One of the most life-affecting experiences that any person can have is a stint in the military ( as any veteran will attest). I am certainly no exception to this rule. Away from family, friends, and even casual acquaintances, forging new friendships with individuals from every imaginable background was a challenge as well as a necessity. The uncertainties of what the next day, hour, or even moment held was a novel if anxiety-spawning experience. Basic training is the biggest challenge some soldiers will ever face - for those involved in the mundane but necessary tasks in supply and administrative functions - while it is a mere stepping stone to the more physically taxing and mentally demanding training regimens others continue on to with elite schools such as Special Forces and Airborne Rangers. Nonetheless, the experience ties all soldiers together with a common background into a new culture.
             My first recollections of Basic Training involved the two short days inprocessing at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I recall vividly the huge black men hanging out of the barracks hurling imprecations at the new trainees - a truly intimidating sight for a northwesterner. This was a different perspective for me. Here, racism was alive and well, and to the naive eyes of a country boy, the underlying problems illustrated why such a nonsensical thing such as racism should exist. African Americans had their own subculture, and the typical reaction to this among whites was that of suspicion - rather like that feeling of discomfort some express when a foreign language is being spoken in the vicinity. Rather than realizing that we would speak our own native language with our friends of the same ethnic origin to better express ourselves, we react only to our emotional perception of the situation. I was amazed at how few whites tried to understand the rift, merely reacting with the hatred so easily derived from a lack of understanding.
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