John Humble:
CLASS OF 1977
Palmer High SchoolClass of 1977
Colorado springs, CO
California State University - Dominguez HillsClass of 2000
Carson, CA
Los Angeles Harbor CollegeClass of 1998
Wilmington, CA
John's Story
The King Nut picture has my full, undisguised email addy.
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I have a FaceBook page under the name Bill Black.
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The sum total of all I know:
Life is funny. God is cruel. Time is short. So laugh, cry, and hurry up.
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The difference between being in the war time Army (Vietnam era), and the peace time Navy (Reagan era)?
In the war time Army, you might get killed. In the peace time Navy, you'll wish you were dead.
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I am one of the few human beans on God's green earth that had to endure TWO different bootcamps. One US ARMY bootcamp, in Lawton OK, as a 17-year-old. And US NAVY bootcamp in Great Lakes IL, at 25.
After US Army bootcamp, my platoon leader, PFC David Braunstein, put me in for promotion to E-2. Alas, I was already a PFC.
After US Navy bootcamp, I was put in for promotion to E-2, but I did their stinkin bootcamp so I could keep my US Army rank. I was an E-3.
While I was doing em? I thought I hated it. I thought I was gonna die. Now? Honestly...I wish I could do another, "I like it. I love it. I want more of it!"
Bootcamp...snicker...bring it on...I will make you rue the day...
In all the years I spent in the US Military, I never attained a rank higher than...E-3, which is the rank in which I joined both services. I was demoted to E-2, twice in the US Army, and once in the US Navy.
While I do bristle with every imaginable talent, and am shockingly good at everything I attempt to do, in my early years, I lacked the ability to be...directed, let's say. I hated to be told what to do, or how to do it. I have no excuse.
I was a dicipline problem in the US Army, perhaps, but I was a holy fookin nightmare in the US Navy. I was a full grown man who had already done three US Army years in Germany. I knew how to work the system. And my attitude was...bad. I abused the Navy like they were a toy for me to play with. I was in a league of my own.
If I sound proud, or something...I am. FTA! FTN! I earned the right to say both. And both can KMA!
So why'd I join? I joined both times because I was forced to by harsh economic conditions. There are young men, on this very day, who are forced to do the very same thing. I hope, and pray, they come out of it as well I did.
An aside: Remember...if you are ever in the military, you personally only have one goal, regardless of what they tried to stuff into your head during bootcamp. That goal is what your mom, dad, girlfriend, and most of all you, wants more than anything: Come home in one piece. Come home whole. Find a way to do that. Do that regardless. Never forget that. Come home whole, and you will have a whole lifetime to thank God for it. Trust me. Nothing else matters more. Pretty simple, no? I know. They confused you. They do that intentionally to young men.
Keep your eye on the ball at all times. You have to take personal responsibility for your own personal safety because the military will NOT. It's all the same to them, whether you have legs or not. Or arms. Or eyes. Or end up dead. It is NOT the same to you. Be selfish. Look out for your ownself first. Be smart. Come home in one piece. That's an order. Who says? God says. Yes, even God himself wants you to come home whole. Just like when you left, but wiser, better lookin, and with better stories to tell. So just do it. You'll be happy you did.
By joining the military, whether there is a war or not, you vastly increase your odds of dying before you are able to live a happy and fruitful life. The only thing that would hurt your chances worse is...joining a gang.
Both can get you killed, and really, both should be avoided like the plague. I would not recommend joining either to "become a man," either. For those with no choice? I wish you luck mofo! Good luck! Keep your head down!
Another aside:...the best way to become a man, and get a draft exemption if that is needed, is to go to college. Six units at a community college would have gotten you a number that would never be called in the Vietnam War draft. Carry a C average. That's it.
Dodge the draft, my ass. Take a couple easy pottery classes (Art major), sit around campus, shirt...none, hair... long, beard...yes, cock...ready. Do drugs, drink wine, listen to loud rock-n-roll, and bang hippie chicks all night long until the sun comes up. That would be the smart thing to do, and what I would personally recommend to a young man if it ever comes up. Skip the military step completely. Go straight to college.
"If your kid didn't go to college, that don't make em a loser. That makes you the loser." -- Bill Black
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If you love beer, Germany is one of the best spots on earth to be. Every little town has their own beer, and they take the utmost pride in it. Beer is part of the German culture much like wine is in France. The German workers on post, would drink beer for their 10:30 break, lunch, and the 3:30 break. Even the US Army would let you drink two beers with your lunch if you were out on the economy. Or I suppose, in the Officers Club.
The US Army, by the way, is the one of the best organizations to work for if you're an alcoholic. They will enable you to the fullest. They will cover your ass for your entire lifer enlistment. When the US Army, for that matter, all US military branches, sees an alcoholic, they see gold. They see someone tailor made to be a lifer. They see...one of their own kind.
Unfortunately, I never liked the taste of beer. Don't really like the buzz. It makes me sloppy. I hate the hangover. By the time I was...19, I had swore off beer, and alcohol, completely, and sold my liquor ration on the black market.
An aside: Of all the normal peeps I met in the US military, ALL either drank or did drugs. With the exception of a handful of peeps, those that did NOT abuse either drink or drugs, were...nutcases. True! I'd siddle up to them, you know, to try and figure them out, and I'd find a whack job who didn't need to drink or do drugs because they were way out in left field somewhere. They were high in their own right. Their buzz came with their brain.
The oddest were the ones that said, "I've NEVER did drugs or drank or smoked." The LAPD gives a standardized test of their own creation to all applicants to determine their suitabilty to being a cop. They look for peeps who answer in the same way as the best cops on the force have done in the past. Questions about drug use, alcohol use, tobacc use, are quite natural questions to ask. If you answer that you NEVER smoked pot, or drank a beer, or smoked a Marlboro, the LAPD will automatically kick your application into the trash. Why? Those types of peeps make the worst cops possible. If you say you have never smoked weed, or tried any drug, your chance of making the cut are slim. According to the LAPD, that is because you are an anti-social whack job who never had any friends, or you lack a full sack, or you are a liar. The LAPD don't want any of them. It turns out that experimentation with drugs when we are young is natural, and benefical, in American society. At least, when you are trying to pick out who is stable enough to make a good, gun carrying cop.
Here is what I would tell a young man today. There is a time and a place to experiment with drugs. That time and place is...college.
The fact remains that life is risky. You win some, you lose some. It can be heartbreaking. Life can make you wish you were dead. Life is, more than any one thing, very stressful. If one does not find a way to blow off some steam, whether with drugs, drink, wanton sex, or something else that works equally as well, you will be dead by 50. OR you will go postal and murder a bunch of peeps. Peeps use drink, drugs and sex to relieve stress because...they work well. They will be hard to handle, but they do in fact work well. The greatest risk from using drink or drugs to relieve stress is not addiction, but somehow ending up in the criminal justice system, incarcerated.
If I had it all to do over again, I would learn to relieve stress by taking a run. Lifting weights. Rock climbing. Something down that avenue vs drugs or drink. Something that adds to your body instead of detracting from it. Something that is...free.
Regardless, stress is a killer. Find a way to deal with it, or die.
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Anyway, I stopped drinking my first year in Germany. I sold my liquor ration on the black market, and bought hash with the money. I smoked hash every single day I was in Germany. The USSR Commies flooded Europe with high quality, low cost drugs, to corupt the US Serviceman. They didn't corupt me, however. I was already corupt when I got to Germany.
As a connoisseur of all types of drugs, and especially anything cannabis, such as hashish, I would like to, at this late juncture, thank them Commies for thinking of me. Belated, yes, but thanks mofos. The drugs were very good. The hashish was absolutely superb. And it was all cheap as hell.
That, more than anything else, is what impressed me about Germany, and Europe, too. High quality, low cost, street drugs. A wide, and varied selection. Easy to find in practically any city. You get a better deal if you pay in greenbacks.
The one drug you will NOT find in Germany or Europe, at least back in the mid 70s? Weed. The only real weed I ever saw in Germany, was the two ounces I brought back with me from leave in Colorado. On...Expand for more
e ounce in each boot. I walked...a bit oddly. And it hurt, whether I was walking or not. I couldn't risk it, so I packed them at home, and never took them off until I landed at the Flughaven in Stuttgart. That weed was all the rage...for about a day. Then it was gone. Back to the hash.
I also brought back 20 hits of blue barrel LSD. It was pretty good. But nothing compared to the infamous, "Green Monster" acid we had in Germany at that time. OMFG! Best acid I ever did. Bar none.
Me, Brent Ring, Jerry Dwyer, all trippin our balls off at Bill Cheney's off-post apt. His wife was the only one straight, and she was trippin on us trippin. Good times. Good peeps. Bill Cheney is the funniest mofo I ever met, before or since the Army. Sharp as a desert bone, too. I'd really like to know what happened to that dude. He was from...a small town in Georgia. He liked acid. He funny.
To those Germans who bought my liquor rations. And Nikons. Kenwood recievers. Pioneer speakers. I thank you, too. No, sorry, no Marlboros to sell. I should have quit way back then, and sold them too. But I didn't. I still smoke Marlboros to this very day. Goddamn it!
I was seemingly always in some kind of trouble, and the Army was always trying to make me forfeit some pay. So I needed that money the black market brung me. I put a stop to the pay forfeitures fairly quick. The US Army has an allotment program where you send your pay home. That was originally designed for boys who were farmers, who were drafted, and now the family farm is broke. The Army could not touch any money sent home in an allotment. So I sent almost my entire paycheck home each month as an allotment, and my dad mailed me back a cashiers check, which I then cashed at the bank.
I left a $20 US Army paycheck each month, so they could take forfeitures out at $20 a month. They was lucky to get that.
I'm telling you, that little trick saved my ass some money. In fact, by sending my entire check home, and then having my dad send some of it back, I was able to save $9000 in three years of US Army duty. How many peeps can say that? I did it as an E-3 or less. I never heard of anyone even saving a...dime.
How much money did I save while I was in the US Navy? Not even a dime.
My list of Army and Navy names:
1976-1978
C-Battery. AT&T. 2/42 FA
McKEE BARRACKS, Crailsheim, APO 09751
Glen Lamora
Michael Bachman
Chris Bird--Covina CA
Jerry Dwyer--Pinellas Park FL
Gary Snyder--St Ingace Upper MI
Brent Ring--Grants Pass OR
Mark Gleason
John Graves
Mark Callahan
....Medina
David Braunstein --Vero Beach FL. Bootcamp platoon leader. Put me up for promotion to E2. Joined the Army at 26.
Daniel Pope--Boston MS
Corporal Lewis
Wilford Lee--GA
Bill Cheney--GA
....Stewart--CO
Si, Seibert--MI
Santos--CDAC--pissed clean in the bottle for me...every single time I was tested.
Randy Dixon...California...my first roomate. I was his turtle. He was an asshole.
Gary Murchanson...Detroit
Bill Black-Spotted-Horse--AZ
....Roberts
....Rice
....Wells
....Stoner. Went nuts on CQ duty one night. He was in B Bat, I was next door in C Bat, on CQ duty too. I could see right into their OD room. And Stoner was doing some weird things. I didn't know hardly anyone in B Bat, but I did know Stoner. He was a huge stoner, so it figures that I would know him. Stoner started making pentagrams on the floor with dirt and sand. I told him, "Dude! MOP the floor. Wax the floor. Where does it say to make pentagrams on the floor? This is the US Army, not the Army of Darkness." But Stoner was...gone. He was not faking it. Walter Reed.
.....Jones. Tall goofy black dude. My roommate. Went insane one day. BANG! Shipped off to Walter Reed. Never heard from again. One time, I was messing with Jones, and I told him that I so objected to nuclear bombs, that if it came down to it, I would kill the entire platoon before I'd let that missle leave the launcher. We were all seeing shrinks in Stuttgart, and Jones told his shrink that story for some reason. He said he knew he was in trouble when the shrink JUMPED up, and ran out of the room. The bus ride back takes about an hour. In that hour, they packed up all of Jones' belongings, and had them waiting for him in the same truck that would whisk him away. Two hours after he uttered that fateful, insane story, he was out of Germany for good. He was faking it.
.....We had this short Irish guy do the boresight in C Battery. The dude was either drunk or drunk all the time, as far as I could tell. It did not affect his ability to do his job, however. He was the best Lance Missle boresighter in the entire Army. He was why Crete was a cake walk for C Bat, and why we always fired the missle. One day, he woke up, and he was blind. Totally blind. Turned out, he had MS, and didn't know it. I cannot for the life of me, recall his name. Walter Reed.
My list of names for AOE-4, USS Detroit:
There isn't one because I cannot remember a single name from boot camp in Great Lakes OR the USS Detroit. I can't remember a single name from the US Navy. Not a one. I find that...disturbing enough to make a note to ask my Doctor about it, the next time I see her.
I was in the Navy five years after the Army. And yet...no names. Nothing much at all, actually. That is odd. I wasn't doing any drugs at all when I joined the Navy. In fact, I didn't do drugs in the Navy. I mean, if I couldn't find decent drugs, I wouldn't buy them. A Navy base or US urban area does not have the high quality, and low cost, attractiveness that drugs do in Europe. A lot of it is crap. I passed on crap.
Could it be that I hated the Navy SO much, that I wiped it all from my brain? Sure, I guess. I am still disturbed though.
Hummel.
One name. Now I am alarmed.
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The funniest thing about my time in the US Military? When you join the service they give you a test. ASFAB or AFFEES. That test determines what jobs (MOS) you qualify for.
That process is, by the way, how we send the dumbest peeps to the front to die. Score poorly on the test? Your MOS is 11B. Maybe 11C. A grunt or you hump a 60 lbs mortar baseplate your entire tour. Regardless, you'll be one of the first to die.
I had GT score of 145. I never saw anyone with a higher score. David Braunstein had the highest I ever saw beside mine. He had a GT score of 135. He remains one of the sharpest mofos I've ever met.
A GT score of 145 put me in the 99.8 percentile. That means I scored higher than everyone who ever took the test, except for 00.2 percent of peeps, who managed to score higher. The Navy test only went up to 100 percent. I scored in the 99.5 percentile.
If I took their stinking tests today? I'd score in the 100 percentile. I would get every question right. I took the Army test while high as a kite. I took the Navy test hung over like a mofo. I swear to God, I can get the highest score ever. EVER! I want another shot at it, damn it.
But be a good soldier? Or a good sailor? Nah. I just don't got it in me.
Listen, I got a 100% on every single test in AIT, and NO ONE had ever done that before. Not only that, but in the Navy, I got 100% on every test in Navy school. I was the Honor graduate in both the Army and Navy schools, and from the very first day to the very last day. That meant...I NEVER did guard duty. I never had any duty at all. That's what it means to be top dog. Ruff ruff.
In an environment where all I have to do is study a little bit, and score perfectly on tests, I am a Golden God. I absolutely cannot be beat.
You know how I do it? An exploit? A trick? Yup. They HAVE to give me the same test as everyone else! They could have tripped me up, but only if they gave me a harder test than they gave everyone else. That was my saving grace. Haha.
Thank God. Cause they certainly would have given me a harder test if they could have. EVERYONE wanted me to fail. At least get one questions wrong. But no. I could not. Why? I have a disorder. What did it get me? I was hated. Dispised.
My very first day at the 2/42 FA, Crailshiem...I got into a fight with Wilford Lee, who was in AIT with me, when he threw a mop at me, and said, "This ain't AIT now mofo." I busted him in his freaking mouth on the spot.
Wilford was bigger than I was. But I beat him pretty bad. I caught him with overhand rights to the chin that he could not see coming for some reason. I knocked him down three times with the same punch. And amazingly enough, no one tried to stop me. I thought I was gonna get in HUGE trouble. But Top told me, "Trouble? Noooo. You done good. The Army loves fighters. You kicked his ass."
Nothing was ever mentioned again about it, except for, "You should have seen the ass whipping he put on that boy from Georgia."
Wilford Lee? He was my best buddy from AIT. He don't pass AIT unless we conspire to cheat, and I let him copy from my test. He had very high scores, and he could barely read. Too funny.
Honor Grad was Ok. But it was the manner in which I did it. First day to last day. I never let anyone else have a chance. That was wrong.
I made up for my performance in AIT by being one of the worst soldiers in the unit. Not only did I do duty, but you could pay me to do your duty. And then there was the extra duty, of which I was assigned...extra.
The bottom line? If you are average in every way, you will excel in the military. It is purposely built that way. If you are at the top, or bottom, in the intellectual department...you will face an uphill battle your entire tour of duty.
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