Goodbye M*A*S*H

 

We were allowed to stay up late the night M*A*S*H’s final episode aired. We were all gathered in the common room around the TV with our pajamas on. M*A*S*H was my favorite show at the time. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce was my hero. Every Monday before I went to Howe Military School, I would race home from my Boy Scout troop meeting which ended at 9 PM trying to miss as little as possible of the show, which started at 9 PM. The meeting far too often went late and, sadly, the show always started on time.

What I find especially interesting about how things have changed is that the Canteen no longer shows R-rated movies but the cadets are allowed to play Grand Theft Auto which none of them are old enough to buy.

Got Pagin?

I first heard John Pagin’s name over breakfast. The head of the table (a position of rank and honor) was drinking a lot of coffee. In this coffee he poured a lot of sugar.

I don’t recall his name, but he said he needed it to be ready for his first class of the day and – in particular – Master John Pagin.

One did not mess with John Pagin. Falling asleep in his class meant a swift, hard kick to the bottom of your desk giving you the traumatic brain injury you deserved for such a lack of respect and gratitude for being at Howe Military School in general and his class in particular.

If you could combine Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia, the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket, Clint Eastwood, and the President of the United States as portrayed by Harrison Ford in Air Force One, you’d have a man almost as awesome as John Pagin.

Pleased to meet you, Mr. Thompson

The first time I heard the name Hunter S. Thompson was in history class. A fellow cadet was reading – and absolutely loving – Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. He’d checked it out of an exclusive section of the library only certain students had access to. I wasn’t one of those students. I think it was called something like The Bill Hicks Collection and you had to be involved in – this is a guess – Forensics to have access to it.

First Day, Senior Year

My primary concern was to unpack and relax with my paperback copy of No One Here Gets Out Alive. I was in the early stages of a love affair with Jim Morrison and The Doors.

I was not pleased with being assigned to Delta. Delta was known as the most “military” of the companies at Howe Military School.  I would have much preferred Echo company, thought to be the academic-leaning company. In Echo, beginning my senior year as a private wouldn’t have seemed so dreadful. I’d turned in my stripes toward the end of my junior year in a stunning display of rebellion (I sure showed them!) so, unlike the rest of my class, I was not an officer. In Delta, especially, I was the black sheep of my class.

First Day at Howe

I can still vividly remember looking out the window of my dorm room in Micah Company trying to see my parents’ car as it drove off campus, back North to Michigan. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t … anything. Yet. I must have met somebody, but I don’t remember anyone before my new company commander, a boy even shorter than myself - and with an even bigger chip on his shoulder to compensate for it – charged into my room with one or two other cadets.

I remember this moment as if it were yesterday.

This little Runt-in-Charge began by telling me he didn’t care where I was from or how bad I thought I was, he demanded respect, this was a military school, there was discipline, he could, I would, say goodbye, don’t cry and shut up.

After a good deal of yelling that seemed comical from someone so small he left, leaving behind my new squad leader. He must not have been very popular or well connected because my first real bit of bad news was our “squad duties” were to clean the latrines.