Just a Basic Day - Band of Brothers

You do not realize how sheltered of a life you live until you start meeting guys from all over the country in a guy setting, ie like Basic Training.  Just to name a few by geography, I have long lost the memory of their names, - South Dakota (went to law school) North Dakota (called him MoJo for some reason, ran into him ten years later at Ft Sill, had the room across from mine in the officers quarters one AT) Washington, DC (law school, George Town) Wyoming (he was very flexible, could kick his leg over his shoulder, one night we were talking and he told me his Dad had committed suicide, I did not have the nerve to ask how) Boston, Texas, Rhode Island, New York ( the first Jewish guy I had ever met.  He was not cut out for the program but would have been less cut out for the regular basic training program. He was a funny guy, took his pain in stride and never, never gave up and completed the course, he was also a law school guy.) 

We had a lot of guys from back east and down south.  Their exact locations escape me but they seemed to be more interested in where I lived than I thought normal.  I guess the word Kansas in Kansas City threw them a lot.  It took me forever to explain that Kansas City was in Missouri not Kansas and I am not sure they ever did figure it out.  One guy in particular was sincere when he asked me if we had cows on the street and did I own a cow boy hat.

I was very fond of all those guys.  Some were just cool guys, others were down home types, some were nerds but all were likable.  There was not one guy in our platoon that I did not like or nor get along with. 

The last day we were there a guy, one of the nerds, put up a piece of paper on the bulletin board for all of us to put our names and addresses on.  We all just laughed about it knowing who the poster was, but we all seemed to slip our name on the paper.  I don't remember if I copied any of the names down, but wish I had now 50 years later. 

I don't dwell on those guys and each year I remember fewer and fewer.  There is a Basic Training book that was made and it is some where in one of my many boxes I keep stuff in.  Guess I should go find it and pay a short visit to a band of brothers who at one time were very important to me.