Day 6

Day 6: Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianopolis, Indiana: Officers Candidate School; WC: 1705
Transfer to Philadelphia

Fort Benjamin Harrison is a base where training takes place. It has a collection of red brick buildings connected by wide sidewalks and grass lawns. The city Indianapolis is some miles away, but there are surburban homes not far away. We were housed in a brick building, a barracks for the women officer candidates only. Socializing between female and male candidates was not allowed other than one tea party I recall that was organized by the Officers in charge. It was an elite environment that we swam in. Only the best with the most potential were chosen. Some came from prosperous family background, but others like me were selected mainly for our mental abilities. I had tested with a high IQ and a high logical reasoning and analytic ability. The women were so diverse: there was a horsey young woman from Tennessee, who wore a bouffant hairstyle somewhat resembling Jackie Kennedy's style. There was a young thin woman, very pale, from California who had attended Pepperdine University with a degree in Journalism. She did not know how to iron or do much in the way of cleaning or routine things most people do every day. She evidently had lived a life with servants. There was one young woman who was blonde, green eyed, and who was diagnosed with terminal leukemia while there and was sent home quickly. I am fairly sure she died that year. We all spent our days in classes whre we learned how an officer behaves, the duties of an officer, and technical matters of being an officer. We also learned Cobol programing and management skills.
While there, I did happen to meet Mary Jane Smith, of Sheboygan Wisconsin. She was my best friend there. Her mother sent her summer sausages from home that she shared with me. They were delicious; we ate them with crackers while watching t.v. in the evening as the barrack settled down for the night. Mary Jane and I went to the shooting range together and qualified with handguns. She and I made sharpshooter category, after first disassembling our guns, cleaning them and putting them back together. It was an interesting thing to do. One day at the mess hall, a soldier across the room, dining at another table, was staring at me. I looked back and we each kept trading glances. Finally I said to her that I was going to leave, and that for sure he would get up and follow me to the door. She laughed, but he certainly did. That was how I met Skip Sorowski, an army sargeant. Then later, I happened to encounter Miles Pajalski, a captain. He lived in the Officers Quarters on base. He invited me to visit his aparment there. He had to sort of sneak me in, since female visitors were not allowed in. I am not sure what he did to get me in. Nevertheless, once in, we were quickly naked and in bed. He began to have sex with me but could not because it hurt me too much. He was too large. He stopped, smiled and said to me that I was lucky he was older and had self control. After that night, we saw one another again several times but then he was sent to duty overseas and I never saw him again. The last communication I had with him was a letter with my photo inside.. he said he had carried it with him and thought I might want it back. I hope he had a good life.
The candidate school program went forward, and several of the men in the training group became friends. One was a practical joker, teasing me all the time. I do not recall his name. The other was Dave Call. Dave asked me out on a date, and we went to the Indiana State Fair. There I saw sheep up close for the first time. They looked like rabbits with long legs, I laughed. Dave was a very nice young man, and he wrote on the back of my copy of our group photo “How can you ever forget me?”. When the program ended, I also never saw him again. Near the end of the school I made the decision not to accept the officer rank. I had used this school only as a ploy to get away from the long work hours of Kansas City. I knew that they would not transfer me back there; it would not be fitting to send back someone who had declined the commission. Part of accepting the lieutenancy was to reenlist for 3 to 5 more years. I believe they wanted five more years. I did not want to serve that many more years. In fact, by this time I had seen too many older military women and they looked hardened and masculine. That would not be my future.
During this time, Mother and the rest of my siblings at home were still in conflict from time to time. Kay was finishing her school years and discovering boys. Carol too was growing into womanhood. Elizabeth and Steve were preteens and Dad was still around. Mother later divorced him and married another man.. but that comes later. I was away and paving my life with some background and skills. I still did not have any college credit, only military training, mostly on the job or in specific classes geared for the military work.
Meanwhile, I was still so young, not even 22 yet, and still lean and in tremendously good shape. My skin was smooth and perfect, and I wore the marine corps red lipstick that we were told to wear. It did look good with the green uniform and its red trim. Never did I buy the dress blue uniform.. it had to be paid for, it was not standard issue, and it was too expensive, along the range of $250. I never cared much for the ceremonies involved in the military.. the Marine Corps birthday for example. Many of my marine friends attended it and always asked me if I was going to be there. The answer was always no.
At Fort Ben, I saw propaganda for the first time. I was in a marine corps history class and a film of war time action was being shown. Suddenly a line appeared on the screen, then a blip. I knew instantly that something had been cut out, that the original film was not being shown to us in its entirety. That was the moment I believe that I most lost faith in the integrity of the government. I had already seen the killing of Kennedy, and the scandals of Washington. Now the fabric of the world I thought I knew was becoming full of holes and loose threads. I wanted no more part of it than required. That clinched my decision not to assume the lieutenant role. The sixties were coming to a close and I was approaching my twenties. I wanted to be free again, to explore something else.
I was to be sent to Philadelphia. Never having lived on the east coast, the cold there was not something I had experienced. In the winter months, the Atlantic winds blew in so frigid and hard that even with very thick gloves on, my fingers hurt so much that tears came to my eyes. Several times I slipped and fell on the ice coated sidewalks. On the upside, Philadelphia was a big city, with an endless variety of things to do and places to see. The downtown Adelphia Hotel was a nice place to have a light lunch or to meet someone for a movie date. In south Philly, in the Italian section, I found a place to rent. I rented the third floor bedroom of a row home belonging to a widow with four grown daughters. The room was furnished with mohagany furniture, a bed, armoire and dresser. The room was wallpapered and quite nice, very cozy. Rights to the kitchen and the living areas were given to me as well. The daughters came to spend the day with their mother every Thursday, doing her hair, shopping and cooking. It was really wonderful how well they all four daughters got along. Also living there with a room on the second floor was an old French woman, Susie, so old and thin it was surprising how spry she was. Some nights she and the Italian woman would dance together in the livingroom as the Lawrence Welk show was on with polka music playing. The home was near the subway entrance and not too far from the downtown military building where I was assigned to be a computer operations supervisor. New incoming male recruits were placed under my training supervision, and I taught them the fundamentals of all the electronic data processing equipment and the IBM mainframe and printer as well. From time to time I had the pleasure of making them clean up or do routine things that I knew annoyed them. It gave me a small delight to give orders to the men. After all, for years I had seen my brother have preference because he was a boy, and other boys and men receive opportunities I knew were not going to be offered to me. So I helped to make the uneven scale just a bit less uneven in my own world.
Just a block away from the row home was a Lebanese nightclub which featured belly dancers and an authentic Lebanese music group, as well as food like raw lamb and calves eyes p8led high on a plate like a pyramid of eyes. The place was always packed, so crowded it was difficult to squeeze through the door. The Turkish coffee was thick and rich, delicious. I always ordered the stuffed grape leaves, filled with lamb and rice. Then after the dinner was over, enjoyed the bellys shimmering from table to table and the exotic music. The walls of the club were covered with middle eastern carpets in rich reds and greens. It was a luxury to go there.