A Trucker's Tale – Military Enlistment

Feb 22, 2024 - one year ago

Soon after my bobtailing adventure described in my last article, I attended college for one year.

A Trucker's Tale - Military Enlistment — *Typical Sunday morning hauling sand in dump truck.*

I say ‘attended’ because that is basically what I did. Rather than studying diligently, most of my time was spent chasing girls and spending time at the beaches on the east coast of North Carolina, which were only 80 miles away.

At the end of that first year, the University sent me a letter advising me to take the next year off and to use that time trying to decide if I desired to make better use of my time when I returned the next year. I should have realized that the military was looking for underachieving college students to fill its ranks for an action taking place in Southeast Asia.

I am abso-damned-lutely certain that being a truck driver saved my life when I served my time in the military.

In March 1968, my father returned from our local barber shop and told me he saw a poster on the the wall depicting a man on a bulldozer with the caption, “Join the Seabees.” The next day, I visited the local Navy recruiter, and he asked when I would be drafted, so I walked down the hall in the basement of our local library into the office of the Selective Service. I asked Mrs. McIntire when I would be drafted. She pointed to a pile of letters on a desk and replied, “Honey, those letters are going out tomorrow and your draft notice is among them.” I returned to the Navy recruiter and asked, “Where do I sign?”

So, rather than being drafted in 1968, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy Seabees, officially known as Construction Battalion (CB). Due to having grown up around trucks, farm equipment, and heavy equipment, I entered under a program titled Direct Procurement Petty Officer (DPPO). My rating was Equipment Operator, Petty Officer 3rd Class (EO3), which was an E-4 pay classification. (Those who didn’t enter the Seabees under the DPPO program referred to us as IPOs, or Instant Petty Officers.) If I had not become a Seabee, I would have been drafted into the Army. Most likely, my Vietnam experience would have been that of a ground-pounder, which could have led to having my name inscribed on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC.

When we arrived at boot camp in Gulfport, MS, we received our “scalping” haircuts and we were issued uniforms, underwear, and many other items which, when properly packed, completely filled the duffel bags we were also provided. Since we wouldn’t need the civilian clothes, we had worn to boot camp, they issued us boxes and Uncle Sam paid for our civvies to be sent back to our homes. When we attended our first classroom instruction the following morning, an officer welcomed us, and then proceeded to inform us that he knew we had all joined the Seabees to stay out of Vietnam. He told us that, although he applauded our fine decision, “I can guarantee that every goddam one of you is going to Southeast Asia!” The man must have known what he was talking about, because within six months, we all went!

During our military training in California, I drove one of the troop-hauling tractor-trailers, or cattle-cars, when we went into the hills to play soldier each day, and I never experienced the same “pucker factor” because the hills of southern California were quite small compared to the hills of Black Mountain, NC. Most of us were still kids, so I complied with the cattle-car riders requests to “try to make us fall while we stand,” as I gently rocked the steering wheel from side-to-side as we traveled back and forth from our base in Oxnard. (Due to the extremely low number of good-looking women in Oxnard, CA, Seabees had renamed the town to that of Hogsnard. Maybe the good-looking women hid from the Seabees so we couldn’t find them!) Included with us kids were at least a dozen older fellows, who had either needed a big change in their lives, or those who various court judges had told to either join the military or spend several years in jail. Most of these guys were hard-drinkers, and some were pains-in-the-ass to us younger soldiers, but they sure-as-hell knew how to operate dozers, graders, backhoes, front-end loaders, and scrapers. Some were even good teachers, so we “young’uns” learned from these experienced equipment operators.

One part of our military training was learning to fire weapons and how to throw hand grenades. On our second day of grenade throwing, a fellow soldier didn’t quite throw his grenade far enough over the wall, and a small sliver of steel came back over the wall and stuck in my arm. I have never been able to figure out why my question fell on deaf ears when I inquired if I was eligible to receive the Purple Heart!

My first memories of Vietnam happened on the very first day we arrived “in country.” After we walked down the plane ramp, two fighter jets lifted-off the tarmac, and when they went into afterburner mode, the roar scared the s**t out of me, and I hunkered-down because I thought the place was getting hit with rockets, mortars, or something else totally out of the ordinary. No one called me a sissy, nor did they point at me and laugh, since I was only one-of-many who had done the very same thing.

We realized it wasn’t time for us to die yet, so we entered the Danang airport terminal to retrieve our duffle bags. We were all dressed in clean, green utility uniforms, and our boots were all spit polished. Not only were our uniforms green—everything about us was green. We probably also looked green after all the alcohol we had drunk during our just ended 24-hour plane ride.

Walking through the terminal, I observed a dozen Army soldiers sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall. The fellows could have had their pictures taken to prove that they were the exact opposites of us Seabees. They were dirty. They wore no socks in their jungle boots. They had not shaved lately. They did not look directly at us, or at anyone else. All of them did have, what we soon learned was the “1,000-yard stare”. They had no smiles; no frowns; no emotions whatsoever; they did not speak to us, or to each other. Now I didn’t think I had lived a sheltered life, but this sight was unlike any I had ever seen. At the time I thought, we Seabees are “Before-Vietnam.” Those Army soldiers were “After-Vietnam.”

Ed Miller has more than 40 years of management and ownership experience in the trucking industry. Today, he is a part-time tour bus driver, published author of “A Trucker’s Tale” and regular contributor to Supply Post. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two, and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland.