A special day

Today is a special day in my mind...

I could not, not go out and walk today.  Because 35 years ago today something extraordinary happened.  That happenening filled my mind as I walked this morning.  I barely noticed the metal gate on the bakery was open and there was a customer inside.  I barely noticed the good looking woman working out who was visible through the open door of the gym.  Because in my mind I was elsewhere.

I've run 5Ks, 10Ks, 15Ks, 10 mile races, and three Half-marathons.  I once ran a 20 mile training run, while preparing to run a marathon.  After four hours of running 12 minute miles like a machine and being absolutely. thoroughly exhausted; barely having energy to climb one flight of stairs to my apartment, I decided right then and there.  I really didn't need to run a marathon.

But 35 years ago today, I probably ran further and faster than I did during any of those races.  In street clothes.  Jeans, a button-down long-sleeved shirt and heavy cotton t-shirt beneath it.  In running shoes and socks, thank goodness.  And while wearing a medium-weight down jacket, even though it was early August.

The building on Wilshire Boulevard is no longer the same.  It's been torn down and rebuilt.  But in 1977, it was still the AFEES for Los Angeles.  Armed Forces Entrance and Examination Station.  I'd been there the prior December, enlisting in the Air Force before 12/31/1976 in order to ensure I would be eligible for the Vietnam era GI Bill's educational and other benefits.  They call it "delayed enlistment".  I spent 20 hours there enlisting, and then went back to work the next day, and to school after winter break ended.

But eight months later it was time to go process again and be flown to basic military training.  There was a problem though.  I was eight pounds over the maximum allowable weight.  The Sergeant who I spoke to, as my father sat next to me said "You've got three choices, son.  One is to just go home and not come back.  Your enlistment will be voided and you're off the hook.  Two is to go home, lose the weight over the next few days or weeks, and come back.  You won't get your Vietnam era GI Bill benefits, but you can still enlist and get all your other guarantees.  The third choice is the toughest.  It's not even 10 a.m. yet.  You can go out and lose the weight today, and we can still process you in and send you off to Lackland (basic military training was and is conducted for the AF at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio).

He may have given me three choices, but my late father told me there was only one.  Lose the weight and get on the plane.  Otherwise I'd need to find a new place to live, that day.  I'd quit my job, had only a couple of hundred dollars in the bank, and that wasn't an option (although I'm sure Mom's couch would have been available if needed).  So I buttoned up my down jacket and we went outside, where I stared running around the long blocks in the vicinity of the AFEES building.

I'd had to make weight for wrestling matches when I was a junior at Samohi, so I was familiar with the concept.  Sweat out the weight, drink no water, and just run.  So I ran.  For somewhere between four and five hours.  I'm sure I ran more than 20 miles, because at that point I was younger, faster and fitter.  Not as fit as I'd been eight months earlier when I enlisted.  Second semester had spoiled me.  I had only two classes and no PE requirement.  During first semester, I'd had PE and I'd spent an hour or so playing intense, full-court basketball five mornings a week before classes.  The only thing that saved me was that I'd been working 40 hours a week during second semester at a physically demanding job, and that during the time since graduation, I'd gone back to playing pick-up basketball games in the park.

So I ran.  I was literally drenched in sweat by the time I finished.  Not just my head, hair and torso.  Everywhere.  I went into the restroom and did my best to wash, changing into clean clothes I had brought with me (they tell you to bring 2 or 3 changes of civilian clothing only).  When I was all dried off, and freshly scented with deodorant and cologne, I went back to the scale.  I made it by a pound.  I'd sweated off 9 pounds of water weight.  Dad was beaming, and he took my sopping wet down jacket and clothes with him, promising to have them cleaned and mailed to me.  I'd need the jacket in December, when it got cold where I would be in the training pipeline.

I ran for four to five hours, to get some G.I. bill educational benefits.  And to not disappoint my dad.  In the long run, I got one out of two.  Dad was very pleased.  At his 50th birthday party, I attended in semi-formal uniform, my three rows of ribbons a testament to my success in the service, my big combat crew badge proof I was as much a warrior than a desk jockey.  He introduced me as "his contribution to our nation's defense" which I found a tiny bit offensive, but still humorous.

But I did say only one out of two.  There were changes in the laws and ultimately I never got to use my G.I. Bill educational benefits.  Because I left the service before a certain date, my benefits were cut off at a date in the future, that gave me only 30 calendar months to use four years worth of college educational benefits.  I spent most of that first year finding and settling into a job that ultimately left me free to attend college part-time at best.  I tried to get into the university of my choice on a part-time basis with a little over a year's worth of benefits left and was turned down.  The laugh was on me.  I'd run all those miles, sweated like a pig, for educational benefits that the government wound up taking away from me.