Recanting Holzhof

BASIC TRAINING

We said our goodbyes to the old guy and his empty old van and got out at Reception near a place called Sand Hill in Fort Benning.

Reception at Fort Benning was organized chaos, at first, they simply had us stand in groups of strangers in our civilian clothes. Standing and waiting, something I would do a lot of while in the military.

Eventually a senior drill sergeant made his way to the crowds of recruits from all over the country and different parts of the world and demanded that anyone with tattoos step forward, several people who did so were sent home because he did not like the significance of those tattoos.

We were then told to wait for our name to be called and would be told what bay in the holding area we would be staying in until the different basic training schools had available slots or were starting a new course.

Some other stuff happened that I don’t remember but I remember the bay. Everyone with the same assigned bay went into the bay and was told to find whatever available bunk they wanted and to wait until called for chow or gear to be issued.

I couldn’t find a bottom bunk in the massive bay full of nothing but bottom bunks, so I climbed up on my bed and stared at the ceiling, just waiting for the next thing to happen.

Pretty soon something happened, someone started poking the bottom of my bed demanding i sit down on the bottom bunk and hang out.

It was a guy named Anderson who went by Church. Church had moved to Alaska from somewhere in America and to be interesting combined all religious beliefs into one singular doctrine of his own making. He said he worked in restaurants and hung out in strip clubs in Alaska for two years and that the strippers named him Church, but he liked it so much he wanted everyone to know him by that nickname.

Work was seasonal and stripper friends are expensive so Anderson made the decision to join the service and like Dave and my buddy before Dave it was the fact that if you joined the infantry at the time, you could have your college debt paid off and get a large signing bonus that incentivized him to become an infantryman.

While Church and I were talking we both commented on how no one was supposed to leave their bunks, but people were just going all over the place like ants in lines and some people had made a game of jumping and crawling from bunk to bunk. Mostly though everyone had gathered around a tan guy in surfer shorts and a t-shirt with a surfboard on it and a blond-haired blue-eyed monster of a guy that everyone agreed had earned the nickname Tank for how muscular he was.

My buddy had college and pilot school debt and needed his loans paid off. He had taken me to watch Black Hawk Down, and it motivated him to seek a life of action, he had gone to the recruiters before me and spoken to veterans in the civilian world and got a taste of glory when he heard about the infantry, apparently everyone recommended he go infantry.

He found out about the Battle Buddy program where, if you join with a friend you can go to basic training and your first duty station together, I had just finished a year of Bible School in Europe and had travelled and wasn’t doing much at the time, so he approached me, asking if I wanted to be able to travel again.

It didn’t take much convincing, and he really wanted to be in the infantry with me so even though i went against the better judgement and sage advice of my recruiter and his peers I maintained that I would serve in the infantry.

Long story short, it turned out that the Army wouldn’t pay my buddy’s college debts off, so he ended up backing out and pursuing the life of a pilot in Orlando, where we are from. That was 20 years ago this year.

I remember the trip from the recruiter’s office to Tampa, Florida where I and a bunch of strangers piled into a van and an old man drove us to Fort Benning, Georgia. For some reason most of the other people in the van got dropped off along the way and pretty soon it was me, the driver and a guy named Dave alone in that van for the rest of the way to infantry school.

I have always been popular and made friends easily, but it is my nature to be quiet and introverted, not to seek attention, Dave was very different than me, very friendly and outgoing and within a few minutes he had us talking to each other like we had known each other for years. Then, after a couple of hours Dave went silent, the old man at the wheel said nothing and we were quiet for a long time, in an attempt to break the monotony, I asked Dave why he was joining, his whole attitude changed, and he went into a very somber story telling mode.

He had been a shrimp fisherman in Florida and worked three weeks at a time at sea, he had a daughter and a wife and one day he came home from a long stint at sea to find out his daughter had just been dropped off at his mother in-law’s place and his wife left him a message that she was leaving him for a French man and moving to France that day.

Dave, got quiet, sad, then angry then laughed then got serious and went on to say that his wife never made it to the airport because she and her lover got into a serious car accident on the way to the airport and she was permanently injured.

Dave said he lost the house, the marriage and was joining the service to raise and support his daughter and the infantry selection of service was paying the highest signing bonus incentive at the time, he needed the money and signed up.

The old man said nothing, but that he had some good news. Uncle Sam was paying for our lunch, steak at Golden Corral. Somehow, after that story of loss, having free steaks for lunch felt like a gain, and once we had eaten our fill we climbed back into the van and slept most of the rest of the way to Fort Benning.

Andy was all in and wanted me to be all in because the Army recruiters had convinced him that if he joined through the Buddy Program and got someone else to join with him he’d have a guaranteed friend at his first duty station and get more money, debt is a hell of an incentive.

I was hesitant at first but Andy laid out the plan, to go infantry, become Army Rangers then finish strong as Special Forces.

He took me to watch Black Hawk Down in the movie theater and got all sorts of fired up by that, he had me talk to a former Army Ranger who works in Orlando as a mechanic and wmexpressed much of the same sentiment I was going through with my job situation. My takeaway from that conversation was that I was glad to be making more than a mechanic who ended an advturous career to focus on his marriage.

But the veterans I did talk to all spoke with genuine satisfaction in their time in service and remembered it fondly much like the guy who convinced me to go to Bible School so I decided to join with Andy and not live out my days living a easy life without much to look back on.

Three days before we went to Basic Training my aunt died of cancer, I attended the funeral in Virginia then came back and started a whole new life.

That was may of 2002, I was 20.

Chapter 4: Monetarily Compensated Fortitude: I Joined The Army

“I love the infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end, they are the guys that wars can’t be won without.”

Ernie Pyle

1 JOINING THE US ARMY

It was 2002 when I joined the infantry, I had taken what is essentially the military IQ test for enlisted, called the ASVAB and scored well over a fifty and much faster than the rest of the recruits. I was told by my recruiter and several shocked others there that I could do any job or MOS I wanted because of that.

My buddy who was enlisting with me was hellbent on joining the infantry, he wanted to see action if he was going to serve. Me? I didn’t care too much what my job in the military was going to be, I was getting further into my 20s and farther away from my teens and needed a job.

items flown in from far off places with no expense spared and everything was what the British would call Bespoke.

The Proposal

I met a lot of guys only a few years older than me that said if it weren’t for the pay they’d quit what they did at the conventions and would tell me not to get a job like theirs, so I started to settle and make peace that maybe that would be my life when a friend from when I did Tae Kwon Do contacted me, asking if I would join the Army with him. He had been a pilot ever since I knew him and I had flown to the Bahamas with cheap tickets because I knew him, but he had recently decided to not be a police officer. He had done a year of probationary period and one day his sergeant got nit picky about threads on his uniform and how shiny his shoes should be and he just quit couldn’t tolerate that level of attention to detail and intimate authority.

So, because he had college debt for a job he knew he’d hate he decided to join the military.

Andy had been talking to a lot of Veterans and wanted to see combat, this was shortly after September 11th 2001 and Andy really liked the idea of going to war up close and personal. He’s no weenie.

Chapter 3: In Limbo: After School, Before The Next 20 Years

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

⁃ Psalm 90:12

What Might Have Been

A few months flew by once I was home in Orlando again. Orlando really felt like home after having been away. I received letters from a girl I had hung out with in Bodenseehof we went to Chicago together and had coffee at a brand new coffee shop called Starbucks, ate deep dish pizza and went to Madison, Wisconsin where we stayed in a sorority house then spent some time at her parents were, we got a long great but there was nothing there and nothing happened that would spark something happening so I went home with a sense of relief that what might have been something fizzled into nothing before anything could have begun to start.

Conventional Wisdom

Then I turned 19. I got a job through a church friend working as convention staff at the Swan and Dolphin Disney hotels. Pay was good and the hours decent, they had a policy of if you showed up and weren’t needed with the first five minutes you’d still get paid $25 an hour for four hours of work, so the drive was always worth it.

Most of the people working for the company were retired Snowbirds with tough accents and crass humor which passed the time, they were almost all women looking to get out of the house and have extra spending money.

The responsibilities of sitting in on sales pitches was easy, sometimes it was boring to guard laptops or stand by a printer but we rotated stations to keep from getting bored of the same scene and the little old ladies always made sure to walk through convention show rooms and fill my bag with swag that they were giving away. The coolest swag I ever got was a titanium pen specifically engineered for the Space Station. Some companies would rent out a theme park and ask us to chaperone the drinkers.

One lady knew that I spent a year in Europe and had already been drinking there so one day she came up to me all smiles and excited and gave me a bottle of wine. She insisted that I drink the whole thing right then and there, so after a little back and forth I realized it was either go along to get along or spend the next 7 hours and 45 minutes being told to drink the wine.

She was Haitian and said it was a special Haitian recipe that her husband made. I should have thanked her and left it at that but no, I asked what the process was to make the wine at home and stopped hearing anything the moment she said it was made int their bathtub. I’m a huge germaphobe and don’t really like to be touched and she kept touching my arm after telling me I pretty much drank her dead skin body tea. Serves me right.

Another time an event coordinator told me all about how he wanted to quit but was to addicted to hooking up with show room models, that he was in charge of scheduling their next modeling event and they’d seduce him for better paying shows. He went into a pitch about how it was an addiction and he was getting to old to perform then he showed me the prosthetic he inserted himself in so that he’d have the reputation of being a superior lover. He offered me his job every time I saw him for about a month. I was not interested in his universe so I’d just pass time listening to his stories and marvel at his level of self loathing.

A little too much time had passed and I knew I wasn’t going to go to college but I was bored with my Cush job..

One of the most interesting responsibilities I had was chaperoning an Olympian gymnast who was flown in to Orlando from Australia to give the speech just because he was the winner of his event.. The guy was very down to earth and modest and a bit perturbed that had he loathe wouldn’t have access to a big paycheck for being a winner.

I was also specifically asked for to sit in on a penthouse suite private party to be entertaining for the guests. The Heineken was flown in from the Netherlands and the pizzas were partially cooked in Gino’s East Pizzeria in Chicago and finished cooking in Orlando at the hotel, there were other

Groups of friends went to more places on the weekend and one weekend I was invited to go to Prague with a group of guys and girls. I didn’t say anything about what had happened to me instead I just smiled and agreed to go.

When we got to the Prague train station there was a flamboyant little man with a small cardboard sign. The moment he saw us he said “finally you are here! I am here for you.” The guys in the group immediately went on edge but one girl got excited and said “Yes you are, where are you taking us.” Immediately bit guys and girls in the group started muttering about hostel reservations, but the curious girl was having none of it and got more girls into playing along and before you knew it we were following the little guy with a waddle to his place. All 10 of us.

When we went into his apartment around the corner from the train station he pointed at a giant loft in his living room and said “ladies” ten pointed at the living room floor and said “you” to all of us guys. Before anyone could protest one of the girls said “we would love to stay but we need one more pillow, I won’t have a pillow” as though he was expecting that question he said “I have your pillow, its with my lover” then he opened a door and we all saw some guy sleeping on a mattress on the floor and without a word our host yanked the pillow from under the sleeping guy’s head and yes. We spent the night there, everyone had a pillow.

Time flew by at Taurnhof, once a week we had to volunteer with the locals. I worked on a farm sorting bales of hay in a barn and heating ham, fresh milk and Austrian cheese off a wooden cutting board while other students emptied the town cemetery. I was glad to have been stuck with farm work, it was hard to do but fun because of the people I did the chores with.

One day, probably a weekend that saw an empty school because most of the students were traveling the other Jonathan approached me with a determined look in his eye. He had revived a viral email that said you can’t drink a gallon of milk and a whole angle food cake. So we went downtown Schladming and bought three liters of milk each and a cake each, sat on park bench and downed it all. We didn’t throw up but we didn’t feel great either.

It want long after that that a group of guys who had gone to the states ca e back and quoted “Bud! Wise! Er!” Every few minutes or would bust out with a “Whazzzah!” Something they picked up from two popular commercials is the spring of 2000.

School ended way too soon and I returned to Orlando.

spring and allergies had their way with her, but she was German and blew her nose like a German. It’s a trumpeting sound and back then I thought it was just her not being discreet but nope, its like an accent and every German blows their nose that way. I lived in Bavaria for twenty years and had to laugh every spring at the signature German blowing of the nose like a trumpet. I tried blowing my nose hard enough to make that trumpeting sound but it hurt too much to repeat.

The school curriculum, about the New Testament was very interesting but like at Bodenseehof I failed most of the homework assignments and tests, I just saw things from a totally different perspective and found a different meaning in the verses and passages of the Bible and none of what I wrote aligned with the assignments intended message.

I wasn’t used to failing, I’m not dumb, school was always easy to me but when it came to answering things I considered to be subjective in the Bible I failed at answering correctly almost every time. To the point I’m fairly certain I was given a pity pass when I was given my diploma.

The exercise and healthy diet mantra had a much stronger importance at Taurnhof and was more strictly enforced, but most of the students were athletic, not athletes just people that ran and surfed or biked or played soccer for fun. We did group sports which I found more interesting and got more of an exercise out of. The guy who convinced me to go to these particular Bible Schools was right, I did enjoy myself.

near the train station. There were two cops who nodded at David and went back to watching a dazed person holding a full shopping bag. David walked up to the cops and called the guy with the bag over to us. He motioned to the cops and the bag was handed over then the cop with the bag laughed and haded me the bag.

David said “go ahead, look” so I looked in the bag and I looked in. I didn’t really know the names of what I was looking at but I knew that every item in that bulging bag was drugs. They all started laughing and all I could think was “Not again.” But David said you need to do something for me as a favor or not and I’ll leave you alone with these police. I said “The first thing” and he gave me directions to a door that led to an elevator and when I finally got all the way down to the bottom to walk through the bar and sit at a table until I was told what to do. He made a call on his flip phone and sent me on my way. When I got to the table I sat down and immediately someone from the staff came over took stuff out of the bag, rolled it into enormous smokeable form, closed the bag, said smoke and enjoy and watch the bag. Came back with a mix drink and and a smile and left me there for who knows how long as I smoked and drank the time away. Eventually some women walked up to me and said my name and took me to what they called David’s place. Huge dangerous dudes hung out outside the apartment and said I couldn’t leave. I was in there for probably three days or until the next day I have no idea, all sorts of people dropped by and techno never stopped playing then just like that I was asked to leave, given a water and my stuff and I was back to traveling alone.

At some point I had my hair died platinum blonde with black circles in it with a pretty good hair cut and was given a free jar of Taft hair gel.

That’s how I looked when I showed up to Taurnhof to study the New Testament.

The dean’s son took me aside after I had put my stuff in my room. He seemed serious and said “come here, I want to talk to you” so I went along expecting some speech about my looks and to watch my behavior, instead he bought me a beer and said to get him any time I want to go drinking then we had a few more beers told jokes and and just hung out.

The people at this second Bible School seemed way more easy going and outgoing and people got my humor which didn’t always get understood in Germany.

I felt more like myself there than anywhere else I had ever been before and decided that while the place had a lot to do with it. It was the people, the personalities of the people at the new school had personalities that meshed well with mine.

When class started the teacher went through everyone’s name and I was was the second Jonathan so I got the nickname Jonnny with a G.

Jonathan and I actually ended up becoming pretty good friends, we did chores together, made commentary about the person who blew her nose all through school. It was

I took the next train headed the same direction and got out at Warsaw. I went straight to a Sparkasse bank and took out enough cash for new pants and shoes and two extremely young cops with machine guns cornered me demanding to give them all my money or get arrested. I pushed past them in a panic and sprinted away. They didn’t bother chasing me or yelling after me so I just kept running until I found the market square where I bought new shoes pants shirt and jacket. Poland was way cheaper than expected. I was too paranoid about being wanted so I changed bags and bought a hat and took the first train out of the country and that was my only experience in Poland. I’d like to go back some day there was stuff I wanted to see and do, but time has passed I’m older and have lost interest in the idea.

The third event that happened was in Prague the Czech Republic I had been walking all day and was in the main plaza near the train station trying to figure out what I wanted to do when a very large muscular guy started hitting on me and not taking no for an answer, eventually I convinced him to leave me alone and sat down next to a guy with a French Bulldog who laughed and commented on the social skills of the guy who just left.

I was sore from being on my feet all morning and hadn’t had a conversation in a couple of days so I decided to stay seated and shoot the breeze before heading to a sports bar I had heard about. David as he called himself said he was about to leave and had something to show me that most people never see. I hesitated but agreed to see what it was, we stood up and went to a small park around the corner

Tame West Rugged East

There were three times something happened in the East that the police would have prevented in the west. In the Western European countries it was common for the police to take me to the side and search me in the train station or restaurant districts, whereas I was ignored by the cops in the Eastern countries.

The first thing that happened was in Budapest I got off the subway and saw a guy laying against the wall with a stream of blood oozing from his torso, before I could get close to him I was grabbed by an undercover officer and told that the gypsies were watching and even the plain clothes officers were too scared to get close. I was told to leave immediately and the second I turned around several kids put their hands in my pockets and the nearby officers in uniform yelled in English to let it happen and not touch any of the kids. I got surrounded by nearly twenty gypsei kids and then suddenly they left. The cops said that means they like you and to leave immediately and find a new way back to my hostel when I was done exploring the city.

The second thing that happened was when I was on a rickety overnight train to Warsaw Poland. I woke up to hands on my thighs and couldn’t shake the sleepy feeling or open my eyes. So I just yelled and swung my arms at random and the experience ended. When I came out of my blacked out state I saw that my pants pockets had been sliced with razor blades and my car door was wide open even though I had made sure to lock it that night. I went barefoot up and down the train until I found a guy in uniform and he said sleeping gas had been used on me then kicked me off the train barefoot in the snow.