Private I Don’T Give a F*** but I Did…: The Transition

By Xlibris US

Columbus has made the transition from a teenager to becoming a man. Columbus did what he needed to do to overcome stressful situations. His love for his family didnt let him activate his killing demon. He is faced with decisions of life progression. He learns you cant outrun your past. When you do fuck shit, its always going to come back and bite you.
He is trying to handle things that are out of his control. He has to discipline himself. He still keeps letting the hood creep out of him. He knows he got to get a handle on it. He has a handle on the stealing demon because hes getting money. Hes learning how to make the right decisions instead of letting his emotions explode.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499079111

Book preview

Private I don’t give a F***

but I Did…….

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The Transition

Aetius D. Harris

Off the Knuckles Entertainment

Copyright © 2014 by Aetius D. Harris.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/04/2014

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Author’s Comments

The Setting

Spiritual Battle

Chapter I

Catch Up

What are you going to do?

Shipping Out

Orientation

Drill Sergeant Horton

The Pressure

Sucker

Setting the Trap

Immaculate

Running into Folks

Bully

Look In the Mirror

Chapter II

Persevered

AIT

Well bust my Head

Fiddlers Green

Senior Drill to the Rescue

Spec 4 Garnett

New York

The post Basketball Game

Chapter III

Pass no# 3 off Post

Facing the Music

Plugging the Bubble

Drill Sergeant Davis

The Orders

Chapter IV

The Bottle

We’re going home for Christmas

Leaving for Germany

Heading to Nuremburg

Getting Settled

Sgt. Owens

Newby

The CQ Desk

The Football Game

Giessen

Plugging

The Tire Room

Going to the field

Specialist 4 Reginald Dates

The Jacker

CID

Qualifying and Yearly Test

Chapter V

The Red Light District

Ulirika

She saw a Ghost

Live Wire

Paris France

The Wand

Head Cracked Open

That Guy

Back to Geissen

Chapter VI

Hash and Paraphernalia and Consequences

The Okey DoKe

This German showed me something Unbelievable Honesty

Don’t mess with George

Restriction and Extra Duty

Sgt. Menton

I’m on the Road

Eddie Murphy

Chapter VII

Unfinished Business

Reico is still trying to kill me

The Bet

Summary

This is the third memoir in a series following Columbus George’s struggle. He has to make a transition quickly, because all of his doors are closing. This is a year-to-year memoir of the transition from street life to army life. The time period spans the late1980s. The main character is Columbus George AKA Private George. Columbus struggles with the adjustment to army life, but has no other options that suits him.

There are a lot of obstacles to keep you from coming up in life. The black experience is a bitch! Three out of four blacks in the inner cities will be incarcerated, shot or killed. The other trap is to sell or use hard drugs before the age of twenty-five. Being black in color is obstacle you can’t hide. This is the third part to a series of books laying out Columbus George’s struggle to stay righteous. He recognizes his demons and tries to combat them, while looking for a pathway.

Your color was your main obstacle. Being smart was another obstacle. When you are black in America there’s no roadmap left from your ancestor’s history. There’s nothing to aid you and your direction & development in America’s Capitalistic system. Growing up on the streets of Chicago is rough. Growing up without leadership or guidance, it’s virtually, futile.

A lot of society wonders about Blacks. Why do Blacks often have such a negative outlook on life? Why do blacks rob, steal and inflict damage to their own people? Why do they tear down their own neighborhoods? Why don’t they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, focus and come up?

The major factor’s for the problems of today is a dysfunctional household. There aren’t fathers or positive male role models in the household.

This is one of the major reasons why things have gotten out of control. Our kids growing up today don’t have any strong male guidance. They are confronted with different evils of life, without a guide.

You have to learn from the guys off the corner or on the block. You learn from people who are in survival mode for your information on life.

Drugs, liquor and music videos are among the other variables. One of the main reasons is stemming from four hundred years of brainwashing. It is complicated to even think how deliberate the plans are to keep us searching.

Most of the things you’ve been taught in the school, some media, radio, movies, cartoons and the different TV programming. This evil programming is set up to continue programming or brainwashing our kids. There’s a signal coming straight into your house. Who controls the information that gets to you? What is they’re agenda?

It’s a well thought out systematic plan to continue to use slave labor. Slavery has been abolished with the passing of the 13Th amendment. Due to the fact and that fact alone we came up.

There were a lot of white people who’ve helped black folks to freedom and equality. All people aren’t the same. It’s just some of the people in power wants to keep their foot on your neck.

President Lincoln a Republican president was the catalyst that helped push this amendment through. Now the Democrats are Republicans and Republicans are Democrats. Depending on the agenda those elected officials are switching sides. You don’t know who’s who and where’s the loyalty to your people?

White folks are way ahead of the game. We have to take the blindfold off. To continue to close your eyes to the truth is our downfall. We are not questioning what’s really going on!

This nation was united with the different battles of the civil war. This is a war that literally tore our country apart. This is a war that preludes the end of slavery, the year 1865.

The truth is black folks were just 3/5Ths of a human being. We were close to being livestock in slave owner’s eyes. You’ll still hear some whites refer to us as monkeys. Still, there was mix breeding and this caused a breakdown in our color. Our skin tone was being diluted. The lighter you were the more privileges you had. This was, because you had some of Massa’s blood, in you.

We were known as subhuman’s or savages to some white folks in America. The descendants of those white folks are still in play, powerfully. This land was confiscated from the Indians and not founded by Christopher Columbus. It was people already here in America.

Black folks were sold or stolen from Africa. They had a slave work force that worked the land the conquerors were developing. The white folks families who orchestrated that move will never run out of plans and money. They’ve probably made trillions of profits off that investment and still growing. Now you have free land and you have free labor. You can’t get any better than that! The seeds of slavery are still being planted; it’s a diabolical plan. It is a plan to keep blacks and minorities fighting and killing each other over money.

This plan has knocked out and created self-genocide to our black leaders of the future. The descendants of those who enacted the plan still think the same way or things would be changing.

When the season changes yearly in the spring, you plant seeds. The seeds they’re planting are seeds to brainwash you. When you are released out the womb your brain is wired for control. People that are in power rarely want to relinquish it. They have the ups on the latest technology and uses it in that way.

Non-leadership is another reason why our neighborhoods have taken a turn for the worst. Lack of leadership or a concentrated effort to either lock up or kill our leaders. Who wants to be a target? Just in my time Fred Hampton, Dr. King, Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were all murdered.

These guys were our leaders or fought for black folk’s interest. Louis Farrakahn orchestrated the million-man march. He also has been a major force for at least forty years in the community. Jessie Jackson Rainbow Collation and Rev Al Sharpton are cool, but we needed more. It used to be a lot of leaders, but after those killings. Most of our leaders faded.

You have to be a strong man to put your life on the line for your cause. Barack Obama is an inspiration, he’s America’s first black president. Somebody got to be pulling his strings. Blacks make up about 15% of the population so black folks can’t elect him alone. He had a lot of help and what’s their agenda?

I was born in the year of 1968. This was a volatile year for leaders for black people. By the time I was born, our black and white leaders were slain. Fred Hampton was slain killed in his apartment by the Chicago police. He was the leader of the struggle at a young age. He was too powerful to live during those times. Mayor ‘Bull’ Daly was in charge of the police force that cut him down.

Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were killed right after I was born. Who was I to look up to for strength and guidance? The only person I see, who is black that lived and died naturally, was Ralph Bunche.

I didn’t even know about him. I didn’t learn about him until I went to college. He was our international spokesperson for the United Nations. He’s the guy who helped sew up the middle-east peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis in the 1960s and 1970s.

After masterfully settling issue after issue in the Middle East. When he got home he couldn’t drink water from the same water fountain as whites, in the American South. It didn’t even matter what he done to the folks in the South. He still was a boy!

Most black people here in the United States are descendants of slaves. Most of us have no idea of where were from, originally. We don’t know who we are or our family history. Fuck shit happens to people who don’t know their history. We are susceptible to what comes to us, while trying to figure life out. By then it could be too late.

We have no idea how we all got here, except for a slave ship. We have our master’s who enslaved us, last name. That’s all we have to go on unless you have money for a search.

During slave time most of us black Americans born here were fucked. Once the air hit our lunges. We were sold shortly afterwards from underneath our parents. Now, you don’t know your mother or father anymore. Who is left to teach you your family values and history?

The long-term effect from this separation is when brainwashing takes effect. Blacks are still seeking their history. Most are wondering which way to go for success at this time? They are wondering how do you side-step some of these issues.

One of the reason white folks didn’t want us to know how to read. Knowledge is power! Now our kids today don’t pursue education, why? There’s more than one way to skin a cat. We are left to claim street corners and blocks due to this fact.

We’ve been brainwashed into believing what the teachers taught us, in books as kids. We believed the media and things we saw on TV. We believed the portrayal of what white people want us to believe, we are, to be. Truth to the matter is we had to be the strongest of the strong. We had to be the pick of the litter in order to survive the ocean voyage.

Author’s Comments

As a child, I felt so distant and lost. I am Columbus George. My family were scattered and my Mom settled in Chicago. Due to the darkness of my skin I felt rejection. I was a smart or above average kid. This made me kind of an outcast double-time coming up. How can I be black and smart?

I just didn’t fit in with my age group as far as excelling. In school I knew the material we worked on in class already. I had to constantly go up a level to learn. Therefore, I was promoted to the upper grades. Once up there the older kids in the class rejected me immediately. It seems as, if the older kids were being attacked by the younger smarter kid’s knowledge.

This rejection was not only from older kids: I experienced rejection from white people, friends, family and peers in one-way or another. I should’ve been proud of the darkness of my skin. That means I hadn’t been diluted a great deal. I still have African features.

I was fooled into believing my darkness and my high I Q level was bad. I wished I’d known about the money and scholarships that were available to me, because I was smart. I wish I were aware about that straight out the gate. I would’ve taken advantage, if I’d known. Knowledge is power and knowing is half the battle.

The other part of the battle is the work. I had no problem working. All I had to do was get good grades and that was a given. I didn’t know anything about a full ride in college. My grammar and high schools weren’t pressing college unless you were an athlete.

Universities will pay you to go to their school, because you are smart. Had I known at the time that nerds run the world! Nerds pay the jocks. Nerds control companies and have vast amount of wealth. All this time I was trying to fit in with the people who one day will be working for nerds. I will try to answer some of these questions by the end of this book. Why!

The Setting

This is a look inside Columbus George mind as he searches for a way out of the struggle. This is in an era when drugs were now taking over the neighborhood.

It was a blessing he came up in a time when people stuck halfway together.

People really cared what happened to you. Columbus needed help from his friends and his friend’s parents to get off the streets.

He could get a job with SteveO rolling cocaine was one of his options. This is how he comes to this decision. He must leave before he falls all the way off. Sacks let one of the Folks ride his car and he smashes it and leaves it in snake alley. His mother and father kicks him out and he living on the streets of Chicago.

Columbus joins the army shortly afterward. Something he said he’d never do, to find a way out. He comes to the conclusion one night while sleeping on the floorboard of his car. He shipped out Sept 9th 1986. He is station on Fort Dix New Jersey and later goes on to Germany and does his permanent party.

He has a hellva a time trying to adjust to military life. Each phase he makes it through it’s a sergeant that guarentees that he won’t make it through training. He proves them all wrong.

Pvt. George turns it into a competion it’s back to snake alley or conform. He graduates Basic Training and AIT with the threat of sleeping in his car again. It was no turning back it was not an option. The only thing he could do was conform to military standards.

Wherever George goes he has a circle of guys. He draws a crew of guys with his charisma and his willingness to bend and break rules. He also has an ace in his hand. Wherever he goes he one of the toughest and mentally stronger in the crew. Even though he’s the youngest. His superiors think George doesn’t give a fuck, but that is far from the truth.

He’s smart enough to know that this is a come up and he can’t fuck it up. He wasn’t eating great and now he’s eating like Tony the Tiger. He was living in his car now he looks up at a ceiling at night, instead of stars.

He knows he must stick this out or it’s back to snake alley. He still has to face issues he was running from or side stepping in Chicago. While he is station in Germany, he butts head with his platoon sergeant Owens.

His platoon sergeant thinks he’s a bad apple and wants him out the army. Once he knows the sergeant wants him out. George crawls up under his platoon sergeant’s skin. He couldn’t catch George doing anything out of pocket and it baffles him. Sgt. Owens wants him so bad that he entraps him, to get him busted.

Columbus meets a girl that changes his hard demeanor a little bit. She shows him the countryside of Germany while culturizing him unknowingly. She is an older lady and she schools him sexually and mentally. She gives him motivation to stick it out and be with her. She came just in time, because he got caught doing something by one the crew. PFC. Young had him by the nuts and put him on blast.

After settling into Germany he goes home on leave. When he goes home he had some dues to pay.

Spiritual Battle

We are all born in a world of sin. We have to work and struggle to become righteous. We are born in a world where you have a choice to follow good or evil. I believe everyone has goodness in them.

Goodness just has to have a chance to come out. God put the tiniest fraction of himself somewhere in our body. We all can excess him, if we call upon him and believe. The devil is constantly in your ears trying to get your soul!

Parents must lay the foundation of goodness in the child from the beginning. Make sure the child understand the difference between right and wrong. We have to be taught righteousness. It seems we are all born with a selfish spirit.

We must be taught to give and to love one another. Once challenged, confronted and dabbling in evil, you must be aware. Your soul is at stake! You have to know once out in the world. The plan is to get your soul and smother your righteous spirit. Young and old prepare yourself and take Yahweh with you.

In the

United States Army

Fort Dix New Jersey

Catch Up

I am always the first up in the morning. I still got that military up and out in me. I get out the bed and sees Big E sleeping on the couch. I was surprised I was sure he was leaving to get in his car last night. I went to bed after a night of reminiscing of drinks and smokes about the hood.

I hate to wake him up and then I hollered, Wake up Big E!

He grumbles and turns over and say, What up Colo?

I asked, What you still here?

He puts his glasses on that’s on the table.

He then says, Yeah I found out when I got to the corner I couldn’t drive so I spent the night. I got some clothes here for situations like when you come in town big dawg yaa yaa! You know when we reminisce we end up getting blasted. Colo you know how to put things in perspective.

I reply, Yeah I know that’s what happened I don’t forget shit. I had to pay attention for survival.

Emus forgot to tell me last night and says. Tadpole is coming back over with his girl and Andrean said she was fixing breakfast.

I say, "boy y’all know how to treat a guest. I love this southern hospitality.

Emus grabs a couple of towels out the closet and says, Tapole says, don’t start without him this time.

I asked. start what? Emus throws me a towel.

He then says, your stories, while laughing.

I said, E you know this ain’t stories these are facts, is Harold coming back over?

E answers, "I called him last night after you went to bed. He said something about soaking his feet.

I laughed and said, "yeah tell Joe to have shoe on next time Charlie. John comes out his room to help Andrea in the kitchen.

John says, Good Morning big dawg what up Big E?

I was still laughing about Harold’s feet.

I laughed and asked John, did he pay you your twenty dollars?

John said, "nope I’ll get it from him though.

I sit there with the look of satisfaction and say, Yeah I bust his ass. Charlie thought he was going to beat me with no shoes. He can’t beat me one on one with shoes. I’m going to jump in the shower and knock some of last night off of me. I got a story to tell. Just I am saying that Tadpole and his girl comes through the door I can here him.

I come out the bathroom and Tadpole says, What up Colo?

I answer, What up tadpole?

I was telling my girl about how you guys come up. She doesn’t believe half of it.

I look over at here and said, "Ms. Lady you think we all made up the same lie exactly. Well I got a story you really wouldn’t believe I fill you in on a little from last night. Adrian got the kitchen smelling already I smell all types of food smells.

Tadpole uncovers from a bag a half a gallon of 1738. I just smile and said, "you know how to get a nigga talking. I come back out the shower put my fresh pressed cloths on straight out the cleaners. By the time I was coming out, food was on the table again.

I’ve been down here three days and we ain’t left the house. I really just wanted to be in their company I didn’t want to go anywhere specific. I was here to see them so I was fine. We sit at the table and say blessings and dig in to the food. The table was laid out buffet style.

I bust into some pancakes and asked Janice. These nice guys fooled you huh. These guys were criminals and I was a goon and a criminal. They just came to Texas we’ll you know their story I am sure you heard them.

When they left for school. I was fucked they left me behind. I’m going to fill you in on a little of yesterday to catch you up. I got some stories Big E or John don’t even know about.

What are you going to do?

It’s 1986 and I am faced with a dilemma. I’m eighteen years old and it’s me against the world. My plan didn’t work I wanted to be a pro football player, a wide receiver. This was my immediate plan to get my family off craps. My inspiration was Lynn Swann from the Pittsburgh Steelers. He had a catch in the championship game against Dallas that can’t be matched.

He went high in the air on the sided lines like a ballerina. It looked like he was going out of bounds. He contorted his body and snag the football out the air and like a swan, stayed inbound. This is while being defensed by the corner who went down on the play. He ran the last thirty- yard and went in for the touchdown. Oh! How he used to go up for the football and snag it out the air. I wanted to catch the ball just like him.

My football hero was Walter Payton for the Chicago Bears. Sweetness they called him. He had power, speed and nobody, had a stiff arm like he did. He had a run for thirty yards against the chiefs that was legendary.

All eleven tacklers hit him as he broke tackles before he finally went down. He had a will and relentlessness to never quit. It was amazing to watch a man with so much heart. He could catch, quarterback, punt and run the hell out of the ball.

I knew that’s what I wanted to do in my life be a football player. My dream was cut short my freshman year. I was one of the last cut, from Paul Darobe high school football team. Who am I kidding? It was twenty of us left on the bleachers. Coach Murry told us to come back out next year. I was looking crazy and saying to myself, what do you mean? Next year, next, fucking year. What about this year?"

Next, I got cut from the basketball team too. I wanted to play pro basketball like Rickey Sobers the point guard for the Chicago Bulls. I got cut from both teams that I knew I just had a spot. This was my introduction to politics.

If nobody knows you, the coach, the assistant coach, or maybe just a dad telling a coach that you’re good. Nobody is there to speak up for you, to the coach. I felt I was that cold I didn’t need no speak up. I admit I was nervous in basketball tryouts and didn’t play up to my potential. I know I played better and was a better athlete then most who made the team. I still got cut.

At this point I was devastated with grief! I wasn’t going to play pro nothing. When it came to my realization that the pros wasn’t going to happen. I can’t even make my high school team. How the fuck I am going to make pro? This is realization coming to a kid who is thirteen years old. I wished it were somebody there to tell me to go out next year and stay focused.

My other hero is Muhammad Ali. I loved the way he talked shit and then commenced to handle the business in the ring. I had incorporated all his moves in my boxing game on the streets. Finally, with practice and determination I became one of the coldest with the hands in and out the hood. If only somebody could have steered me in the right direction. I went to all the Bruce Lee flicks and like, by the age of sixteen, I was a lethal weapon without a weapon.

I could’ve tried out for the baseball team. I wanted to play shortstop like Juan DeJesus of the Chicago Cubs. I didn’t try out though I couldn’t take another cut to my ego. I know I could have made the team. Baseball was my first love. I also thought it was a sure thing with the other sports.

A lot of people from my hood knew. I was much better than guys who made their high school team. How the fuck I didn’t make the team, I ask myself. This was the biggest failure of my young life and I didn’t handle it well. I could’ve played either pro sport, but in that order, football, basketball or baseball.

When I got cut I didn’t tell anybody in the hood. Why, because it was a far-gone conclusion that I was going to be a star. I was really that good at a young age. I practice and practice and practice each individual sport. I had tenacity like no other to practice on my own. I could havee tried out the next year, but my house burnt down that summer.

Now I’ve got to turn to the hustle games in the streets. I turned to the streets to get my fame and riches or so I thought. I had achieved some hood fame with my game. I was known as a true goon. I fought, banged, stole and had some control over what happened on the block.

I graduated high school, but now I didn’t have any reason to go to college. More school and I am not playing for Illinois or at least Bradley. Greg Jones went to Bradley. He was 6'11" and played power forward for the DaRobe. He was scoring about twenty-five a game.

Jerry Childs was six foot and a star high school point guard prospect for the DaRobe. I knew I could play with those guys, but it wasn’t in the cards. Naw, college wasn’t going to happen. How was I going to pay those student loans back? I was worried about the bills, after school.

The military was out too. I’ll never go to any white man’s service. I used to trip on motherfuckas doing RO.T.C. You see there are things in life that you know you are not going to do. For me, it was to never to be a police or go to the service. I was for sure of this with my eighteen years on earth. Never! I’ll never join this white man’s army.

What I did was attended to this six-month training school called Entech. It was down town Chicago on Michigan Ave. It was in a building a couple of blocks from Columbia College. If I went to college it would be a school like that. Entech was straight. I developed some administration skills. I didn’t go pro so the next thing was to be a businessman. Even, if it was in the streets I was going to be a businessman.

At the time I was living at 16959 Calumet the South side of Chicago. I had to catch the King Drive bus to the school every day at seven o’clock in the morning. Chicago has a great transportation system you can get anywhere in the city in a couple of hours on the train and the bus. Class started at eight so I could get there in plenty of time. While at the school I met this cool dude named Jeff. It turns out during our little time together Jeff was a big influence on me.

Jeff had just got out of the military and he was driving a Mercury Marquise. Jeff and I became cool, because every day we both, would be in class with the Chinese eyes. He was blowing just like I was right before class. Of course smokers know smokers. It was just like in high school with my boy Slept Rock when we were in class. He was a little taller than me and brown skin and average weight.

We weren’t class clowns, because we were older, but we did crack jokes. He knew I blew, so he cracked on me. Jeff called me over during a lunch and broke on me.

He leans over and whispers. I got one let’s go smoke.

I’m like, bet let’s go and he had some banger.

He told me while chilling, I knew you smoked.

I told him, I knew you smoked.

We were cool from that point on. Every morning we would meet before class and smoke. Sometimes in between breaks on one of the empty floors in the building we found. You know niggas, we going to find a spot to get high.

They were still doing work on the building. Some of the floors weren’t operational. We’d catch the elevator up and chill on those floors while smoking. We’d pop open a window and blow quickly, then put cologne on and back to class.

My weed game was still on so I kept my shit whipped. Finger waves were one of those signs in the streets of Chicago. This was an indication that you were banging.

It was more girls than guys so Jeff and I kind of had a pick of them. It was about six guys in the class. The other four guys were in there thirties and forties. We were the coolest and youngest guys in the class.

I was the youngest in the whole class, but I had game. I came to school everyday dressed to a T and my butter was whipped. Don’t look too hard or you’ll get sea sick.

Jeff had his own style though! He didn’t bang that was different being from Chicago. Now he’s a Chicago native, but he’s been around the country. He didn’t dress like we did. He used to where his military black trench to school. He dressed like a grown man with a fade cut.

Jeff would go on and on about his military stories. This is when he was stationed up at DC. When we were together he would tell me about all the girls he used to bang. All the fun he had traveling to different places. The problems he used to have with his sergeant.

I forgot the reason why he got out, but he did only two years. He had the girls captured with his stories he told. Of course he went after the baddest girl in the class. He had a gab piece on him and his game was smooth. I later picked this up from him, to go after the baddest chick.

I admit this, because I grew up without a father to teach me things fathers do. I had to grab all my game out the street, from observation.

That’s one thing I always did. Steal the best part of person’s game and incorporate it into my game. I always observed and master what I like. It could be a walk or a gesture.

For instance, on the basketball court, if you had a sweet move I would steal it. I would practice that move and make it better. Now it’s no longer your move it’s my move. If I incorporate everybody best shit then I would be a cold motherfucka.

Jeff and I began to hang after school, because he would give me a ride home. I let him in on that; I was the weed man. Once he found that out he started buying weed from me. We started kicking it a bit after school and I took him on the block. He saw the plugs I had in the street and was impressed for me to be that young. I had much respect and he seen I knew nothing but goons.

I hung a while with Jeff after we graduated we lost contact. When things went terrible bad with my family and in the streets, I had to go. I would not be able to make this decision without crossing Jeff path though!

I needed a new start or I knew I would be locked up or dead. The –day-to-day survival on the street was pulling me down to wickedness. I asked Yahweh what was the plan when I was in snake alley sleeping in my car.

My answer was, go to the service. The next morning I headed down to the army recruiting station. I begin the process of joining the army. I passed the test and I was on my way

Shipping Out

Oh the Army was so smooth at making sure they maxed you out. You are in charge, during the recruitment process. While they are recruiting you, you can’t do any wrong. Miss a couple of meetings or change your mind a couple of times. They’re job is to get you in or disqualify you, because you can’t meet the criteria.

I passed all the tests and had my clearances. Now it’s ship off date. I blow a joint with Matt my child hood friend down town Chicago. They had us laid up in a hotel until we left the next day. We reminisced on the last ten years.

Matt was shipping off too, but going to the navy. We go get something to eat that was designated. This was my last night as a street hustler. This was my last night as a gangbanger I thought. This was my last night living on the streets.

This is the last night I could be caught by the guys, looking to kill me. It was like a big relief of worry was off of my shoulders. The police was looking for me or knew my nickname as ColoDog. I skate on him too.

I said my last good byes to Matt that night and got a good night rest. Especially, after I blew my last joint and I was in a beautiful soft bed. I hadn’t been in a bed in so long. I watched some TV for the first time in a long time. This was the life right now chilling like a villain.

The next morning I take the oath. This was the last chance for me to abort the mission. I probably would’ve, if I had any other logical way out. My situation was to leave out the oath room and go back to snake alley.

I catch a plane to Washington the next morning no question. I was raggedy and ready to go. This is the first time I ever been on a plane. Just about three weeks ago I never wanted to fly.

How quickly things change. Here I am on a plane to start my new adventure and life as a soldier. This was the first barrier I had to cross. I conquered my fear of heights and flying to get to Fort Dix.

I was a little nervous, but the flight was comfortable. We spend the night in Washington in a hotel. Again, I am lounging out in a bed this is glorious. I was lying in the back of my Caddy a few days ago. We gathered there in the