Recall!
Return of the IRR
By Doug DePew
Recall!
Return of the IRR
By Doug DePew
Copyright 2011 by Doug DePew
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold
or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did
not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.
Other Works by Doug DePew
SAT & BAF! Memories of a Tower Rat ISBN #978-1432771324
For further information visit Tower Rat Main Tango on facebook
(Excerpt at the back of the book)
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the men and women of the U. S. Individual Ready Reserve.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my wonderful wife who had to put up with me in the difficult months of adjustment after my IRR recall. I would also like to thank the NCOs and officers who did their best to get us ready in an extremely chaotic and confusing situation and who had to put up with all twenty thousand of us. I know we didn't make it easy. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow recalls who made the entire experience one I will always remember.
Table of Contents
I served four years on active duty in the US Army as an 11B light weapons infantryman also known as a “grunt”. My first two years were spent in Heilbronn, Federal Republic of Germany with C Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment (Pershing) as security for Pershing II nuclear missiles. That tour is documented in my previous release: SAT & BAF! Memories of a Tower Rat. The balance of my enlistment was spent with B Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized) at Fort Carson, Colorado as a mechanized infantryman.
I was honorably discharged from active duty as an E-4 specialist in July of 1990 at my “end of term in service” or ETS. All military contracts since the early 1980s have been for eight years rather than the six years it was prior to that. Part of it is obligated active duty or active reserve time. If a military member chooses not to re-enlist, they are automatically transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) to serve the balance of their contract. Members of the IRR do not have to drill and basically live as civilians. They are not paid. They are, however, on a list that is subject to recall on the order of the president. That hadn’t been done on a large scale since the Korean War, so it seemed highly unlikely to many veterans in the early 1990s. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of the Soviet Union, it seemed nearly impossible. A lot of people said it would take World War III for the IRR to be called up again. A lot of people were wrong.
Many options were open to me after the Army. A big game outfitter in Montana offered me a job as a hunting guide. Application packets to the University of Tennessee, Auburn University, and University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) were stacked in the drawer next to my bed along with an application for the Central Intelligence Agency. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had a recruiting poster next to the pay phone on my floor of the barracks with a number I considered calling. Instead, I answered a full-page advertisement in the back of Rolling Stone magazine.
A school named Full Sail Center for the Recording Arts in Winter Park, Florida was looking for people who had a passion for music. I contacted them to learn more about the program. It was a grueling program that squeezed a full two academic years into nine months due to the long hours. In exchange, they taught about all facets of the music industry and gave hands-on experience with state of the art equipment. Admission required a high school diploma, a passion for music, and above average hearing. I submitted the hearing test from my ETS physical and started classes in July of 1990.
Iraq invaded the small country of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 prompting a huge, international outcry. The United Nations voted to bring economic sanctions against Iraq unless Saddam Hussein withdrew his troops immediately. “Operation Desert Shield” officially began on August 7, 1990 as the US began assembling forces in Saudi Arabia to repel a possible invasion by Iraq. The American troops were joined by military forces from a number of coalition nations. The US Army instituted a “stop loss” in August of 1990 halting all further releases from active duty until further notice. The United Nations Security Council voted on November 29, 1990 to give Iraq until January 15, 1991 to withdraw completely from Kuwait or face a military response. A huge force of more than half a million, including air, naval, and ground assets of more than thirty-four countries, was assembled to face the Iraqi army which was alleged to be the third or fourth largest in the world at that time. In addition, Germany and Japan added large financial contributions. President Bush drew a “line in the sand”. Saddam Hussein promised the world the "Mother of All Battles" on CNN.
The aerial campaign began on January 17, 1991 on live television. For the first time in history, people were able to watch a war in progress. Images of the massive amounts of anti-aircraft flack flying through the skies of Baghdad were broadcast live on CNN every night. The world was entering uncharted waters by holding a war that could be viewed live, twenty-four hours a day, on television.
Meanwhile, I was enjoying my time at Full Sail.
"What are we supposed to do?" Rob asked our instructor Charlie.
"Do whatever you want," he told us as he took a drag off his freshly rolled joint.
"Whatever we want?" I asked.
"Yeah, it's your lab. We're just supposed to lay down some tape so you can run through the entire process," he said.
“So we’re supposed to make a commercial about anything? This could be fun,” Eric grinned.
This was a three a.m. lab at Full Sail Center for the Recording Arts in Winter Park, Florida. We were about to complete one of the last exercises to finish advanced recording. I started school there in July of 1990 just after I left the Army. It was an intensive, nine-month program to become a recording engineer, but it also covered a lot of other aspects of the music industry. Each class was roughly a month long and was packed with information. Classes were eight to ten hours a day with labs most nights. We were spending at least twelve hours a day in the program and sometimes more. Full Sail had seven studios packed with the most advanced recording gear in the world.
Our instructors were music professionals with years of experience in their areas of expertise. Our live sound expert had just received a brand new Corvette as a bonus for his work on the Tiffany “Mall Tour”. He also toured with Van Halen as a guitar tech, with Hank Williams, Jr. working the monitor board, and with others doing various live work. We liked teasing him about going straight from Van Halen to Tiffany, but music people work where there’s work. It earned him a Corvette! All of them had experience like that.
Charlie had worked a lot recording commercials and promo spots. He’d also done some studio work with various singing acts. He was a funny, little, stoner guy in his late-twenties with long hair. At the moment, he was waiting to see what we could create at three in the morning.
“Let’s do one of those 1-900 commercials…you know like that one with the chick with the accent,” Rob suggested.
“I don’t want to get too raunchy,” Eric said. He was a fun guy but not quite as crazy as the rest of us.
“No, it’ll be something that could go on TV,” Rob pressured.
“You mean that woman who says, 'Cawl me. I want you to cawl me. You know you want to. It’s one noyn hundred…noyn noyn oh…noyn oh…noyn oh,’ in that Jersey accent?” I asked. “That woman’s horrible. I wouldn’t pay to hear that voice. It’s terrible!”
It was a commercial that played on local TV in the middle of the night. We’d all seen it after our late-night labs, and it was horrible.
“It doesn’t have to sound just like her. Just improvise,” Rob said.
“Let’s give it a shot,” Charlie said as he fired up the NEVE.
A NEVE recording console cost more than $100,000 at that time. All told, we were probably playing with a quarter of a million dollars of equipment including microphones that cost five hundred to a thousand dollars, racks of effects equipment, the tape machines, and all of the other gear. We were about to record a “1-900” commercial on it, too! We set everything up in the studio then picked parts.
“I want to be the pervert making the call,” I volunteered.
“I’ll be the woman,” Rob yelled.
“Ok, I can be the announcer,” Jeff said.
“Looks like you’re on the console, Eric. Lawrence, you're the assistant engineer,” Charlie assigned.
“Good. I don’t want my voice on this thing,” Eric laughed as he set up the faders. We did our sound checks then let the tape roll. It was all improvised. After the beers we shared before the lab and the other chemical enhancements, this would be quite a session.
The team of Eric, Lawrence, Rob, Jeff, and me had been together since class started in July. We were assigned a lab team at the beginning of class. We’d survived Music Business, Basic Recording Engineering, Music History, Studio Maintenance, Live Music and Lighting, and now we were finally in Advanced Recording Engineering class.
We did a full session from recording to mastering with a band from South Carolina that played a song called “LESA 5”. That was a blast. I mastered it and used every effect we had. The lead singer told me, “Make it go crazy at the end.” He had long, platinum-blonde hair and was a riot. I was hitting buttons on every beat through the last chorus while he jumped around banging his head. I had so many reverbs, echoes, and filters on it that it was hard to tell which tracks were the originals. It definitely went crazy. He liked it so much that he kept it for a demo.
We’d done a live ZZ Top show where Rob and I did the lighting upstairs. We were so messed up in that show that we could barely keep the spot light on the band, but we had fun. We had met the president of NARAS (National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences) which is the organization that gives out the Grammies. We’d hung outside the studio across town with Deep Purple who were up late at night recording in their own studio next door. We’d met guitar virtuoso, Adrian Belew, who spoke to us then played a concert and autographed a guitar for the school to keep in their trophy case. He gave us some great tips on creating odd guitar sounds. We had laid down tracks for Dweezil Zappa who also visited while I was there.
We’d been through a lot in the last six months. Once we recorded this commercial and took a final, it was on to music video. The only thing after that was our internship to complete the program. Then we were ready to begin our careers in music, but first we had to record a commercial.
“One nine-hundred commercial take one. Ready? Go on one…three…two…one,” Eric said through the monitors as he pointed at Rob.
“Hi, baby. What can I do for you,” Rob said in a horrible female voice. It sounded like a croak.
“I just want you to talk to me, honey,” I responded from across the studio in a voice that sounded oddly like Theo from The Cosby Show. We couldn't keep the smiles from leaking through the microphones.
“Oh, I like it like that. Give it to me, baby,” Rob urged sounding more and more like a drag queen on Orange Blossom Trail across town.
“Oh…oh yeah, baby,” I moaned into the microphone as I slapped my palm lightly.
“Yeah…right there…I like it just like that sweetie! Give it to me right there,” Rob continued.
“Oh yeah…oh yeah…” as my palm slaps became more intense and faster.
"I want it harder! Give it to me harder, sweetie!"
"Oh...oh..." I kept smacking my hand.
We continued the skit getting more and more graphic until Eric signaled that it was time to wrap. Lawrence was around the studio adjusting equipment as needed. Jeff came in on Eric’s signal.
“Why are you still sitting there? What are you waiting for? Why don’t you pick up the phone with your other hand and call 1-900-CUM-ONME. Do it now! That’s 1-900-CUM-ONME. You know you want to,” he said in a voice that sounded a lot like Shaft.
That was a wrap. After adding some phone dialing sounds and a ring at the beginning and putting a phone filter on my track, we had a commercial. A phone filter took out all of the frequencies except what travels through a phone to make me sound like I was the one talking through a telephone. The other voices were left live. We nearly passed out laughing as the master blasted through the monitors.
“Get that off the machine,” Charlie told us after he was satisfied that we did, indeed, make a thirty second commercial that was satisfactory if only fit for late-night TV. Eric put it on a cassette before we erased the two inch master tape. Charlie was wild, but he wasn’t stupid. He liked his steady gig at the school, and Full Sail was supposed to be a “family friendly” operation.
After our lab, we meandered down the hall to another studio to see what was causing the windows to rattle. Full Sail had studios open twenty-four hours a day to accommodate everything going on, and something was always going on. They were among the best studios in the entire Orlando area, and people outside the program sometimes rented them for projects. Sometimes they reserved one twenty-four hours a day so the engineer and producer could work whenever they wanted. It's called "blocking off" the studio.
A well known recording engineer named O. B. O’Brien had one blocked off for a week to master a Bon Jovi album. He enjoyed seeing the sights in Orlando. I believe most of the sights he enjoyed seeing were topless, so he usually showed up around two or three in the morning after the bars closed. We wandered down the hall and peeked into the studio window to find a blow-up doll sitting in the seat next to O. B. as he played with faders and turned dials. He was wearing a fedora and mirrored sunglasses, bobbing his head, pushing buttons, sliding faders, and sharing the studio with his “friend”. It sounded like the master fader was all the way up judging from the guitar sounds vibrating the window. Once in a while, he'd turn to comment to his "friend" in the chair next to him. That studio was O. B.’s world while he rented it.
“Now that’s funny!” Rob said as we called it a night.
We had class the next morning around nine. Our guest speaker that morning was none other than our resident celebrity, O. B. O’Brien! It was an informal chat about his life in music. He started out running a live console for a carnival as a teenager. Since then, he’d worked on albums for Lita Ford, Bon Jovi, Glenn Frey, and a host of other famous acts. He worked in the Philadelphia area mostly, but occasionally he’d take a trip to another studio to get a certain feel. His current, Bon Jovi record required an “Orlando feel”, apparently. It was an excellent talk, but O. B. probably shared more than he should have.
"I remember laying down this record for Lita Ford a few years ago. She walked in with that tight ass and bleached hair and blew me a kiss through the window. Then she pulled this double necked guitar out of a case. It had 'EAT ME' and 'FUCK ME' inlaid on the necks in mother of pearl. I am not shitting you! I nearly took her up on at least one of them," O. B. laughed.
"Ok, that's probably enough. Everyone thank Mr. O'Brien for giving you some insight into the industry," the owner of the school said as he hurried to the front to usher Mr. O'Brien out.
That’s probably why the blow-up doll was gone that night when we showed up for lab. In her place was a cardboard sign shaped like a tombstone.
“RIP. You were the best party doll I ever knew. Love, O. B.”
Full Sail was a wonderful experience. I had wanted to work in music my entire life. It takes a lot of talent to make it as a musician, and I didn't know if I had it. I did have almost perfect hearing which is the most important thing to engineer sound. I didn’t even know how good it was until I got a chance to play with oscilloscopes at school. I could hear a higher range than most women who typically have better ears than men. Most hearing tests don’t even go that high.
Full Sail gave me a firm foundation in all aspects of the industry. I made some terrific friends there who would prove quite valuable as I paid my dues. The dues are very high in music. Full Sail had a good reputation around the industry. A recent graduate had worked on Paula Abdul’s debut album the previous year which was flying up the charts. Maybe I’d get lucky like him and hit gold with one of my first albums. Gold and platinum records by Full Sail graduates lined the walls. Take a final for Advanced Engineering, finish Music Video, schedule my internship, and I was on my way. I was already contacting studios in Nashville about the internship. It was supposed to start in March of 1991.
“President Bush has just ordered 20,000 reservists to active duty to support ground operations in Operation Desert Shield,” I heard on CNN as I flipped on the television to view my free cable.
It was like a bolt of lightning. I knew I was one of them. I had that feeling for months. I was currently in the IRR with three and a half years that I was subject to recall. I was a light arms infantryman: 11B or 11 Bravo as we all said. Some people liked to say "Eleven Bang Bang" because our primary job was to break things and kill people. It was looking on CNN like a lot of that was about to happen in the Gulf, so I knew.
I left active duty officially in July of 1990 from Fort Carson, Colorado where I served with the 4th Infantry Division, but I actually left Ft. Carson in May because of a lot of leave. Leave that’s used in conjunction with an end of term in service (ETS) is called terminal leave. I was already at Full Sail on my ETS date. Prior to Ft. Carson, I spent two years in Germany as security for Pershing II nuclear missiles. Now I had hair to my shoulders and a full beard and weighed twenty pounds more than I did on active duty from living on spaghetti. I was almost completely transitioned from a soldier and infantryman to music. Those are two different worlds.
I had to be one of those twenty thousand. Along with the rest of the world, I had watched the events unfold since August when Iraq invaded Kuwait. I saw the UN order Saddam Hussein to withdraw. I heard the news reports about the buildup of ground troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. I watched the satellite feeds of the bombing as it rained down on Baghdad. I heard on the news about the stop-loss a month after my ETS. I saw the millions of anti-aircraft tracers flying through the skies of Baghdad. I heard all the stories of doom about Hussein’s huge army which was supposedly the third or fourth largest in the world and all of their massive defenses…and I just knew it was coming.
The final for Advanced Engineering was the next day. I aced it, but my mind had already checked out. It was filled with tracers.
“We got a mailgram today,” my dad told me on the phone. “You want me to open it?” he asked.
“Yeah…might as well.”
“They’re calling you up,” he said with dread in his voice. My dad served in the Army, also. He actually tried to re-enlist in the National Guard when Desert Shield started the previous summer. He loved the military, but he still didn’t sound happy.
“Where do I report?”
“Fort Benning.”
“How long?”
“It says up to twelve months,” he said solemnly.
“I better get home. I’ll be back as soon as I can. What day?”
“January 31st,” he told me sounding a bit concerned. That only left me ten days to get from long-haired, aspiring recording engineer in Winter Park, Florida to Fort Benning, Georgia!
“You probably better send me the orders. I’ll need them to break all these contracts down here. I don't have much time.”
“Ok, I’ll put them in the mail tomorrow.”
“Can you buy me a Sig? I want a 226 and the biggest magazines you can find,” I told him. A Sig Sauer P-226 is the “Cadillac of 9 millimeters” as my old roommate, Jim, used to say. I had heard through the rumor mill that some guys carried personally owned weapons in the Panama invasion. If I was going to war, it might as well be with a Cadillac.
“No problem,” he said.
I let everybody at the school know the next morning. With all the things I had to do, I wasn't coming back to classes, but I’d officially withdraw as soon as I had the orders. Everybody stood around outside the door to say goodbye. It was subdued and somber. We’d all been watching the bombing on TV.
“I’ve got some really good weed at the house if you want some,” Rob offered.
“No, they’re going to test me as soon as I get to Benning. You enjoy, though,” I laughed as we slapped each other on the back. I was really going to miss those guys.
We made quite a crew. We got together at Rob and Jeff’s apartment for one last time. Hopefully, I’d see them again later. Rob was from Pittsburg, Jeff was from Boca Raton, Florida, Eric was from east Tennessee, and Lawrence was from Hawaii, so they’d probably scatter after Full Sail. Eric already had an internship scheduled at a little, Christian music studio in Chattanooga. I think Lawrence had one scheduled at a studio in Hawaii. Rob already had a gig playing Jimmy Buffett songs on a cruise ship. He was a terrific guitar player with a beautiful, cream-colored Fender Stratocaster. I’m not sure what Jeff had planned.
It looked like I was going to war.
We sat around drinking and playing until late into the night. I spent a day sitting by the pool while I still could. The weather was beautiful. It was probably seventy-five or eighty and sunny. Over the next couple days, I packed up my stuff. There wasn't much because my apartment was furnished. It was only a couple blocks away from Full Sail. It was pretty expensive at $475 per month, but it was worth it. I really loved that apartment complex. My only things were a television, a stereo, my guitar, and some cooking gear. It wasn't much.
I drove across town to a barber shop near the Navy base to get a haircut. It was over my shoulders by that point. I loved my hair. It was just getting like Patrick Swayzie in Roadhouse. I told the barber to go ahead and take off the beard while he was at it. A razor hadn't touched my face since I drove off Fort Carson the last May. He told me it was on the house after he learned why I was getting the cut. I emerged a few minutes later a different person.
The orders came in the mail a day or two later. I filled out some paperwork to withdraw from school that afternoon. Luckily, we had just completed Advanced Engineering, so there was only one class left if I wanted to come back. The office was very understanding. They cancelled the second set of student loans because I wasn’t able to finish what was officially my second year. I said goodbye to Full Sail.
I knocked on the apartment complex manager’s door which doubled as her apartment. She opened it, and the sun gleamed off her light brown hair. It was sun streaked with blonde as it fell over her bronze shoulders grazing her bikini top. She spent many hours down by the pool, and I spent as many as I could next to her. I was much too busy with school to date, but it didn’t hurt to chat. I handed her the orders and saw concern flash across her hazel eyes. She fumbled with some paperwork then had me sign.
I asked playfully, “So…does this mean we’re not going on a date?”
“We’ll see when you get home, soldier-boy,” she flirted back as she kissed me on the cheek.
I stopped on the way out of town to withdraw some money from the bank. Luckily, the VA had just back paid several months of GI Bill money, so there was plenty. I withdrew a few hundred dollars and left the account open in case I came back. The plan was to make the drive back to Missouri in one stretch. It was about eighteen hours, but I was in a hurry. Fort Benning was expecting me in a few days. Paducah, Kentucky and my truck had a different plan.
Steam started pouring from under my hood. I tried to push it as far as I could because it was two in the morning. I could see a truck stop a mile or two ahead that I hoped would have a mechanic on duty if my truck would just make it. When the temperature gauge pegged out, I limped to the shoulder and started walking. Nothing was open at the next exit. There wasn’t a light down the entire street. It looked like Paducah shut down at dark. I walked until I found a pay phone. Right across the street from the phone was a place called the Skinhead Café.
“You’re where?” my mom asked incredulously.
“I’m in Paducah. It looks like my water pump went out. I’ll get it fixed as soon as someplace opens.”
“Be careful,” she said as mothers do.
“You’ll never believe this. Right across the street from me is the Skinhead Café!” I laughed.
“The Skinhead Café! What kind of place is named that? You go back to your truck and lock the doors until it’s light!” she warned. I dismissively laughed then went back to my truck and locked the doors until it was light.
The truck stop started showing some activity around light, so I made the hike to find some help. Luckily, there was a mechanic on duty. I explained the situation to him, and he agreed to go check my truck out. We hopped in his tow truck. I was right about the water pump, so he pulled it back to the garage for free. He had the right pump in stock, so he threw me up on the rack and got right to work. Once somebody who knew what they were doing had it, it didn't take long.
I finished the long, hard drive back to Missouri.
Missouri was cold and just beginning to recover from an ice storm a couple weeks earlier. The highs were probably in the thirties. With only a couple days left to get everything in order, I was busy. The mailgram said to bring: any serviceable uniforms, my military ID, and my dog tags. I chose to leave most of those items at home mostly out of spite. Instead, I dug out one uniform because of the sew-on rank and embroidered name tapes. Sew on rank was much easier and more comfortable than pin on, and embroidered name tapes looked a lot better than the cheap printed ones we were issued. I also liked having a uniform that was faded. Nobody wanted to look like a cherry. It was better to look like you'd done something. That was worth carrying one uniform.
I wasn’t carrying all of that stuff with me, though. Who cared what the president said in his mailgram? Besides that, I couldn’t find my dog tags and thought I threw my military ID away on July 17th. One uniform would have to do it. The only things I planned on taking were my orders, the clothes I was wearing, and my one uniform…with sew on rank.
My dad had the Sig P-226 just like I asked. He bought it in Jefferson County up south of St. Louis. It was beautiful. He also located three extended magazines that held twenty rounds. The orders didn’t specify whether or not personally owned weapons (POWs) were authorized, so I decided to leave it at home. Hopefully, I’d get a chance to get it if POWs were allowed. We went out and shot it one afternoon. It was wonderful. It really was the “Cadillac of 9 millimeters”.
I went to Stacey’s house that night. Stacey was a girl I knew from high school. We almost dated in school, but never quite got there. I used to walk across town to hang out with her in the evening. We’d just sit around talking. She was a year behind me in school and cute as a button. She was tiny with glasses and blonde hair. After I left for the Army, she married a friend of mine named Jim Bob. They were married for a few years and had a little girl named Ashley and a little boy named Jay together. They were separated and en-route to a divorce when I got out of the Army, so we hung out whenever I was home. We went out a couple times with her aunt and uncle to this bar called Loose Ends. It was casual. She started writing me regularly while I was in Florida, and we went out a couple times when I was back in December.
“Do you think you’re going to the war?” she asked with fear in her eyes as we laid on her floor watching a movie on the VCR.
“I don’t know. If I have to put a uniform back on, I’d just as soon go.”
“Don’t say that!”
“I’m serious. I spent my whole time in the Army getting ready for a war. My job was to break things and kill people. I might as well see if the government’s money was well spent,” I laughed.
“The kids will miss you. I will, too,” she said looking away and laying her head on my chest. Tears began soaking through my shirt.
We lay on the floor watching TV until she fell asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake her, so I spent the night. She cried the next morning as we said goodbye.
“Stay safe,” she choked out and ran back inside.
The whole family took me to Lambert International Airport in St. Louis the next morning to get a flight. I took one of the travel vouchers out of the mailgram. They were like blank checks for transportation to Fort Benning. We walked to the ticket counter lady, and I handed her the voucher.
“I need a plane to Atlanta. I’m supposed to report to Fort Benning, Georgia today,” I said.
“Right away, sir,” she smiled. She typed something in the computer and passed me a boarding pass with a “Good luck, sir.” I didn't have a check bag.
I hung out with my family at the USO club until it was time to board. As I entered security, I hugged my mom and sister. My dad and brother shook my hand. It was surreal. Everything was happening so fast. Just a month earlier, I came back for the holidays with long hair and a beard all excited about moving to Nashville. Suddenly, I was a soldier again.
The TWA flight to Atlanta was uneventful, but Atlanta's airport was a beehive when I landed. Thousands of us were supposed to report that day, and we were coming in from different airports on different planes. I could tell most of the recalls. They were the guys walking around lost with no baggage and evil looks in their eyes. I wandered around the terminal for what seemed like hours. I had no idea how I was supposed to get to Benning from there. I understood how to get to Atlanta, but what to do then was a mystery. Eventually, I hooked up with another guy with the same dilemma, and we wandered around together.
“Man, screw this. I’m getting a cab,” he said as we passed a taxi stand again.
“Isn’t Benning like a hundred miles from here?” I asked.
“So what?” he asked as he pulled out one of the travel vouchers waving it in front of my face.
"Sounds good to me!"