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Authors: Frank Bank,Gibu Twyman

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BOOK: Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life

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Page 124

Chapter Six
Beetle Bilko Minderbender, PFC

I love John Wayne.

We used to see him in the commisary at Universal, gliding through in that walkin'-tall, sidewinding gait of his, that leatherneck look in his eye, the battleships of Guadalcanal stuck in the jut of his jaw, the shores of Iwo Jima seemingly washed across his face.

He was an honest-to-God, GI Joe action-hero figure come to life.

He looked like he could kick every goose-stepping butt that got in his way.

He looked like he could fight World War III all by himself, with one hand tied behind his back, and have time left over in the afternoon for World War IV.

He was nice and kind to everyone on the lotstars and extras alikeand just as larger-than-life impressive in the flesh as he appeared on the screen.

I was glad he was on our side if we had to take on the Commies or the Castros or whatever bad guys anyone threw at us.

You'd think The Duke would be my military hero.

Nope.

Not even close.

Sgt. Bilko was.

That's right, Sgt. Ernest T. Bilko.

I speak, of course, of the Sgt. Bilko of 1950s television fame. The wheelin'-dealin', conniving, flim-flamming master of artful dodging was Beetle Bailey with juice. Not only did he want to spend every day of military life ducking, rather than fulfilling, assigned tasks. He had just enough power to wriggle off the hook. If he could just devise the proper scam, concoct the correct mixture of hoodwink and hokum, he could not only get out of whatever it was he was supposed to do. He could look good getting out of it. Put one over on the Dudley Do-Right dufuses in charge of everything without the poor schnooks realizing they'd been put on. No . . . better than that, with them con-

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gratulating you for the con you just ran on them.

Pure, undiluted, 24-carat gold-bricking. That was the Bilko Code.

That was many a red-blooded American boy's dream of life the way it ought to be in This Man's Army.

At least it was the right color of red for this American boy.

Why choose The Ducker over The Duke?

Maybe it was just my personality, some let's-make-a-deal, beat-the-system genetic defect deep down inside me.

Maybe it was a sign of the times.

It was the early-'60s and the national philosophical axis had turned for kids growing up now. We were about flouting authority. Trashing institutions. Thumbing our noses at traditional values.

Irreverance was our daily bread.

It was pre-Kennedy Assassination. It was pre-drug era. It was still Happy Days. It was I-don't-give-a-rat's ass, who-cares. There was nothing nasty about it, really. Not yet, anyway. It was really cool. Wonderful.

In that spirit, I am proud to say that I spent my time in the service in what I deem the cushiest job in the history of the United States Army.

I am also extremely proud that I won my wussy joband the only stripes I ever wore (however briefly)in a crap game.

Let Bilko beat that, baby.

Let me take you back to the beginning.

It was 1960. I'd just graduated from Hamilton High, and my buddy, Al Levine, and I decided we were going to go into the Army Reserves.

We didn't want anything hanging over our heads about ever getting drafted. The draft was really big back then. We signed up immediately after high school, instead of starting college. I told Al, ''Let's start college in the fall, instead of starting in February."

February? Uh-huh. We had graduations every six months back in those days in LA. We had "A-12" and "B-12" in the 12th gradetwo graduations a year. Mine and Al's happened to be in January. So we figured we would take this time and opportunity to get our little military bit out of the way. I wanted to start college after Labor Day, anyway.

Now, the next item was to carefully select the outfit we would go into. In tribute to Sgt. Bilko, our main objective was to have as good a time as possible and do as little as possible.

We found the perfect unit.

We joined the 311th Logistical Command in West Los Angeles, over on Barrington and Wilshire.

The first sweet thing that hit you dead in the face about the "311th Log," as it was called, was that we would be reporting for duty at Ford Ord, which just happened to be on the Monterrey Peninsula.

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Sun-drenched days. Gorgeous beaches. Beautiful homes. Quaint village atmosphere. Babes.

That struck us as a proper vantage point from which to defend the country.

Secondly, the 311th Log was a quartermaster company. We found out in case there ever was an act of war that President Eisenhower would issue orders activating our unit to go over to the Beverly Hilton Hotel and type out quartermaster commands for the Pacific Theater of war.

That would have been our job should there be an outbreak of hostilities.

Typing.

We liked the idea of that.

Somehow, it just seemed better than going, say, to Korea and getting our keisters shot off, you know?

It had an even better ring since the California National Guard almost got wiped out in the Korean War.

Monterrey. The Hilton.

We liked the sound of that much better.

Upon joining up, we received our Military Occupational Specialitywhat is called your MOS. It was 711-10. In common English, it's called clerk-typist. We were ready to go peck our pinkies to the bone for Old Glory.

We are off to Basic Training at Fort Ord.

Al and I reported to the welcome center where they proceeded to shave our heads, take our clothes and give us the usual ill-fitting outfit. They gave me brown boots, knowing I had to wear black boots. Then they handed me a can of black shoe polish. Some guys got black boots. I got brown boots and they said, "Color 'em."

Because I was dumb.

It was just my first day and I hadn't begun to achieve full Bilko-hood yet. They'd shaved our heads, taken our identity, dehumanized ussame as Elvis or anybody else. We were just numbers in a line in this particular place.

But right away, life seemed OK in the army.

I remember the guy that welcomed us was Sgt. Love.

"Ahhhm Sgt. Love and Ah run the indoctrination center here, and you-all are in the Yoo-nited States Awmy," he said in some Southern drawl out of Central Casting.

I looked at Al; Al looked at me. We cracked up.

I got my buddy there and, you know, I'm not scared. That night we heard guys crying in the barracks and we couldn't quite figure out why. There wasn't any war going on in February of 1960. Here we were on the Monterrey Peninsula at Ford Ord, OK?

What are you whining about?

So they separate us into all these different basic-training companies, and

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we start the daily grind. We're doing OK. I mean, I'm as out of shape as I can get at the time, but still all right. Nowadays, I may look like I couldn't win a footrace with Nell Carter, but back in those days I still looked like the jock I was. I had played high school football before signing up. At the start of basic, I was one of the guys in the back of the pack and they're going, "Hurry up, you guys back there," when we started marching.

But I started falling in line with the physical part of basic and by the end of it I was pretty trim.

I did get pneumonia three weeks into basic and had to spend a week in the hospital. I got what was called "re-cycled." Set back a week before I could finish basic.

All in all, though, the Army was quickly turning into a pretty milquetoast deal.

And by now, Al and I had begun to work our Bilko scams. Our first accomplishment was to alienate everyone in our entire company. There were about 300 guys in the company and every single one of them was pissed at us.

Not that I can blame them.

Every Friday night our whole company had what we called G.I. Parties. That's where the guys would get out the buffers and the waxers and all the cleansers and clean the latrines and clean the windows and get the floors shining like glass.

The sad thing for Al and me was that this whole thing occurred right after chow on Friday. It just so happens that the Jewish Sabbath also started on Friday right after chow. At formation after Friday dinner, the company commander, a captain, yells, "All Jewish personnel, please fall out."

There's me. And there's Al.

We fall out.

"Everyone else," the captain shouts, "get in and start those G.I. parties."

Regrettably, Al and I were unable to join our comrades-in-arms.

Instead, we were forced to go over to Friday night services, where we cleaned house in our own manner by chugging wine all night.

Turned out, the ranking clergy at Fort Ord was the Jewish rabbi, who was a full-bird colonel. And every Friday when we'd go over to the rabbi, he'd divest himself of pretty much the same speech: "All right, guys, don't take any crap. I know you're in basic. I know they're gonna give you crap. Just remember, you don't give them any crap on Sunday morningyou don't let 'em give you any crap on Friday night."

We took him at his word.

On Friday nights at the temple, they served challah, which is egg bread and glasses of Mogen-David wine. It's really only one cup they're supposed to give you. They say, "Blessed our lord, King of the universe, thank you for

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giving us the fruit of the vine," and they give you the wine.

Being in basic training, Al and I figured we needed even more blessing than normal. We'd sit around and drink three, four, five glasses of wine. The rabbi was benignly tolerant toward two of his people. Don't let 'em give you any crap. That was our cue to loll around and get half-schnockered. Then, about the time we figured the GI party was over, we'd stroll on back to the barracks.

The floors are standing tall. The bunks are all lined up. The mirrors are all gleaming. The toilet lids are standing at attention, just like Andy Griffith had them in "No Time for Sergeants." They are sparkling white.

And here come Bank and Levine back from services.

They wanted to kill us.

"Hope you guys had a good time," they'd taunt us.

"Hey, we smell alcohol on your breaths."

"Well," we told them, "we tried to hold it down to three glasses of wine each."

They were livid.

Our attitude: Hey, screw you.

That remained pretty much our prevailing attitude whenever we had a chance to dodge serious duty.

Did I tell you I drew barracks guard? On the surface, this may sound bad, but it actually was a wonderful stroke.

Everybody, when they get to basic training, they have to go out on what they call bivouac. What bivouac is, is being a Boy Scout for a week. You get a tent, a back-pack and a little shovel, and C-rations. Everybody goes out and lives in their little tents and eats their C-rations, and takes their shovel and they dig a hole. And they take a dump in the hole and they bury it and they get one ration of toilet paper for the week and that is bivouac. Pretty fascinating stuff, huh?

Everybody has to engage in this wonderful business of bivouac. With one exception. Somebody has to stay behind and guard the barracks. Just in case the Communists want to come in and take over our barracks at Fort Ord on the Monterrey Peninsula, someone has got to stop them from doing that.

It worked outI honestly don't remember how; just the old Bank luck kicking in again, I thinkthey went through this big rigamarole and all I heard was, "Private Bank, fall out."

"Yessir."

"Private Bank, you will be barracks guard this week. You will watch this barracks and we expect it to be standing tall when we get back."

"Hmmmm. Yessir."

So I spent the entire week jacking around.

I was reading comic books.

BOOK: Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life

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