Someone asked me to republish the memoria about my very brief military career, so here it is again.
After my freshman year at Catholic University, living with my father and stepmother had become impossible. So, with $24 dollars in my pocket, I left the combined misery and relative security of my family home in Washington, DC, and hitchhiked north to New York City. I’d taken just a few changes of clothes and my trumpet with me. At first, I was able to stay with my older sister.
I had two crummy, low-paying jobs for a while, one as an usher at the Palace Theatre on Broadway and the other selling records at a music store in Harlem. After a time, those jobs disappeared and others replaced them.
It 1953 the Korean War was ending, but we still had the draft for military service. If you were drafted you served two years, but if you volunteered it was a three-year commitment. However, there was a third way to enter the military. You could volunteer for the draft. That way you only served two years, but since you were moving your name to the top of the list, you had to leave for boot camp immediately—the very day you signed up.
Since my life was a total mess and going nowhere, I decided to escape into the military. I volunteered for the draft.
Early one summer morning I rode the subway downtown to the United States Army Induction Center to go through what I expected to be only the first of many military adventures.
There was much confusion, noise, and the smell of young, nervous men. I remember standing in line waiting to get some kind of shot. The guy in front of me fainted at the sight of the needle. The guy behind me fainted, too.
I then remember sitting at a small table filling out a questionnaire. Did I ever have typhoid, they wanted to know. Did I ever have smallpox, gonorrhea, malaria? Did I ever break any bones? The list was endless. I kept checking no, no, no, no.
Then I came to the question: did I ever attempt suicide. I checked yes. I have no idea why I did that, no idea then, and no idea now. I wasn’t trying to get out of the Army. I was trying to get in. And I had never attempted suicide, although I’d thought about it a few times.
The next thing I knew they had separated me from the larger group and a sergeant escorted me and a few others to a different floor. We entered a large room with several benches in the center. On the edge of the room were a half dozen open cubicles. Three of them had men in them who were interviewing the suicidal recruits.
My name was called and I went into one of the cubicles. I noticed that I had drawn the top guy, a man somewhat older than the other interviewers. He was calm and pleasant and asked me to sit down.
“I see you’re unemployed, Edward. Do you live at home?”
“No. I’m staying with my sister at the moment.”
“Have you ever had a job?” he asked.
“Yes, I had a job until last week. But I got fired.”
He asked and I explained what had happened. I was going to work, was on the street where I worked at yet another record store, but I didn’t go in. I passed it by and instead I went to Central Park for the day. When I went back to the store a few days later, the owner let me go.
“Have you ever lost a job this way before,” the interviewer asked.
“I’ve lost pretty much every job I’ve ever had in more or less the same way,” I told him. His soothing manner made me want to be honest.
The man was writing something on my papers. I looked at his name on the desk in front of me. Ludwig Eidelberg. It looked familiar.
“Did you write Take Off Your Mask?” I asked him.
For just a second he looked startled. “Yes, I did,” he answered.
“I read it; it was very interesting,” I told him.
He looked at me for a moment as if I were some unanswered puzzle, then he nodded his head and continued writing. After a few minutes, he put down paper and pen.
“Edward, it might be better if you did not have to go into the military.”
I smiled and laughed lightly. “Yeah, I know,” I said. “But we all have to go. I just want to get it done with.”
Then I realized that he was not just making a comment. He had made a decision, a decision that was his to make. I was shocked and I told him so. I was not fit to go into the Army? Why I asked.
“If we were at war, we’d probably take you. But the military is winding down now that things in Korea seem settled. I think you would be unhappy in the military, and that would not be a good thing for anyone. There is no point in putting it to the test. Give this paper to the sergeant at the desk where you came in. Good luck.”
And that was that. My entire military career had lasted just over an hour. No, I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that I’d read Dr. Eidelberg's book.
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