The next morning, every trainee at Fort Knox crammed into a gymnasium to sign out for leave. I remember it smelled awful, as most of the drill sergeants around post thought that the best way to say goodbye to us was to have us do some extenuating exercises that morning. Once we were all signed out, we haled a stampede of taxies to take us away to the airport. Just before we left, Drill Sergeant told us that while we were on leave, we were still considered IET (Initial Entry Training) soldiers, and as such, were forbidden to consume alcohol. “Sure Drill Sergeant” was just about everybody’s thought. We were also advised that on return, we would be administered a urinalysis, so it would be highly unwise to use or be around the use of illegal substances. Not being a drinker or drug user, none of this fazed me in the least. I was just happy to be getting the hell out of there.
We loaded into taxies and headed off to the airport. Not by design, I was travelling with Walsh. He being from Connecticut as well, we were headed the same direction. Somehow it worked out that we picked the same airline, same flight, even the same return flight. The first thing that Walsh did when we boarded the plane was order a beer for the flight. Thankfully for him we were travelling in uniform. I know what you’re thinking, “why would that be a good thing?” Well, besides getting out of speeding tickets, and attracting women, being in uniform tends to attract people who also want to buy you drinks. There was not a moment during the 3 hour flight and 1 and a half hour layover in Newark, NJ, that Walsh didn’t have a free beer in his hand. I stuck to the diet cokes, but, to each his own.
We finally landed and headed to the baggage claim where I had the honor to meet his family, and he had the honor to meet mine. We went our separate ways and didn’t see each other for the remainder of our leave.
My mother and I headed off and I was thrilled to be back in Connecticut. I had a goal too! I was going to take the longest nap that anyone had ever dreamed about taking. My mother had other plans though. She was so proud to be seen with me in uniform that she insisted we stop for dinner. I figured I could use a good, non-military, meal so without hesitation agreed. We stopped at a nearby Mexican restaurant and once there was, greeted by several handshakes and “thank you for serving our country.”
Our table was bought a round of drinks and the restaurant owner came over and gave me a ball-cap with the restaurant logo on it along with a cactus shaped margarita glass. When we finished our meals, our waiter came to us and let us know that a very kind elderly couple who wished to remain anonymous, had paid for our meals just before we left. I remember feeling good that there are so many people who are genuinely thankful and appreciative to our service men and women.
We made it home and I told my mother that I was going to unpack the next day, and that I was heading straight for bed to catch up on some long lost sleep. I slept like a rock that night, but try as I may, could not sleep past 7am the next morning! It was as though I was programmed or something. I rolled out of bed and turned on the news for the first time in 3 months. As it turns out, things sounded pretty bad on the news, what with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Drill Sergeant would always tell us we needed to get through training quick because they were “running out of bodies” overseas. As bad as that sounds, the TV always made things sound worse.
The remainder of my visit home was uneventful, but very relaxing. I hooked up a couple of times with Atlas and got him up to speed on exciting Army things like shooting high caliber machine guns and driving tanks (up trees).
The week flew by too quickly and on January 2nd I was on my way back to the airport to head back to my real home, Fort Knox, KY. I met up with Walsh at the airport and he thought twice about having any drinks on our trip back. Realizing that we would be greeted by Drill Sergeant when we arrive back, we agreed it was probably not the best idea to smell like a bar. We took a cab back to post and it was back to a structured way of life.
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