The Great Outdoors

My in-laws used to own a cabin up north. I’ve been there once. Now, they had some plumbing and a working television without reception, and I understand that in much of Louisiana this is considered civilization. Even with four walls between me and the woods, and more importantly, woodland creatures, I was uncomfortable. Not to say those creatures didn’t make their way into the cabin. We accidentally cooked a field mouse along with a frozen pizza, a pizza doomed to taste much like a cooked field mouse. I never went back.

But when I was eighteen, I was more adventurous. I joined the Army. I’ll preface this by saying I was homeless at the time, and free food and clothing sounded like a good trade for the possibility of experiencing war. I don’t know if they still do this, but they assured me that the likelihood of seeing a war zone was remote. Still, I considered myself pretty tough, all 100 pounds of me, and I was a surprisingly good shot with an M16.

I packed what belongings I owned into one suitcase, borrowed, and set off for South Carolina. When I say “suitcase,” I mean one of those hard-sided baby blue numbers that you used to see coupled with a gorilla on the commercials. When I say “what belongings I owned,” I mean to say, ALL the belongings I owned. A pathetic smattering of fishnet stockings and a black raincoat, one pair of absolutely inappropriate footwear.

Now, I hadn’t taken much into consideration when I boarded the plane. For example, the weather differences between San Francisco and Fort Jackson. I swam off the plane into a hot bath of 100% humidity in early September. I hadn’t considered the presence of red ants, which are rumored to eat grown men from the ankles up. I hadn’t considered the forced marches and the chest pain that went with them. Otherwise known as “hiking.”

In order to complete intake, we fresh soldiers were lined up and marched from one barely-air-conditioned building to the next. We were blood-tested, vaccinated and marched on to the next building. South Carolina is a wide-open space. So there’s no need to build anything close together, like the row houses of my home town. Every stop was a mile or more away from the last.

And my suitcase with my pitiful collection of belongings got heavier and heavier.

After half a day of this tearful trudging, we were allowed a smoke break. I sat upon my baby blue burden and inhaled deeply the damp, burning smoke from my cigarette. I had signed up for four years of this, and though I’m no sissy, I usually find ways to make life easier. I squinted through the sweat that had been dripping into my eyes, and spied a dumpster. Hmmmm.

I got up, ground my butt into a can of sand, and dragged the horrible container of my former life toward my savior. Go toward the light, it said. I heaved the suitcase into the dumpster. There, done.

We were lined up, mosquito bitten and sunburned, and marched to our next destination, me a few pounds lighter. At the next building we were given duffle bags and enough clothing to fill them to the brim. I have to imagine this bag weighed as much as I did. My ten minutes of burden-free hiking were over. Added to the “gifts” were blankets and the heaviest down pillows military contractors could construct.

The next weeks were filled with outdoor physical exercise at 4 am, and forced marches carrying rifles, and those duffle bags with all our new uniforms and meals ready to eat. We went camping. No, they called it something else (BIVUAC), but frankly assembling a tent and digging holes in the ground to pee in qualifies as camping to me.

We sang camping songs as we marched 10 miles uphill. These songs were to inspire, distract, keep one breathing deeply when all you wanted to do is curl up in fetal position and cry. These camp songs have a long history and are actually called cadences. They go something like this:

(Audience repeats each line after caller)

When my granny was ninety-one
She did PT just for fun

When my granny was ninety-two
She could PT better than you

That one has like nine verses.

OR, there were plenty on the salty side, such as:

I got a gal in every port -
Suin’ me for non-support

Sound Off!
(One – Two)
Sound Off!
(Three – Four)
Bring it on down now -
(One – Two – Three – Four
One-Two – THREE-FOUR!)

And we played camping games. The drill sergeants would try to steal rifles in the middle of the night and then humiliate anyone who woke without their weapon. So I stayed up most of the night in prone position waiting for my drill sergeant to approach. “Halt, who goes there!” Yes, he backed off. Though I had no ammunition, I was also hot and cranky enough to point an M16 at a superior.

Needless to say, he left me alone most of the time.

I endured six weeks of mosquito welts, ant bites and blisters on my feet. True, South Carolina is beautiful, green luscious trees and grass. Looks great in pictures. Perfect weather for porch-sitting with a cool mint julep. No place for a city girl to live in a tent.

Since then I have endeavored to stay indoors. Cocktails at five, and the only beasts within reach my own cats and dogs. Other than that one baked mouse at the cabin incident, I have successfully avoided such miseries as hiking, building fires and peeing into holes in the ground.

Ah, I love not camping.