Shawn Inmon - The Vigilante Life of Scott McKenzie

“No, sir. I was planning on joining the police academy as soon as I turned twenty-one. Now, I won’t be able to do that.”

“Well, hold on, there. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself.” He paused, reached for a pen, and made a note on a pad of paper. “What’s your name, son?”

“Scott McKenzie.” Scott braced himself, ready in case the sergeant asked him about the song, San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) by the “other” Scott McKenzie. It often came up when he told people his name. If Berkman had ever heard it, though, he made no comment.

Berkman made another note on his pad, nodded to himself. He leaned forward, conspiratorially. “I think I can help you out, here. You want to be a cop, right?”

Scott nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, you could maybe get into the academy next year, but if they have too many applicants, you’ll get pushed out a year, or even two. Often, if it comes down to the last three or four candidates, they’ll go with the older person, figuring they have more experience.” He said this as if he had a pipeline directly into the people who ran the academy. In sales, confidence is more than half the battle. “But, what if your application to the academy stated that you were a United States Army veteran, with a few years of being a Military Police officer already under your belt. Do you think they’d turn you away then?”

“Isn’t that kind of the luck of the draw, though, if I get picked to be an MP or not?”

Berkman shook his head. “That’s the advantage of signing up before you get drafted. I can attach a note that says you want to be an MP, and I recommend you for the job. There’s no guarantee, of course. I’m not allowed to promise you that you’ll get it, but my experience is, they listen to us most of the time. I think that if you want to be a cop when you get back, that’s probably your best bet.”

Scott considered. Don’t know if I can trust this guy. Maybe I should go talk to gramps and come back tomorrow. But, what real choice do I have? This guy is better than what I’ve got going for me now, which is absolutely nothing.

Berkman leaned back in his chair, as though it didn’t matter what Scott did, one way or the other. After a few moments of silence, he opened a drawer and withdrew a thick sheaf of papers.

“What do you say? Want to get started on the paperwork?”

Two hours later, Scott walked out of the recruiting office with his enlistment papers tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. He was the United States Army’s newest recruit.

In exchange for enlisting, Scott was allowed to stay home through Christmas, but was scheduled to leave for basic training in Fort Dix, New Jersey on December 27.

Scott didn’t want to leave his grandparents, sister, and girlfriend behind, but it was the only option he could live with. Since the moment his birthday was pulled, the draft felt like a sword hanging over his head. Try as he might, he couldn’t seriously think about running to Canada. He felt like that would be just as bad as enlisting, since he would be away from everyone he loved, and he would be a draft dodger, to boot.

He and Sherry grew even closer in the weeks leading up to his departure. The night before he got on the bus for basic training, he picked her up from work and they went for burgers at Artie’s Drive-In. The two young lovers sat in Scott’s truck, had hamburgers and chocolate shakes, and listened to KMFR play Fortunate Son by Credence Clearwater Revival, and And When I Die, by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The irony of those songs escaped the young couple. They were busy eating and trying hard to pretend that one of them wasn’t about to leave for a very long time.

As they pulled out of Artie’s parking lot, the KMFR disc jockey announced, “Be sure to listen to our Top Forty Countdown this Saturday night from eight to midnight, hosted by our own Scott Patrick. I can’t say exactly where, but this song will be on there somewhere.” The opening violins of The Supremes’ Someday We’ll be Together filled the pickup.

Sherry snuggled closer to Scott and said, “Let’s go somewhere a little more private.”

Scott kissed the top of her head and said, “You know, I believe this. I believe that someday, we’ll be together.”

Sherry turned her face upward and her brown eyes had a sparkle in them. She laid a hand against his leg. “Me too.”

That night, parked under a grove of elm trees, Sherry gave Scott the send-off that women have given their soldiers as they left for battle for thousands of years.

Later that night, sitting in front of her parents’ house, Scott pulled Sherry close.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this very well. I don’t have a ring. But, Sherry Dickenson, will you marry me?”

“Oh, Scotty! Of course I will! I can’t wait to tell Mom and Dad!”

The porchlight flipped off and on, off and on.

“That’s my signal. I’ve got to go in. Oh, you’ve made me so happy!” Her face grew momentarily serious. “You be careful, wherever they send you. Come back to me.”

She jumped out of the pickup, then stopped halfway up the walkway to her house. She gifted him with a dazzling smile and blew him a kiss, then bounced inside.

Scott never saw her again.

Basic training at Fort Dix lasted eight weeks. Those two months went by in a blur of five-mile runs, 5 a.m. reveilles, and his introduction to army food. It did not compare favorably to what his grandmother made.

Scott’s training was more thorough than he had anticipated. His drill instructors were a little salty, but nothing like what would eventually be portrayed in movies like Full Metal Jacket. Fort Dix was one of the largest training camps in the country. It even had a replica village built to resemble a Vietnamese community. It was designed so that the rawest recruits would not be caught completely unawares when they landed in country , as the veterans called it. Its true effectiveness was debatable, but it did make the young soldiers feel somewhat more equipped for the challenges ahead.

After his initial eight weeks of training, he went through another two months of AIT, or Advanced Infantry Training. At the beginning of this advanced training, Scott asked his sergeant when he would be eligible to go into training for the Military Police.

The sergeant, a short, wiry man, took Scott in with a glance. “Recruiting promise you that?”

Scott shook his head. “He didn’t promise it. He just said it was likely.”

“Good. I hate to break promises. Now, get your ass out to the rifle range.”

Scott was smart enough to not mention it again, and no one ever mentioned it to him.

It turned out that Scott had an excellent eye. After the initial rounds of testing, he was trained to be a sharpshooter. That made his eventual assignment easy. He was an infantryman, destined for the front lines of a country he couldn’t have picked out on a map.

BACK HOME IN EVANSVILLE, Scott’s grandparents and sister watched Walter Cronkite and the CBS Evening News religiously. Many nights, the news featured a graphic of that day’s reported number of American deaths and wounded. Often, the report included how many North Vietnamese soldiers were reported killed as well—as though if that number was higher than the American number, the U.S. was winning the war.