The 101st and back to civilian life

I am fortunate in many ways. In the ways you can see through my life history and, really, simply being alive. I am fortunate that I have had people, along my journey, give a shit enough to stick by me through it all. I think of my brother Bob who will always be my hero....always.  Bob did all he could, given his own life experiences, to protect his little brother. I have, and, always will, look up to him. My I think of Jonny of course, a life taken way to soon, yet, even with the short time I had with him, a lot of who I am is due to him taking me under his wing in my younger days.  I think of my sister Cheri and her ex-husband Vern Brown.  They, certainly taking a huge risk, bailed me out of jail in late '95 and gave me a safe place to begin my journey to turning my life around and getting it, really, to where it is today.  I am fortunate to have had someone like Kevin Ruoff who is still at Fred Meyer.  Someone like him that was willing to look past, well, my past, and see the future and how I could fit in it. I spent 8yrs with Fred Meyer and will always be grateful for him for giving me a chance.  I think of Cyndi, my sons mother, who is large part of my life story in many ways.  While she would have good reason, given what I am writing about, to call it good and choose to stay in touch with me, she always has stood by me. She is family really. We don't talk a lot, we stay in touch when needed, and, she is the mother to my only son.  I could continue with the many people, who along my crazy journey have seen first hand the wreckage, have been able also, to see my potential.  I am grateful for them all. I am seriously welling up with tears right now thinking about this reality.  

Where were we?  Oh yes, Ft. Campbell, KY, 19, and newly married. I was assigned to a scout platoon in the 2/327th Infantry on base. The 101st actually felt like the Army.  Sure, it was the same Army in Germany in many ways, but, the 10 months I spent at the 101st was different.  You could feel the difference and I truly enjoyed the training and time I was a soldier there. On my riding vest you can clearly see this through the patches I wear.  While my time in the Army certainly didn't help with my drinking, and, is an environment where drinking is actually encouraged, I did get a lot out of it that was good. 

Cyndi and I, a young, very young, married couple, began our journey.  We had a small one bedroom apartment in a complex filled with other GI's. I worked, and if memory serves me correctly, she stayed home for the most part. I think she might have had a job for a short period while we were there.  I could be wrong. We had filled our place with all the trappings a new couple might want for the period.  This is 1986 and I remember thinking we were living large by renting/buying a new tv, vcr, and, I DO remember getting a really cool microwave. Our place was nice. One area among a few,  me and Cyndi argued about as a new couple, was keeping the place clean. I was a clean freak. As kids, even though we moved all the time, mom had always kept the house clean and orderly....it was actually pretty weird.  We would move in the middle of night and mom would have our latest place put together like we had lived there for years in a day. I am not kidding, it was odd looking back.  But, I think that was how mom created some normalcy for herself.  Cyndi's mom also kept a clean house. I remember she would even clean the bills, we used to give her a bad time about it. Cyndi, well, her room, not so much.  A funny story is her mom, when she lived at home, would fight with Cyndi to clean her room....mostly a losing battle. So, when we were dating I would tell her I wouldn't come over unless she cleaned her room. I am not sure if it ever happened, I still came over. 

Thus, one of the things we would argue about is keeping the place clean.  Another area was finances. We simply did not budget our money at all. My lack of skills didn't improve much from Germany to Ft. Campbell. I would get a pay raise and I thought that meant I could spend more.  Not so much. Cyndi and I started pawning our new things to get by month to month.  I know I brought many vcr's to many pawnshops. Now, what DID we always seem to have money for?  Yup, you guessed it, alcohol, pot, and cigarettes.  Some how, we always managed to budget for those three. We had friends who we spent time with that had those same priorities.  Work hard all week, and, party all weekend.  That's pretty much what we did. 

So, for me, who had all the problems in Germany with drinking as a mostly single guy, well, now a newly married one, Cyndi bore the brunt of that.  To this day I use what she would always beg from me "David, drink your beer, but please, don't drink Jack Daniels".  It was a losing battle. I was pretty much acting like I was single when I drank and married when I wasn't.  It wasn't pretty for Cyndi.  Just the ten months we were at Campbell we nearly broke up/divorced a few times.  I distinctly remember her getting a bus ticket home.  She never used, and to be real honest, I am not sure how we made it through as a couple.

Cyndi's dad, Bob Jones, who was a great man, was also an alcoholic. I met Cyndi right after Jonny had died and Mom had married Uncle/Dad Tom. I remember meeting Cyndi when Kenny brought me to his old neighborhood.  We hit it off almost immediately. I also remember hearing about her dad. Be weary I was told. Her Dad was a long haul trucker and was on the road a lot. I was pretty fearful of him without even meeting him yet.  Yet, I did meet him, and, while he was a Dad of a daughter and wanted to protect his little girl, he was also approachable and wanted to meet me. He worked hard his entire life and was very much a father figure to me. The bad thing is he also drank; it's what he did. When he was home and taking a break from the road that was his time to drink.  Lucille and him are the classic defintion of an alcoholic with a wife who is just trying to put a smile on her own, and everyone else's face, so as to not show the real show behind the scenes.  

Bob was the first adult, to freely hand me a beer at the age of 13-14...."Don't tell anyone he said". We bonded pretty quickly from that point forward.  And I will say, it wasn't just because he let me drink, he was an amazing person. He had a massive heart and that began a years long relationship with a man who gave a shit about my well-being even if it wasn't helped by a whole lot of drinking.  Through Cyndi's and I's years long on again/off again relationship/marriage he tried his best to find a middle ground.  

Now, for Cyndi, growing up, well she was raised in that environment.  Alcoholic father, co-dependent mother.  Any surprise she picked me?  Not really.  So, us being at Ft. Campbell, freshly married at 19, me being a near daily drinker/pot smoker and having the reality of never really knowing how the alcohol would effect me.  Would it be nice and fun David?  Or, would it be raging anger David who would flip out over a messy house?  She never knew what to expect. Much like what she experienced with her Dad. 

To sum up our ten months at Campbell I would say this.....we were trying to make a new marriage work with my drinking that was out of control, my underlying pain that I had no idea I had or any knowing of how to heal from it.  She, someone who grew up in this same type of environment, was trying to keep it together, just like her mom did. 

There are positive memories of this time period. We both did want our marriage to work, we did love each other.  We met some good people down there.  Bryan Gravell was in my unit, a very good man, my buddy from Germany got to meet Cyndi, Michael Ibert, and we had a group of friends we still tell stories about. We made trips to see her grandparents in Georgia and a trip to Ohio to see my sister. While there were many fights, way to much drinking and pot smoking, serious financial issues, we had some good tiime. Cyndi is a good one.  She, even with all the shit I put her through, well, we have been chatting while I have been writing this blog. Some of the pictures I am posting she has always had with her.  

She was the one I was sharing with in my younger years, while being sexually abused, that I had something inside me I couldn't tell anyone. I didn't tell her what it was, I couldn't do that, but I did tell her I had this inner pain that no one would understand. She was the one I shared that with.  I remember after her and I first met, I was still struggling with the loss of Jonny, being at a park by her house and I didn't want to live anymore.  She was right there telling me to live.  Cyndi, for decades of our lives now, has always been there.  She's a good one. 

Tomorrow I will write about our journey back to Washington state and my shift back into civilian world. I am going to chronicle the many shifts in life over the next several years until my mostly dysfunctional drinking and pot smoking turns a corner into complete chaos when I meet crack cocaine and meth.  Know that this story, while filled with many areas of despair, does turn into a beautiful thing.  On the 25th of this month I celebrate 14 years as a person in recovery.  All I have in my life today, all of it, IS because of my decision to discontinue the use of drugs and alcohol.  For that, I am eternally grateful.

The picture below introduces you to tomorrows writing...1987, Yelm, WA.  I was out of the military, 20 years old, and we were living with Cyndi's parents.  That was my dog named IROC on my lap. Yes, he was named after the car. It was my dream car that in know way could I afford so I name my dog after it.