Be all you can be. To be or not to be in the US Army (Byrning Notes VI)

...for some reason the doctor there, a full bird colonel, didn’t think it was too cute when I answered, “To climb trees,” to his question, “Why do you keep your fingernails, and toe nails so long?”

Around late 1998? Or, was it early 1999? Still can’t remember the exact date when I was shipped back to Fort Leonardwood Missouri to be prepped for active duty. I was cleaning out, so I convinced myself, my system from the hallucinogenic drugs, powder, and weed,

with booze for three weeks. In my two months that I waited to go active duty I played creepy keyboards in a band that never left the trailer park. We called ourselves Credence Cadavers (Dead Losers). I have about thirty cassette tapes of our sessions. I also flunked out in my first semester with the University of Southern Mississippi.

I brought an electric pick up ukulele, my drum machine, and my tascom four track music recorder with me to Korea, telling myself that I had till age twenty seven years of age to be rich and famous.

At first the superiors were very easy on us. Somehow I ended up at the Fort Leonardwood bowling alley drinking a couple that became four. Four tall ones, twenty ounces-I started talking to myself as I was writing my hit songs. Left there at about 15:30 (3:30 pm) for the 16:00 formation. Of course they called the MP’s on me. With utmost conviction I told the Sergeant Major and the Captain how I wanted to be punished. Told them how I would put a curse on them if they didn’t follow my directions. Noticed as we came to the barracks, the entrance door was hanging off the hinges. Therefore, I proclaimed it as proof of my majick powers.

Proof of my majick powers landed me in the Fort Leonardwood psyche ward (4C). Less than a month of active duty US Army I was going to get kicked out under a section 8. Yea, for some reason the doctor there, a full bird colonel, didn’t think it was too cute when I answered, “To climb trees,” to his question, “Why do you keep your fingernails, and toe nails so long?”

I barely made it through. I remember the final day in there I felt very strange. Everything stood still when I heard Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” I felt something supernatural taking hold of me as I was thinking of my childhood friend David.

The doctors recommended strongly for me not to drink. And of course, the first thing I did the night I was released was get wasted. May 1999, I was shipped to Korea. I didn’t want anyone to know about what happened to me at Fort Leonardwood.

While in Fort Leonardwood, Met a witch who did a ceremony on me. He told me I was possessed by some evil deity that causes war in the Middle East. It could have been the alcohol, after all they call alcohol "Spirits."