Hugh's Life
I was born March 6, 1967 To Clarence and Eula Chambers. Born in Hamilton County Ohio I was a baby hillbilly out of place. Even to this day I don't feel quit at home here in Ohio. My Mother and father were Divorced when I was about one. My Mother took my older brothers and sisters and me back down into the hills of southeastern Kentucky. My time their was limited but forever has it made an imprint on my life. The tall Mountains surrounded my family and me back in that holler. The comfort I feel from the Mountains to this day is indescribable, it is a feeling of being at home connected someway or in someway to the Earth itself. We use to slide down the conveyor belts of an abandoned coal temple, swim in the rivers and creeks and had absolutely no worries. I contracted pneumonia and my aunt gave me an old hill remedy called coal oil. They said that if it did not kill me I would be fine, well it worked; I am still here! My Father got custody of us Kids and back then that was very rare for a man to get custody. Growing up was hard for me, but not as hard as it was on my father. Through the years he raised us kids the best he could and though he did his best, it was a little more difficult to get the wildness out of all of his children, especially me. Not until my teenage years would this tenacious attitude become my downfall and my salvation.
In high school, my concentration was not on academics. You could say my aptitude was in music, drawing, partying, and women. The latter became the forefront of my life. This caused a great deal of hardship and hard feelings between my father and me. I didn’t want to be held down. I wanted to be my own keeper; free of curfew and my father riding my ass all the time. I wanted to come and go as I pleased. In this thinking, I used an illogical rationalization of my father and stepmother’s faults to justify my disobedient attitude. So I left home at the age of sixteen.
I moved out and spent about a half-year in Tennessee with a friend and his family. That didn’t work either, because they wanted to impose just as many restrictions on me as my father did, so I left their and went back to Ohio. I got a job and a place to live, attended school and did the things I wanted to do, but, soon the party was over, my grades were really bad, my rent was getting harder to pay.
An Army recruiter who came by the school one day soon became a vital stepping stone in my life. He spent a lot of time with me; as usual I got a free meal and a lecture. This recruiter had been after me for almost two years. He and his wife even stopped by when I lived in Tennessee for a visit. He helped me get a new job working construction part time and also gave me a reality check. He told me, "You’re on your own. You are working and going to school, When you graduate, going to college will be hard, if not impossible, not to mention you are not mature enough yet." He went on about how the military would help me mature more and prepare me better for life. Mature more! Where did he get off telling me I wasn’t mature? I was making it going to school, working and being on my own, and I was going to graduate soon. He really made me mad so I walked away. He told me as I was leaving I would be back.
A few months later, I was out of a job and wouldn’t be able to graduate with my classmates. I went back to my recruiter ever so humble and enlisted in the army, but, it was contingent on me going to summer school and finishing all my delinquent credits and getting my diploma. I received my diploma laying in bed in a drunken stupor. I spent the next six months flop housing around at friends and relatives until I went into the army.
I went into the army more of necessity than wanting to that December. The fact was I couldn’t make it on my own. I had no idea as to what lay ahead, but I would meet it head-on. I still thought I knew everything.
My first night was easy and I thought this was going to be a cakewalk. The next morning reality struck very hard. I was the very first one to piss off a drill sergeant, or instructor, D.I. I learned very quickly not to address a D.I. as ‘sarge’, because a ‘sarge’ is a scum sucking bottom dwelling fish. I probably set a new record on making D.I.’s mad in a first day encounter. Imagine that!
From December to March, I was formally dubbed, "The grain fed private." They said I was like a pack horse, and believe, me, that is exactly what they used me for. If someone couldn’t carry their bag, or if I wasn’t sweating enough, I would carry their gear and mine not to mention the PRC 77-radio transmitter when they really thought I had it too easy. At first I took this abuse in stride, but eventually it just began to make me madder.
The D.I.’s came up with all kinds of ways of conditioning my mind and body. They kept telling me how bruises could heal a lot before we came back from dessert training to garrison (Fort Bliss). They gave me extra activities to do while others relaxed. Every night the eliminator and me would perform our ritual; I would hoist him up over my head repeatedly until I couldn’t any more. The eliminator's, (a six foot log), job was to get heavier. When I couldn’t hoist the eliminator over my head any more, I would have to carry him on my shoulders until the D.I. got tired. I would also have to turn rocks over, so the other side could also get some sun. When I finished, the D.I. Didn’t believe me. He brought out a bucket of paint and a brush and had me paint all the rocks, when they dried; I would turn them over again. I really wanted to quit, because they were riding me pretty hard. I was at the breaking point, always saying, "Thank you drill sergeant for conditioning my mind and body," while they had me do yet another torturous task.
I couldn’t quit. I didn’t want to fail and come home like that. I would be able to handle all the crap from everyone else, but not the mental anguish I would cause myself from not being able to handle it.
Here is where the change happened: It was the realization that this was for the best. Like it or not, I had to stick it out and make it! Conforming to what was expected would be the hardest thing I would ever do in my life. Finally that tenacious attitude would pay off, and it did.
To my surprise, I survived and excelled in boot camp. I shot expert on the firing range and expert in lobbing a grenade. We had to lob a grenade by popping up over a barrier spotting our target pop down pull the pin and pop up and lob the grenade and duck as quickly as possible. They said it was a fluke because in each target was a six to eight inch round PVC pipe. We were supposed to get as close as possible to that pipe. I lobbed three grenades in at three different targets into the pipe opening. Yes, it was a fluke, but a nice one to brag about. I excelled on all my weapons and survival, and first aid training. It felt good to be good at something so challenging; even the feared desert training was met with success.
I fell ill the week of graduation and missed the ceremonies, but that night some of the guys from my platoon and my platoon sergeant came to see me in the hospital. The D.I. insisted I wasn’t going to get out of my ritual with the eliminator. But even with this sarcastic joke, only a faint smile could be seen on his face. I spent five years in the army and I grew up a lot during my service. I have been on my own now for fifteen + years and now have a family of my own. My love for my father has been fortified with the realization of the truth he tried to teach me. I now would be lost without him. I don’t drink or party like I did. In fact, I don’t drink at all anymore. Maturity is not a thing to be mastered, but to be an ongoing process, at least I think so. Remember I know everything!