We arrived at Fort Lee mostly tired and hungry but excited. I was excited. Some people just thought of it as a job they had to do. For me it was a big adventure. The big bonus was that no one knew me. Sure, I'd gone the "no one knew me" route in the many schools I'd gone to over the years but this was different because not only did they not know me they had no clue of the life I'd come from and they never would. I felt anonymous but not in a bad way.
Back in basic, I felt like I really fit in because a lot of the stuff we did I already knew how to do. I thought what I learned here would be new to even me, though. Its ironic that the very first "job" I was given is something I'd done hundreds of times in my life.
I think a bus picked us up at the train station. There were always busses at ever post I'd ever been to or would be because up to now I'd only been in the one before.
We lugged our stuff off the bus and lined up for our assignments. I was sent to Charlie company. I'd already been in a Charlie company before so that wasn't strange. The building we were taken to looked about the same but it was white not the red brick of my first barracks and not the white wood of the old barracks on Tank Hill at Fort Jackson.
Enid had been at Fort Jackson sometime before me but she'd never been to Fort Lee. It was all mine!
This was where I would be staying. Not with the guys you see in the windows. Our rooms were across a divider hall that was supposed to be blocked off. Guys were not allowed on the girls side and girls were not supposed to be allowed on the boys side. I did hear at one time that girls with a rank were allowed two person rooms over there if they were airborne.
On our side were mostly girls of lower ranks. We did have some of the airborne girls with us but not many.
It says on that wall QMS. That stands for Quartermaster and it means we were being trained as support. We were supposed to be the ones who did all the "dirty" work. It covered a lot of jobs. My official training was to set up and manage a warehouse and I did train for that but I also trained for other things.
My first job after putting all our stuff in our lockers and making our beds and not resting was something real easy and silly to my way of thinking. It was a task that needed doing and we were the lesser beings on post.
A SGT. by the name of Tweety pulled up in a truck outside the barracks. He wanted volunteers for a special job, he said. We didn't really have to do this but a lot of us wanted to do something. Our Dad always told us the first rule of being in the service was never to volunteer but I felt adventurous. I volunteered.
Within minutes we were hoisted into the back of the truck and rumbling on our way. I don't even remember where we went. There were no buildings to see. We just stopped in the middle of nowhere. There was a big pile of fall leaves. It was a huge pile. Our job, my first job in my so called illustrious career choice was to be bagging leaves!
It took us awhile but we got them all, I think, in black plastic trash bags, tied and tossed in the truck. Our task wasn't over. We now had to haul them to somewhere else and dump out all the bags. The truck was full of bags and I wondered how we were going to get there when my arm was grabbed and I was hauled into the back of the truck with all the leaves. It was like a hay ride with leaves instead of hay but at least they were in bags and not sticking into my like hay does.
At the dumping spot we emptied out all the bags. I thought it was odd to fill them up and empty them out again later but that was the Army. You did what you were told and if you questioned why it had better be only in your own head.
So began my stay at Fort Lee. I was there for quite awhile. It was a long course and I loved mostly every minute of it. There were a couple of incidents I didn't love but I survived.
Lessons would be learned here that were in ways lessons I'd already learned in childhood. You did what you were told. There was no "I can't do it." If they told you to do it, you could do it. You just had to put your mind to it. There was no other way. You were Army property. You did it.
Other lessons were new to me. Some were scary. Most were not. You learned to take chances that you might not have taken in your own little corner of the world.