he got away with it. Near the beginning of the war and Shepherd’s part in it, while the military was still gearing up to its full potential, the large influx of inductees, recruits were orientated into the world of war—not quite the Hollywood version they had grown up with at the picture show. Shepherd began to train his ear to GI-talk and learn how to speak the lingo.

These first disorienting days of army life were spent, according to Shepherd, at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a major recruit reception center north of Chicago. After this short orientation, he and his new buddies would be transported to the glories of early Signal Corps schooling in the Ozarks.

—EB

INDUCTION

War. Okay, you got the scenery? War brings up a lot of images when I say the word. I’ll say it again: WAR. Some of the images are good, too. Like heroism. Men with a mission. We are climbing the hills to protect the world for democracy or whatever it might be. Then, of course, there’s the other side. The other side you don’t even know about. But it’s the in-between side where you really learn things. Because you never learn anything from the actual scenes of violence you see in war. For one thing they’re too quick, too fast, too loud, and too many other things are happening for you to actually learn anything from them. Do you learn anything from an automobile accident on the turnpike? You don’t. You think you do but you don’t.

So it’s the in-between things, not the violent ones, okay? So I’m seventeen years old and not really shaving yet. I have seen Don Ameche movies, I have seen Errol Flynn giving it to the enemy in the Pacific. You know all the old movies you see on TV? You’re scared to go and at the same time there’s a mission. It’s a very complicated feeling at the time it’s actually going on.

Before I realized it, I filled out some forms in a rash moment in high school. They told me if I filled them out it would be okay, I wouldn’t have to go for a long time and they’d send me to school. All they wanted was my name on the line and they got it. It took me about ten minutes to get home and the orders were already there in a big fat envelope that told me where I had to go. Immediately I feel very heroic and people have parties for me, congratulating me. I’m all excited and hollering and I drink a glass of beer and everything and eventually the day comes.

I was thinking all these images—I’m going to get examined, and they were going to swear me in. Well, when you hear the phrase swearing in, have you ever seen this done in the movies? It’s very dramatic, isn’t it? So I arrived at Franklyn Street in downtown Chicago. Right in the middle of the Loop. It’s an office building. There is a slight mist coming down. It’s raining. I am prepared for something official, an event like a graduation. I am going to become changed; it is historical.

Okay, you guys, you’re in the army. All right, you’re in the army. We’ve just been sworn in. You know that wonderful swearing in where Van Johnson talks and the guys cry? The thing where they play The Star Spangled Banner? It’s all over. We didn’t hear anything! And one of the guys calls out, What about the oath? And the corporal says, You just heard it. Get the potatoes out of your ears, mac! We didn’t hear anything! We wanted something to happen, you know? Where is it? When does the balloon go up? And we stand around and the corporal yells, Get out! There’s another bunch comin’ in! And they push us toward the door and there’s the other bunch coming in, so a couple of us holler, Hey, they’re going to give you the oath! Hey, fellows, it’s the oath! And a couple of these guys, you could see their eyes brighten a little bit and then the captain and the corporal start mumbling again.

Gradually we go down, out onto the street, and it’s still raining, and it’s all over. All over. I’m now in the army. I’m one with Errol Flynn and Don Ameche and all those guys who broke through the Western Front in the movies.

SHORN

I remember the day. I got this letter, see. It wasn’t a draft letter. I wasn’t drafted actually, I was in the enlisted reserve. I joined the enlisted reserve right in high school. The whole point of staying in the enlisted reserve corps is that you were supposed to be out of the army for a while. So here comes this letter. It said, the following EM will report for active duty. That was the first time I was ever called EM. I didn’t even know what it meant.

So I was going to Fort Sheridan, which is a big induction center outside of Chicago. I got off the train and fell in with the crowd. Around the end of the platform came two big army trucks. A guy got out and walked across the platform. I noticed he had two big stripes on his sleeve. He said, All right, you guys. How many of you guys are reportin’ today for induction at Fort Sheridan, heh?

Everybody’s hand went up.

All right, you guys, divide up in two groups. You guys fill up the first truck, guys left over get in the second truck, come on, on the double. Let’s move.

We ran like mad across the platform and into the trucks. Nobody said anything. Everybody was kind of unfriendly yet because we were still civilians. One of the key characteristics of the civilian life is that hardly anybody feels any connection with anybody else. You don’t walk down the street in New York and see a bunch of guys wearing coats and suits and say, Ah, a fellow-civilian. Put ’er there, buddy. We got down to the post gate, about a ten-minute ride, and right through the gate we went.

We were all peering around. We saw all these buildings. I had my little bag and I had my Dopp kit that my Aunt Glen gave me for a going away present. I had the three dollars I’d saved in my money belt around my waist. All GIs get a money belt. That’s the first thing they get and the first thing they throw away. We stopped in front of a big building and the same guy with the two stripes walked out around and said, All right, you guys, fall out, fall out, let’s go, on the double, move, let’s move it there, shake it up.

Remember we were enlisted reserves. We were already in the army, you follow me? We’d already been through our physicals, so we didn’t have to get it again and maybe get rejected. We were in. Ain’t gonna be no escape for this crowd.

He lined us all up and there we stood. Little did we realize that in the next thirty minutes, a nasty, dirty, stinking trick was about to be perpetrated on us that would forever change our attitude both toward ourselves and our environment.

He looked up and down the line and he asked each guy’s name and checked each guy off on his clipboard. Straighten up, pull in your gut. First time anyone’s told the guy to pull in his gut. Your mother doesn’t call it your gut. All right, all you guys, atten-hut! That means attention. Pull in your gut. Left face. I said left face, you stupe. Left face. Forward harch! Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup.

We were clumping along. You felt very foolish the first time you did that. You ever think how foolish the first time you walk with a whole bunch of strangers—in step? And there was a guy running along beside you going Hut hup hip hup. You felt like some kind of idiot. We were walking along, going up and down with our feet. They don’t tell you where you’re going. We were just going, see. Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup. We were going along the big, long, muddy street. Hut hup hip hup between all the white buildings, and once in a while you saw the skulking eyes of another victim peering out of the windows at you. "Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup one two three halt! At ease, you guys, and that means don’t talk. Shut up, don’t talk, just stand at ease. Wait till further orders."

We stood. In front of a white building. Where it is about to happen. Strange ritual—which is oddly—and totally—humiliating. Because man is a creature of ego. Man is one of the few creatures who thinks about his appearance. It is not yet recorded that a racing horse knows it’s beautiful. Does your dog think he’s cute? Do you ever find your dog looking in the mirror saying, Oh, what a cute bunch of—look at that! Am I lucky I’m a dachshund! Look at them ears—oh, aren’t they cute!

Oh no. It is only man who constantly and eternally peers into mirrors admiring himself. Adorning himself, thinking endlessly about how to make himself look cuter. So how do you strike at man? How best would you like to reduce him to rubble? That’s right. Strike where it counts!

A sergeant pops out of this white building—and this was the first time we had seen a sergeant—and he had stripes that ran from his shoulder right down to his elbow. A gnarled, grizzled type. All right, you guys, get in a column of threes. When I call out, each three of ya, I want all you first three guys to come in when I call out for the first three. I want the second three to come in when I call out for the second three. I don’t want any of youse guys talkin’ out here, I don’t want ya runnin’ away, you stay right here. This won’t take long. I don’t want any messin’ around ’cause we gotta get this over wit. All right, you guys, first three, let’s go.

The first three trotted in after him. A little scared. I was in the second group, one of the few times I’ve almost been at the beginning of a line. I was standing in the first three now. We didn’t know what was going to happen. The first group hadn’t been gone for forty-five seconds when the sergeant stuck his head out and said, All right, next three, come on, let’s go, on the double, let’s move it.

The three of us ran like hell because we didn’t want to get into trouble, see. One guy was a big, fat guy from Rushmore, Indiana, and the guy behind me was a tall, skinny guy from Peoria. We ran like mad into the place.

I couldn’t believe it! I thought they were going to give us uniforms or something. But this strange place. A long hall. And there must have been seventy-five barber chairs and there were no mirrors! No mirrors at all! And there was a Pfc standing behind each barber chair. The first three guys were putting on their jackets, looking very strange. Like three turnips were putting on coats. I never saw such a sight in my life. Their eyes were staring and wild.

I sat down in the first chair that the Pfc pointed at. The other two guys sat down. The Pfc put a white thing around me, which was familiar. All men are familiar with that white thing. Then came the strange feeling. The next thing that happened was totally unfamiliar. Suddenly around my whole head there was a cloud, a nimbus. It was like raining hair zzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawaaaaa.

Oh, my god! The pride of my life since I was twelve, and the one thing that I owned that was mine, that was my most beautiful possession—my magnificent D. A. I had one of the most beautiful D. A. haircuts you ever saw in your life. And I would comb it. It was gigantic, it was huge, a big thing in the front and I would comb it in the back where it came together and it would stick out and would feather out over the ears. Oh, it was beautiful. Tremendous. And I used to put stuff in it and fix it all up when I had a date with Esther Jane. I would comb it and brush it and I would look in the mirror at it and look at the side view at it. I’d say, Oh, what a fantastic creature you are. And I would fluff it up again, and more I would comb it.

And now this guy—he’s got ahold of my left ear and he’s holding it like you hold a jackhammer. And he was twisting it, and he had in his right hand this machine, and he was starting up over my right ear and he was going waaaaaaaaaaa aaaaawawawaaaaa. It stuck in the back where it was thickest and most beautiful aaaaawawawaaaaa aaaaawawawaaaaa. And I felt this breath of cold air suddenly, this tremendous cold all around me! I couldn’t believe it! It was like I was in a refrigerator!

And it was off. All over. All right, mac, let’s go, next one, let’s go, let’s move it on, let’s move it outta here, you guys. And then the final insult. The Pfc behind the chair says, Seventy-five cents, mac. Uh! You gotta pay for this! I reached in my pocket. Seventy-five cents! I had a buck in my pocket my uncle Tom gave me when I got on the bus. I gave the guy the buck and he gave me a quarter back.

Then it began to slowly seep into me. I probably looked worse than I’d ever looked in my life. I felt the back of my neck. It was strange. Strange. My skin had turned to sandpaper. There was a thick, hard, angry stubble all the way up the back, and I could feel that the bottom of my neck was turning red from the clippers and the machines. My ears—amazing—my ears had suddenly slipped down. I had ears way down on the bottom of my head. My head stuck up like a big radio tube, it was like a bulb on the top. And the guy ahead of me from Rushmore, Indiana, the big fat slob who had had this long, black hair, which was obviously the pride of his life, now looked like a human pyramid. He looked fantastically bad. Nothing looks worse than a guy with jet black hair who’s had a close, a really close army haircut. I saw a big scar on top of his head that had healed over, like when he was two and he fell out of bed or something. The guy behind me from Peoria was crying. Out in the sunlight we saw seven or eight guys from our little company who had already had the thing done. We went back to our place in line and the wind was blowing whooooooo hoooooooooooooo, and it was cold. You felt the cold air hitting the top of your ears.

Within ten minutes I had totally ceased to be a civilian. I was something else now. And all those other guys around me were something else, too. It was then that I heard my first true, heartfelt, army gripe. Up to that point we didn’t gripe, we just sort of went along. The guy next to me said a word. Well, somehow it sounded right. Just sounded right. You could see little flecks of his hair all over the back of his coat.

The sergeant stood out in front of us with the corporal and he looked at us, about forty-five of us. He walked up and down, his overseas hat pulled down low over his brow, sharp as a tack, the kind of guy who wore tailored fatigues. "All right, you guys, you look a lot betta. Got rid of all that excess junk hangin’ on ya. Now we’re gonna really start straightenin’ ya up. Ten-hut! You’re gonna hear that a lot in the next few years. When I say ten-hut, that means you just don’t move, you pull in your gut, you put your feet right where they should be, heels together, toes out at the proper, prescribed angle. Left face. Forward harch!

We marched into the middle distance. We marched into the middle distance with the breeze blowing around our ears. With the wind blowing over the top of what little fuzz of our former civilian ego was left. We marched into the middle distance. Changed. Converted. A new breed. We were soldiers. Oh, yes.

Hair is important. It could change your whole life. Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup. Hut hup hip hup. No mirrors. You gotta strike where it’s most vulnerable—the ego. The ego.

D IS FOR DRUID

I’m accepted, I’ve gone through my physical and everything else and I have been sworn in. I can’t back out. I’m in the army and we’re going through another long line and there are guys writing down information on you. And here’s a tech sergeant sitting there with five stripes, looking very official. He looks up from his forms and he says to me, Your religion, please. Give me your religion.

I say, I … I … don’t have any religion.

What do you mean you don’t have any? What religion are you? A Jew?

I say, No, no.

Ya Catholic?

No.

Okay, you’re Protestant.

No! It’s always assumed by a lot of people that if you’re not Jewish, if you’re not Catholic, you’re a Protestant. Now, wait a minute. That’s making a hell of an assumption! Pardon that I use a religious term. After all, Hell is a religious concept.

And he says, You’re a Protestant.

I say, No, I’m not. What do you mean? I’m not a Protestant. And I’m holding up the line. There are a lot of guys behind me. I say, What has that got to do with anything? Really, I don’t have any religion.

He says, "What are