Looking Back
When I joined the Army it was for all the wrong reasons — based entirely on emotions rather than sense.
I was Army from the get-go, starting with a loud entrance at Brooke Army Hospital on Fort Sam Houston (Texas) on a dark, stormy night. No spank on the bottom for me; I came out yelling my fool head off. Both my parents agree that my entrance was a portent of the adult I would become. But I digress. I was starting to talk about why I joined the Army. My birth is the first reason.
Definitely the most important reason I enlisted is my Dad. As I came late into his life (he was 47 at my birth), I missed the first-hand experience of military life. Yet he raised me with tales of his service in the Army as well as tales of his father's and his grandfather's service. They served with the German Army, but Army was Army).
Although Dad couldn't sing worth a damn, as a baby the only way they could get me to sleep was either within the confines of Dad's arms or him singing me a lullaby: Dogface Soldier. No "Rock-a-bye baby" for this little girl.
My most cherished treasures were not dolls and such, but rather my Dad's pup tent, his steel pot, his extra brass and insignia that he gave me. The only necklace that I wore was an old set of his dog tags. Dad not only taught me that there wasn't anything I couldn't do, he carefully nurtured my love for the Army. Perhaps he saw things in me that others did not, yet I think he knew the Army was in me.
