Lance Coopers wanted to be an army general since, well, since before he could remember. He grew up in the Liberty, Kentucky, countryside.
From the early age of six, Lance enjoyed war stories. He would crawl upon his father’s lap and say, “Hey dad, can we watch an army movie?”
“Sure, son, I have just the one here. I’ll make some popcorn, and we can cuddle up on the couch and watch it together.”
It was watching those old World War II movies with his dad which first ignited a little boy’s imagination to advance his troops into a noble battle. He and the other boys would play cops and robbers on sunny summer days. Lance, however, always took the role of a general deploying his troops against an entrenched, sinister enemy.
“Okay, men, let’s storm that hill,” Lance shouted as he led the latest charge up the treed hill in the town park. “Follow me!” was his impassioned cry as he raised his stick gun over his head and rushed headlong into victory after victory. He was General Lance, and it didn’t matter at all to the boys that Lance was always leading the heroic charges. As long as they were fighting for a cause, the other details were insignificant to them. They were little boys running through the weeds and woods, fueled by imagination on carefree summer days.
On a cold March day marking his seventeenth birthday, Lance asked his parents for their signature on the DD-1966 form to allow him to join the Army with parental consent.
Lance’s father was an air force retired Lieutenant Colonel from a three-generation line of air force men. “You mean air force, don’t you, son?”
“No, sir, I mean army!” No matter the number of grand, if somewhat inflated, stories outlining how exciting a career in the air force could be, Lance set his face like flint to join the army and become a general.
“Lance,” his father continued, “you’re only seventeen. Wait a couple of years, and let’s talk again.”
“Dad, I’m old enough to know what I want in life,” Lance shouted back, his arms flying into the air. “I’m not stupid, you know!”
“You’re not stupid, but there are things you still don’t understand. We’re trying to protect you from getting hurt, son,” his father said with the voice of a parent trying to save their child from making an unwise decision.
“I don’t need your help. I understand everything! You’re the ones that don’t understand. I’m asking you to trust me on this!”
“Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, young man! No, you are the one that doesn’t get it. You understand one hundred percent of what you understand, but you don’t realize it’s only about twenty percent of what you need to understand. You think you see it all, but you see almost nothing!”
“I’ve had it. You’re calling me stupid. I’m not! You don’t understand. To hell with this conversation! I’m going to Dot’s.”
“Hold on, son. Don’t go anywhere like this. Let’s talk more.”
It was too late. Lance marched out of the house as his father was still speaking. He bicycled towards Dot’s Pizza Palace on Old Middleborough Road. He hoped to run into some of his friends for comfort and companionship. They often met at Dot’s to discuss life plans, their favorite sports teams, and girls. The rustic, familiar place had become their unofficial headquarters.
“Good. There’s no one sitting at my table,” Lance slid into the booth in the corner by the kitchen. It was an old wooden booth whose solid wood seats had seen many high-level strategic meetings conducted by three generations of teenagers. Although the owners of Dot’s Pizza Palace had changed several times over the years, the interior had not. Lance smiled. Even after cleaning, it had a perpetual faint smell of sauce and pepperoni embedded into the wood.
None of his friends were there. Lance came for the comfort of being in ‘their’ special booth for a little while. He had seen his father retreat to the den when he was upset and wanted to get away from it all. Lance’s man cave smelled of pizza.
The lone waitress walked to the booth, and in a very lackluster voice, asked if he wanted anything.
This is exactly the type of person I don’t want to become like. A zombie at work. I’ll bet her parents didn’t let her do what she wanted after high school either, and here she is.
“Just a coke. No ice, please.” He dismissed her with a wave of his arm.
“I can’t see why they won’t let me enlist,” he spewed under his breath. “I’m old enough and ready for it. Why can’t they trust me on this? What the hell!”
“Here’s your soda,” the waitress said, plopping the glass on the table as Josiah walked through the door.
Lance saw his friend and waved him over. “Hey,” both boys said to each other in unison, “what’s up?”
“I’m glad you could make it here, Lance. You’re probably wondering why I called this meeting.”
“Huh? What?
“Nah, just screwing with your head, Lance. But if you fell for that, you must be into something heavy. What’s up?”
“Parent crap again,” Lance admitted. “I want to go into the army after graduation. They’re against it. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“What do they want you to do, go to college?”
“Yeah. It’s not that I’m so much against it, but I tried to explain if they let me enlist now, I can serve four years and then have the Army pay for my college anyhow. I’d save them a bucket full of money. They don’t get it! It’s so obvious I’m right.”
“Hmm, see what you mean,” Josiah answered in his best sage-like voice. “What are you going to do? Where do they want you to go?”
“Kentucky State, but I’m not ready. I don’t know. Crap! Screwed in every direction. I can’t enlist without their permission and don’t want to go to college this fall. It would be great to take a year off and sort it all out, or at least until I get old enough to enlist by myself. Is that such a bad idea? Lots of people do it. Why do they have to pick on me all the time? It’s like they don’t think I’m old enough to make my own decisions, for cripe’s sake.”
“I feel you, man. What would you do until you could enlist if you didn’t go to college? They aren’t going to let you sit home, that’s for sure.”
“Well, I’ve already talked to Ed Michener at the Tractor Supply Company. He says he could get me a job there until I figure things out. It wouldn’t be much, but he said they are always looking for someone to work in the stockroom.”
The waitress walked over to the table, carrying a large, square box with greasy fingerprint stains near the flaps. She looked in Josiah’s general direction and mumbled with no feeling, “Here’s your takeout. Enjoy.”
“Thanks,” Josiah responded. “Look, I’ve got to go. This greasy thing will coagulate soon, but let’s get together and talk things out more. Good luck with your folks. See ya.”
“Been real, Josiah. Catch you later.”
Lance sat there nursing his coke for a while before muttering, “Life sucks! What the hell am I going to do anyhow?” and then stomped off in a deep dark funk for the bicycle ride back home.
A few patrons turned to glance at him after his exclamation. “Kids,” one of them said to his dinner partner. “They’re all the same. All confused know-it-alls. Not at all like us when we were young.” His partner nodded.
Lance applied to Kentucky State College in June. A letter arrived from KSC before the end of the summer.
“Lance, you have a letter from Kentucky State!” his mother shouted up the stairs.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” came the half-hearted reply.
“Come on down here this minute, mister. I’m excited and need to see what it says.”
“You have my permission to open it yourself, Mom.”
“Lance, get down these stairs and open your mail for your mother!”
“Okay, okay. Here I come, mom.” Heavy, protesting thuds from man-sized feet filled the stairwell as Lance thumped his way down the stairs, hoping it was a rejection letter with all his might.
“So, let me have it,” he said as he stretched an arm out to her. Lance opened the envelope with resignation.
“Damn!”
“What is it, son? You didn’t get in?” came the concerned response.
“Worse. They’ve accepted me.” His mother squealed with joy and threw her arms around him. “Stop it, Mom. Someone might see through the window!”
“I don’t care! My boy is going to college! I’m so proud of you.”
However reluctantly, Lance was college-bound.
Lance spent a listless summer at the Tractor Supply Company as the specter of the coming Fall loomed over him.
***
The first two weeks of college were hectic and frustrating.
“These basic English and math courses make me feel more like I’m in a glorified high school. Except Kentucky State is bigger than our whole town of Liberty. This is crazy. I want to go home,” Lance moaned to his shadow as he walked from one building to another. A passing student responded, “Right on, Bro,” and raised a fist in solidarity as he kept walking.
Lance did a slow slide into depression. There has to be a legitimate way of dropping out without my parents coming down on me.
“Going to the Freshman Mixer, Lance?” asked a freshman girl as she worked at qualifying for her ‘ring by spring’ status by becoming engaged before the end of the school year.
“No, thanks. I’m not much of a mixer.”
It hurt the girl for only a moment before she noticed another young male freshman to hit on. Her smile returned as she rushed off to intercept her new target.
Two weeks later, Lance walked into one of the campus cafeterias and noticed a small poster advertising the Reserve Officers Training Corps. The sign promised not only would ROTC pay for his college and give him a monthly living allowance, but he would also graduate as an army officer.
“Hell yes! Now, this is what I’m talkin’ about,” he said aloud. The world brightened. Lance’s pulse raced as the implications formed themselves into visions of his glorious future. If I stay in this college for four years, I’ll be in the army as an officer and on my way to becoming the general I know I am. Life is finally getting better!
Lance pushed his studies hard. The rest of his college career was a blur, except for those portions about ROTC.
“Lance, how are your courses coming?” his father asked during one of the rare weekends at home.
“I love it, Dad. Especially the ROTC Army Leadership and Operations and Tactics courses! They have me thinking about declaring a major in Computer Information Systems.”
“That’s a difficult field. Can you stick it out, son? It won’t be easy. Studying was never your strong point in high school.”
“Got it covered! ROTC has a course in Goal Setting and Accomplishment that will whip my butt into shape to study. I can do this! I know I can!”
“Then go for it with all the focus and fight of a drowning man fighting for air, kid. I think you can do it too.”
A small tear formed in Lance’s eye. My dad finally approves of me! I don’t know how to feel about it.
Lance volunteered for every extra assignment, every challenge, and attended every meeting. He rose through the ranks as a natural leader. In what seemed to be a few months, the four years passed. He graduated with a BS in Computer Information Systems. Life is good. I’m on my way!
The CIS degree smoothed the way for him to get into the Army Military Intelligence Officer Basic Course to begin his career as a Military Intelligence Officer (MIO).
As far as I know, there are no snipers in a computer lab, he mused, and Military Intelligence is the perfect place to start my career.