DC Ambience

DC day and I was at Fort Knox Kentucky - a Sunday and the Charge of Quarters was suppose to wake me up. I had a plane to catch, but he didn't wake me. So late I threw on my clothes askew and raced to the orderly room where they did put me in a Jeep and raced me over to a building with a big room, where orders were read Robert Q and Buzzword Smith Hospital HQs, Dallas Texas.

And they would go up and get their plane tickets and be shunted to a bus for the airport. I got there on time, and my name and Fort Myer Virginia DC was called out, and I went up not looking like the sharp troop I should be for where I was going. Even long hair with having been a hold over for two months. People seemed visibly shocked.

Unlike Fort Knox a good distance from the city of Louisville, my new post was just across the river from down-town DC, the White House and Capitol building. The plane was a propeller and noisy, and landed in DC about one PM, where a bus was waiting to take a few of us to Fort Myer South Post. I signed in, threw my gear on my bunk and took off in civilian clothes back into the city.

I went to Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House and Capitol Building and generally walked around. Walking is what I wanted to do. I wanted to feel the streets, the crowds, the parks, the architecture. The year previous to my army service I had done self analysis, a study of myself and a tentative study of human nature. I had gotten about as far as I could get without any real experience. So experience - here I was.

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