The Invisible Sign

The Jewish Girl

The years rolled on, and life at home was the same as it ever was. I continued in my salacious day-to-day survival mode, inching my way through school and finding as many illicit pleasures as I could along the way. 

Although I had actually had a girlfriend when I was 13 years old, my feelings of inadequacy turned into a fit of rage one afternoon, and I told her that I didn’t want to continue seeing her.

There was no explanation, and my behaviour was so belligerent and hateful that I still feel guilt and shame when speaking of it.

Ironically, just as I was about to turn 15, the boy who had introduced me to the girl I treated so badly had met a girl with a sister he was sure I would want to meet.

Or so he said. 

It turned out that his reasons were not so much altruistic as they were his fear of the girl’s father.

Somehow supposed to be his “wing man.” He actually thought that I would run away as I did from the other girl.

Regardless, although she never left her porch, we said hello, which, at the time, was the limit of my social vocabulary, so anything more than that, I’ve long forgotten.

Then, one evening in 1966, for some odd reason, however, that same boy (who, in the not-too-distant future, would become my brother-in-law in more ways than one) invited me to the drive-in theater, and he told me that his girl’s sister would be going as well.

Even now, nearly sixty years later, I can see her on the evening of our first date, what she wore, her hairstyle, and the sweet smell of her near me in the back seat of his 56 Chevy.

Our first son was born at the end of December, 1967.

Too Young, Too Stupid, Too Everything! Go Home and Grow Up!

Making babies when I could barely make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without my mother’s help did not win me any points with either family, hers or my own.

My Mom, who rarely got upset, became livid when I mentioned marriage, being a dad, or anything related to them.

“How do you expect to support a family when you haven’t even finished school yet?” She said.

When he was born, he was given his grandfather’s name and their family surname, and there was no chance that a selfish, hedonistic, lazy teenager (me) could take care of a wife and a child.

Fortunately, she was smart enough to recognize it, even if I didn’t, and although I had no idea how to salvage the situation, I did not let it go.

Regardless, however, to her I was no longer in the picture.

Growing Up Had To Happen Fast…

High school was too slow. It was taking forever to get through, so when I turned sixteen, I enrolled in the Job Corps and was shipped off to Camp Kilmer in Edison, New Jersey, where I was nearly murdered.

That wasn’t the first time that I tried to discipline myself, to make myself grow up, but like the others, I failed.

Finally, in mid-1969, when the Vietnam War was still raging and my older brother was stationed in Cu Chi, just off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I decided to enlist.

The Army kept saying it needed a few more good men, so I introduced myself to the Army recruiter.

Standing at attention, 5′ 6″ at 120 lbs.:

“I wanna enlist,” I said. “My brother’s in Cu Chi.” I thought that might sway things in my favor.

“Boy,” he replied, “We have handguns bigger than you! Sorry, but you need to put on some weight and finish high school.”

Trying something similar with the Marine recruiter, he just stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

“Maybe in ten years or so,” he said.

Surprisingly, the U.S. Navy recruiter had other ideas!

“Let’s take an exam, and then we’ll see what we can do.”

A week or so after signing some papers and convincing Mom to co-sign, I received a phone call to report to the induction center in Pittsburgh, PA, by 10:00 a.m. on August 1, 1969.

A Ride On the Panic Express

As I sat at the train station, my reluctance grew. Several times throughout my young life, I tried to discipline myself and failed, and now I feared this would be the most epic failure of all.

As I sat there, waiting for the train to arrive, I was already homesick. Nobody came to say goodbye; they were all opposed to what I was doing, and a sick feeling of abandonment flooded over me. I wanted to cry.

Was I leaving forever? I didn’t know.

My anxieties heightened as I boarded the train, and as it neared Kittaning Point, the knot in my stomach grew into a dreadful ache of loneliness. I began to panic. I wanted to go home.

Forgive Me Father, For I Have Screwed Up Royally!

Food! I needed food! Especially coffee. It wasn’t yet 7:00 a.m., and I hadn’t eaten. I stumbled to the dining car.

As the train rolled along, there were five or six people scattered throughout the car and, ironically, one of them was a priest.

After taking a table adjacent to him, I ordered Special-K cereal, toast, and coffee.

As I sat there with my coffee, I stared at the priest until he finally locked eyes with me and smiled.

That dreadful sinking was still there in my gut. The food and coffee didn’t help. I wanted to scream, to get up and run, shouting through the train.

It was obvious that he recognized my distress, so I said:

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” he said, and brought his coffee to my table.

As we passed through Johnstown, I told him the story of my life, in pretty much the same detail as I’ve told you, and he asked if I wanted him to pray for me.

In my ignorance, I responded,

“Will it do any good?”

“Well, it certainly won’t hurt,” he said.

So there, in a dining car of the Pennsylvania Railroad, I was introduced to the god of Catholicism.

“Have you ever read the Bible?” he asked.

“I’ve seen one,” I said. “My mother has a family Bible that she bought from some guy who came to the door, but I never really read it.”

“You need to get one of your own,” he said. “I believe it will help you in your journey.”

Let The Journey Begin!

After returning to my seat, I fell asleep.

“Pittsburgh station! Pittsburgh station! Next stop is Pittsburgh!”

The conductor shouted as he passed through our car and on into the next.

The William S. Moorhead Federal Building is about four-tenths of a mile from the P.R.R. station in downtown Pittsburgh. I could see it from where I stood.

“It’s that big building, right there!” The man said, pointing.

Over 300 feet tall, 23 floors, housing among other agencies, the FBI, the CIA, and the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS), which I was to report to on the 19th floor.

Twelve hours later, at ten o’clock that evening, the airplane landed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

At 12:30 a.m., our U.S. Navy bus dropped us off at the gates of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.

Then, at 5:30 a.m., all hell broke loose, but not the religious kind. It was time to meet God and become a man.