'Tis a Memoir

by Frank McCourt

  I can't tell Eddie or Tom or anyone else how I'd like to get down on my two knees and thank Mao Tse-tung for sending his troops into Korea and liberating me from the Biltmore Hotel.

  The army doctors at Whitehall Street don't look at my eyes at all. They tell me read that chart on the wall. They say Okay. They look in my ears. Beep. Can you hear that? Fine. They look in my mouth. Jesus, they say. First thing you do is see the dentist. No one was ever rejected from this man's army for teeth and a good thing because most of the men who come in here have teeth like garbage dumps.

  We're told to line up in a room and a sergeant comes in with a doctor and tells us, Awright, you guys, drop your socks and grab your cocks. Now milk 'em. And the doctor looks at us one by one to see if there's any discharge from our dongs. The sergeant barks at one man, You, what's your name?

  Maldonado, Sergeant.

  Is that a hard-on I see there, Maldonado?

  Ah, no, Sergeant. I . . . a . . . I . . . a . . .

  You gettin' excited, Maldonado?

  I want to look at Maldonado but if you look anywhere but straight ahead the sergeant barks at you and wants to know what the hell you're looking at, who told you to look, buncha goddam fairies. Then he tells us turn around, bend over, spread 'em, I mean spread your cheeks. And the doctor sits on a chair and we have to back up with our arses open for inspection.

  We're lined up outside the cubicle of a psychiatrist. He asks me if I like girls and I blush because that's a silly question and I say, I do, sir.

  Then why are you blushing?

  I don't know, sir.

  But you prefer girls to boys?

  Yes, sir.

  Okay, move on.

  We're sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, for orientation and indoctrination, uniforms and equipment, and haircuts that leave us bald. We're told we're no-good sorry pieces of shit, the worst set of recruits and draftees ever to come into this camp, a disgrace to Uncle Sam, lumps of meat for Chinese bayonets, nothing but cannon fodder and don't you forget it for one minute you lazy ass-dragging gang of dropouts. We're told straighten up and fly right, chin in, chest out, shoulders back, suck in that belly, goddam it, boy, this is the army not a goddam beauty parlor, oh girls, you step so pretty, whaddya doin' Sattaday night?

  I'm sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for sixteen weeks of basic infantry training and we're told once again and every day we're no good hup ho hup ho hup hup hup ho, get in line there, soldier, goddam it, kills me to call you soldier, goddam pimple on the ass of the army, get in line or you'll get a corporal's boot up your fat ass, hup ho, hup ho, come on come on sing it sound off

  I got a gal in Jersey City

  She got gumboils on her titty.

  Sound off, cadence count,

  Sound off, cadence count,

  One two three four

  One two three four.

  This is your rifle, ya listenin' to me, your rifle, not your goddam gun, call this a gun and I'll ram it up your ass, your rifle, soldier, your piece, got that? This is your rifle, your M1, your piece, your girlfriend the rest of your army life. This is what you sleep with. This is what comes between you and the goddam gooks and goddam Chinks. Got that? You hold this goddam piece the way you hold a woman, no, tighter'n a woman. Drop this and your ass is in a sling. Drop this piece and you're in the goddam stockade. A dropped rifle is a rifle that can go off, blow off somebody's ass. That happens, girls, and you're dead, you're fuckin' dead.

  The men who drill and train us are draftees and recruits themselves, a few months ahead of us. They're known as training cadre and we have to call them corporals even if they're privates like us. They yell at us as if they hate us and if you ever talk back you're in trouble. They tell us, Your ass is in a sling, soldier. We got your balls and we're ready to squeeze.

  There are men in my platoon who had fathers and brothers in World War II and know everything about the army. They say you can't be a good soldier till the army breaks you down and builds you up again. You come into this man's army with all kinds of smartass ideas, think you're big shit, but the army's been around a long time, all the way back to Julius fuckin' Caesar, and knows how to deal with shitass recruits with attitude. Even if you come in all gung-ho the army will knock that outa you. Gung-ho or negative all means shit to the army because the army will tell you what to think, army will tell you what to feel, army will tell you what to do, army will tell you when to shit, piss, fart, squeeze your fuckin' pimples and if you don't like it write to your congressman, go ahead, and when we hear about that we will kick your little white ass from one end of Fort Dix to the fuckin' other so that you'll be cryin' for your momma, your sister, your girlfriend and the whore on the next street.

  Before lights-out I lie on my bunk and listen to the talk about girls, families, Mom's home cooking, what Dad did in the war, high school proms where everyone got laid, what we're gonna do when we get out of the goddam army, how we can't wait till we get to Debbie or Sue or Cathy and how we're gonna screw ourselves blue, shit, man, I won't wear my goddam clothes for a month, get into that goddam bed with my girl, my brother's girl, any girl, and I won't come up for air, and when I get discharged get me a job, start a business, live out on Long Island, come home every night an' tell the wife, drop them panties, babe, I'm ready for action, have kids, yeah.

  Awright, you guys, shut your miserable asses, lights-out, not a goddam sound or I'll have you on KP quicker'n a whore's fart.

  And when the corporal leaves it starts again, the talk, oh, that first weekend pass after five weeks of basic training, into the city, into Debbie, Sue, Cathy, anyone.

  I wish I could say something like I'm going into New York on my first weekend pass to get laid. I wish I could say something that would make everyone smile, even nod their heads to show I'm one of them. But I know if I open my mouth they'll say, Yeah, get a load of the Irishman talking about girls, or one of them, Thompson, will start singing, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," and they'll all laugh because they know my eyes.

  In a way I don't mind because I can lie here on the bunk all clean and comfortable after the evening shower, tired from the day of marching and running with my sixty-pound backpack the corporals say is heavier than the packs carried in the French Foreign Legion, a day of training in weapons, taking them apart, reassembling, firing on ranges, crawling under barbed wire with machine guns clattering over my head, climbing ropes, trees, walls, charging at bags with fixed bayonets and screaming, fuckin' gook, the way the corporals tell me, wrestling in woods with men from other companies wearing blue helmets to show they're the enemy, running up hills with fifty-caliber machine gun barrels over my shoulder, scrambling through mud, swimming with my sixty-pound backpack, sleeping all night in the woods with backpack for pillow and mosquitoes feasting on my face.

  When we're not out in the field we're in large rooms listening to lectures on how dangerous and sneaky the Koreans are, the North Koreans, and the Chinese who are even worse. The whole world knows what sneaky bastards the Chinks are and if there's anyone in this outfit who's Chinese tough shit but that's the way it is, my father was German, men, and he had to put up with a lotta shit during World War II when sauerkraut was liberty cabbage, that's the way it was. This is war, men, and when I look at you specimens my heart sinks thinking of the future of America.

  There are films about what a glorious army this is, the U.S. Army, that fought the English, the French, the Indians, the Mexicans, the Spanish, the Germans, the Japs, and now the goddam gooks and Chinks, and never lost a war, never. Remember that men, never lost a goddam war.

  There are films about weapons and tactics and syphilis. The one about syphilis is called The Silver Bullet and shows men losing their voices and dying and telling the world how sorry they are, how foolish they were to go with diseased women in foreign places and now their penises are falling off and there's nothing they can do about it but ask God's forgiveness and the forgiveness of their families back home, Mom and Dad sipping lemonade on the porch, Sis l
aughing on a backyard swing pushed by Chuck the quarterback home from college.

  The men in my platoon lie on their bunks and talk about The Silver Bullet. Thompson says that was a stupid fuckin' movie, you'd have to be a real horse's ass to get syphed up like that and what the hell do we have rubbers for, right, Di Angelo, you went to college?

  Di Angelo says you have to be careful.

  Thompson says, What the hell do you know, goddam spaghetti-eating guinea?

  Di Angelo says, Say that again, Thompson, and I'll have to ask you to step outside.

  Thompson laughs, Yeah, yeah.

  Go ahead, Thompson, say it again.

  Nah, you probably got a knife there. All you guineas got knives.

  No knife, Thompson, just me.

  Don't trust you, Di Angelo.

  No knife, Thompson.

  Yeah.

  The whole platoon is quiet and I wonder why people like Thompson have to talk to other people like that. It shows you're always something else in this country. You can't just be an American.

  There's an old regular army corporal, Dunphy, who works in weapons, issuing and repairing, and smelling always of whiskey. Everyone knows he should have been kicked out of the army long ago but Master Sergeant Tole takes care of him. Tole is a huge black man with a belly so great it takes two cartridge belts to go around him. He's so fat he can't go anywhere without a jeep and he roars at us all the time that he can't stand the sight of us, we're the laziest lumps it has ever been his misfortune to see. He tells us and the whole regiment that if anyone bothers Corporal Dunphy he'll break their backs with his bare hands, that the corporal was killing Krauts at Monte Cassino when we were just starting to beat our meat.

  The corporal sees me one night pushing a cleaning rod up and down in my rifle barrel. He snatches the rifle from me and tells me follow him to the latrine. He breaks down the rifle and plunges the barrel into hot soapy water and I want to tell him how we were warned by all the cadre corporals never never use water on your piece, use linseed oil, because water causes rust and the next thing is your piece is rotting and jamming in your hands and how the hell are you gonna defend yourself against a million Chinks swarming over a mountain.

  The corporal says, Bullshit, dries the barrel with a rag on the end of the cleaning rod and peers down the barrel to the reflection of his thumbnail. He hands the barrel to me and I'm dazzled by the shine inside and I don't know what to say to him. I don't know why he's helping me and all I can say is, Thanks, Corporal. He tells me I'm a nice kid and not only that he's going to let me read his favorite book.

  It's The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell, a paperback, falling apart. The corporal tells me I'm to guard this book with my life, that he reads it all the time, that James T. Farrell is the greatest writer that ever lived in the U.S.A., a writer that understands you an' me, kid, not like those blue-ass bullshit artists they have in New England. He says I can have this book till I finish basic training and then I have to get my own copy.

  Next day is colonel's inspection and we're confined to barracks after chow time to clean and scrub and shine. Before lights-out we have to stand by our bunks for closer inspection by Master Sergeant Tole and two regular army sergeants who stick their noses into everything. If they find anything wrong we have to do fifty push-ups with Tole resting his foot on our backs and humming "Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home."

  The colonel doesn't check every rifle but when he looks down my barrel he steps back, stares at me and says to Sergeant Tole, This is a hell of a clean rifle, Sergeant, and asks me, Who's the Vice President of the United States, soldier?

  Alben Barkley, sir.

  Good. Name the city where the second atomic bomb was dropped.

  Nagasaki, sir.

  Okay, Sergeant, this is our man. And that's a hell of a clean rifle, soldier.

  After formation a corporal tells me I'm to be colonel's orderly next day, all day, riding in his car with the driver, opening his door, saluting, closing the door, waiting, saluting, opening the door again, saluting, closing the door.

  And if I'm a good colonel's orderly and don't fuck up I'll get a three-day pass next week, Friday night to Monday night, and I can go to New York and get laid. The corporal says there isn't a man in Fort Dix who wouldn't pay fifty dollars to be colonel's orderly and they don't know why the hell I got it just for having a clean rifle barrel. Where the hell did I learn to clean a rifle like that?

  In the morning the colonel has two long meetings and I have nothing to do but sit with and listen to his driver, Corporal Wade Hansen, complaining about the way the Vatican is taking over the world and if there's ever a Catholic President in this country he'll emigrate to Finland where they keep Catholics in their place. He's from Maine and he's a Congregationalist and proud of it and doesn't hold with foreign religions. His second cousin married a Catholic and she had to move out of the state to Boston which is crawling with Catholics all leaving their money to the Pope and those cardinals who like little boys.

  It's a short day with the colonel because he gets drunk at lunch and dismisses us. Hansen drives him to his quarters and then tells me get out of the car, he wants no fish heads in his car. He's a corporal and I don't know what to say to him but even if he were a private I wouldn't know what to say because it's hard to understand people when they talk like that.

  It's only two o'clock and I'm free till chow time at five so I can go to the PX and read magazines, listen to Tony Bennett on the jukebox singing "Because of you there's a song in my heart," and I can dream about my three-day pass and seeing Emer, the girl in New York, and how we'll go out to dinner and a movie and maybe an Irish dance where she'll have to teach me the steps and it's a lovely dream because the weekend of my three-day pass is my birthday and I'll be twenty-one.

  12

  The Friday of my three-day pass I have to stand on line outside the orderly room with men waiting for ordinary weekend passes. A cadre corporal, Sneed, whose real name is a Polish name no one can pronounce, tells me, Hey, soldier, pick up that butt.

  Oh, I don't smoke, Corporal.

  I didn't ask you if you fuckin' smoked. Pick up that butt.

  Howie Abramowitz nudges me and whispers, Don't be an asshole. Pick up the fuckin' butt.

  Sneed has his hands on his hips. Well?

  I didn't drop the butt, Corporal. I don't smoke.

  Okay, soldier, come with me.

  I follow him into the orderly room and he picks up my pass. Now, he says, we're going to your barracks and you're changing into fatigues.

  But, Corporal, I have a three-day pass. I was colonel's orderly.

  I don't give a shit if you wiped the colonel's ass. Get into your fatigues and on the double and get your entrenching tool.

  It's my birthday, Corporal.

  On the double, soldier, or I'll have you in the fuckin' stockade.

  He marches me past the men waiting on line. He waves my pass at them and tells them say bye bye to my pass and they laugh and wave because there's nothing else to do and they don't want to get into trouble. Only Howie Abramowitz shakes his head as if to say he's sorry over what's happening.

  Sneed marches me across the parade ground and into a clearing in the woods beyond. Okay, asshole, dig.

  Dig?

  Yeah, dig me a nice hole three feet deep, two feet wide, and the faster you do it the better for you.

  That must mean the sooner I finish this the sooner I can take my pass and go. Or is it something else? Everyone in the company knows Sneed is bitter because he was a big football star at Bucknell University and wanted to play for the Philadelphia Eagles only the Eagles wouldn't have him and now he goes around making people dig holes. It's unfair. I know men have been forced to dig holes and bury their passes and dig them up again and I don't know why I should have to do that. I keep telling myself I wouldn't mind if this were an ordinary weekend pass but this is a three-day pass and it's my birthday and why do I have to do this? Bu
t there's nothing I can do about it. I might as well dig as fast as I can and bury the pass and dig it up again.

  And while I'm digging I'm dreaming that what I'd really like to do is wrap my little shovel around Sneed's head and smash him till his head is raw and bloody and I wouldn't mind one bit digging a hole for his big fat football body. That's what I'd like to do.

  He hands me the pass to bury and when I finish shoveling in the earth he tells me pat it with my entrenching tool. Make it nice, he says.

  I don't know why he wants me to make it nice when I'll be digging it up in a minute but now he tells me, 'Bout face, forrard harch, and he marches me back the way we came, past the orderly room where the line of men waiting for passes is gone, and I'm wondering if he's had enough satisfaction for the day so that he might march inside for a replacement pass but, no, he keeps me going right to the mess hall and tells the sergeant there I'm a candidate for KP, that I need a little lesson in obeying orders. They have a good laugh over that and the sergeant says they must have a drink together sometime and talk about the Philadelphia Eagles, isn't that some goddam team. The sergeant calls over another man, Henderson, to show me my job, the worst job you can get in any mess hall, pots and pans.