The First Night...

I remember the first night was "in" the Army. I'd gotten to Fort Leonard Wood (is that one word or two?) sometime around four or five in the afternoon and we were immediately issued sweats. I don't know how, but we got one pair of BDU's with our names on them, and boots. I remember this because I was on fireguard that night. I had to wake up, sometime around midnight, to make sure the barracks didn't catch on fire. It was our first night, so they really only wanted us to be awake, in twos. I was sitting on the stairs near the entryway with a blanket, flashlight and pad writing a letter home.

I was writing about how I went into the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror with "Harmon" on my chest. I never played sports in high school, so I'd always been Adam. My dad, however, was in the military, so, seeing the uniform he had worn, but wearing it myself, was surreal. I felt like I was playing dress-up...like it was Halloween or something. Then I realized that some twenty years earlier, my dad had been doing the same thing I was. He had sat there, somewhere new, now knowing Charlie, his best friend, my Uncle Z or any of the other people I had always associated him with, because they met in the military. I imagined him, possibly for the first time in my life, as just a young man, like myself, trying to do something with his life. It was strange, to think of him in a way other than as my father.

I think, right then, is the first time I felt a connection to my father other than the usual father-son bond. We had gone through some rough times, with me not wanting to grow up and there was a lot of tension in the house for a while. At the same time, however, I remember after high school, when I was basically doing nothing for two years, it was my mom who really wanted me to "grow up" and get a job and all that...my father was the one who convinced her that it was alright and that I was just "finding myself." My mom and I still laugh about that. That for the first time in my life, it was he and not her who was taking the calm trusting approach with me.

Now that I grow up, I tend to use him as a measuring stick. What was he doing at this point in his life...what would he do if he were me...what did he do so right that I can do too? I don't know if everyone does it, or if it's just because my dad died and I somehow feel that if I can lead a life well lived, it'll validate his short life, but I can think of worse ways to live.