Son Johnny and I had planned to get to Fort Hood to visit daughter Kara on Christmas Eve. But roads covered with glare ice and strong Texas winds made it tough to keep my GMC on the road. Christmas Eve north of Dallas in a Days Inn was preferable to sliding into a ditch, as so many luckless drivers were doing.
Christmas Day dawned bright and sunny. The ice had already disappeared by mid-morning as we headed through Dallas on I-35 to Belton, near Fort Hood. Kara had reserved a suite for us at La Quinta Inn. We were darn glad to finally arrive safely and see her on her Christmas birthday.
I had hoped that there would be a Christmas dinner of some sort at Fort Hood's Officers Club. In an earlier life, as a low ranking enlisted jarhead, the best we could do on the base was cheap beer in the joint inelegantly, however appropriately, dubbed "The Slop Chute."
"Hey, let's go over to the Slop Chute for a beer," was the clarion call on off-duty hours. Fine wine and elegant dining was not our lot in life. But the pizza was good - it's where I first developed my taste for anchovies on pizza.
This was my big chance. Think about it - from cheap beer at The Slop Chute with a bunch of rag-tag Marines to fine dining at an Officers' Club, all on the strength of my daughter's rank that I could never have achieved in a zillion years.
Rats! The joint was closed. What's with this Army anyway?
But we had a nice Christmas. The next day, Kara gave us a partial tour of Fort Hood. The place is huge - home of the Army's First Cavalry Division, and a bunch of other units. The streets were deserted that Christmas weekend - no troops in formation, no tanks moving around - everything peaceful and quiet.
We drove around the deserted streets with intriguing names. My favorite was "Tank Destroyer Boulevard." I gotta hand it to the Army. I thought we Marines had a monopoly on ingenuity and creativity. "Tank Destroyer Boulevard," way to go, Army.
We stopped at the PX (Post Exchange for the uninitiated). It was like a giant department store - more grandiose than any PX that I ever knew. We had a bite at its food court - inelegant, but far superior to The Slop Chute of yore.
But lest I imply that soldiers of today "have it made," there are sober reminders that such is not the case. Kara drove us past the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center complex, to which she is assigned as a psychiatric nurse. Truth can be stranger than fiction.
It was last October when Kara was home on leave that she, son Johnny, and some close friends were treating me to a birthday dinner in Madison. A few short days later, Kara reported back to duty. A few short weeks later, the Processing Center-well, you know the rest.
Earlier in 2009, Kara was tentatively slated to go to Iraq. But things changed, and she remains at Fort Hood. Had things not changed, and had she been at the Processing Center, who knows. It's enough to send chills up a father's spine.
We can talk of responsibility - individual responsibility, collective responsibility for our community and our country, and indeed, for the planet. But so much of life seems to be but a roll of the dice. Daughter Kara was lucky - she was not at the Processing Center that fateful day. But some soldiers and their families were not so fortunate.
The Fort Hood community is working through what no military unit or community should have to go through. The Army, like any other institution, changes with society. Yet, some things about military institutions remain constant - namely, the call to duty goes on. We can only hope that our civilian leadership has the wisdom, the foresight, and whatever it takes to use our military institutions wisely and with discretion.
So, it's time to leave Central Texas. Maybe on my next junket down here, I'll be able to catch an elegant dinner at the Officers' Club. For sure, it must be orders of magnitude superior to the old Slop Chute. But for now, it's time to head across west Texas to revisit old haunts in Las Cruces and romantic old Mesilla, New Mexico.
- Monroe resident John Waelti can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
Christmas Day dawned bright and sunny. The ice had already disappeared by mid-morning as we headed through Dallas on I-35 to Belton, near Fort Hood. Kara had reserved a suite for us at La Quinta Inn. We were darn glad to finally arrive safely and see her on her Christmas birthday.
I had hoped that there would be a Christmas dinner of some sort at Fort Hood's Officers Club. In an earlier life, as a low ranking enlisted jarhead, the best we could do on the base was cheap beer in the joint inelegantly, however appropriately, dubbed "The Slop Chute."
"Hey, let's go over to the Slop Chute for a beer," was the clarion call on off-duty hours. Fine wine and elegant dining was not our lot in life. But the pizza was good - it's where I first developed my taste for anchovies on pizza.
This was my big chance. Think about it - from cheap beer at The Slop Chute with a bunch of rag-tag Marines to fine dining at an Officers' Club, all on the strength of my daughter's rank that I could never have achieved in a zillion years.
Rats! The joint was closed. What's with this Army anyway?
But we had a nice Christmas. The next day, Kara gave us a partial tour of Fort Hood. The place is huge - home of the Army's First Cavalry Division, and a bunch of other units. The streets were deserted that Christmas weekend - no troops in formation, no tanks moving around - everything peaceful and quiet.
We drove around the deserted streets with intriguing names. My favorite was "Tank Destroyer Boulevard." I gotta hand it to the Army. I thought we Marines had a monopoly on ingenuity and creativity. "Tank Destroyer Boulevard," way to go, Army.
We stopped at the PX (Post Exchange for the uninitiated). It was like a giant department store - more grandiose than any PX that I ever knew. We had a bite at its food court - inelegant, but far superior to The Slop Chute of yore.
But lest I imply that soldiers of today "have it made," there are sober reminders that such is not the case. Kara drove us past the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center complex, to which she is assigned as a psychiatric nurse. Truth can be stranger than fiction.
It was last October when Kara was home on leave that she, son Johnny, and some close friends were treating me to a birthday dinner in Madison. A few short days later, Kara reported back to duty. A few short weeks later, the Processing Center-well, you know the rest.
Earlier in 2009, Kara was tentatively slated to go to Iraq. But things changed, and she remains at Fort Hood. Had things not changed, and had she been at the Processing Center, who knows. It's enough to send chills up a father's spine.
We can talk of responsibility - individual responsibility, collective responsibility for our community and our country, and indeed, for the planet. But so much of life seems to be but a roll of the dice. Daughter Kara was lucky - she was not at the Processing Center that fateful day. But some soldiers and their families were not so fortunate.
The Fort Hood community is working through what no military unit or community should have to go through. The Army, like any other institution, changes with society. Yet, some things about military institutions remain constant - namely, the call to duty goes on. We can only hope that our civilian leadership has the wisdom, the foresight, and whatever it takes to use our military institutions wisely and with discretion.
So, it's time to leave Central Texas. Maybe on my next junket down here, I'll be able to catch an elegant dinner at the Officers' Club. For sure, it must be orders of magnitude superior to the old Slop Chute. But for now, it's time to head across west Texas to revisit old haunts in Las Cruces and romantic old Mesilla, New Mexico.
- Monroe resident John Waelti can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
