The Queen of Shangri-La

Each July, I post a story to honor those who've served. The problem is... I spent this June gallivanting around France. So, my heartfelt thank you is a month late. It's in Loving Wives because that's where my readers look for me.

I'm not fond of lengthy introductions. But I need a disclaimer. First and foremost, the events are real, but the thoughts and actions of the main characters are entirely my invention. I don't have the slightest idea how they might have behaved in real life. Nevertheless, their documented actions illustrate what personal strength and commitment look like. Hence, they deserve recognition. That's my only purpose here.

I try to tell the stories of unsung heroes. It's the reason why I focused on combat nurses last year. This year, it's the WACs. The WAC badge is Athene Pallas- Athena to the rest of us. She was the Greek goddess of war and strategy. She was also the goddess of wisdom. The Women's Army Corps embodied both of those qualities.

The WACs were all volunteers -- in an era when most of their male counterparts were drafted. Their willingness to do the Army's menial tasks freed up eight fighting divisions worth of men -- one hell of a contribution. Yet, they were clerks, not riflemen, and even more significantly, they were women in this man's Army. So, the WACS never got the credit they'd earned and richly deserved.

As in most of my stories, I take my hero from boy to man. Growing up early was mandatory for the Greatest Generation. I mean, seriously... the boys in the landing craft at Normandy were an average of twenty-two. Do you remember what you were doing when you were that age? It probably wasn't anything like that.

A few days ago, I ran across a yard sign that said, "Land of the Free, BECAUSE of the Brave." Those are the people I dedicate this to. Thanks for reading me - and I hope you enjoy...

THE QUEEN OF SHANGRI-LA

If you live long enough... your life will merge into a series of reminiscences like scenes in a movie. Forgotten recollections will resurface, and you will ache with remembrance. That was what was happening to me as I sat on the porch of my beachfront cottage at Montauk.

It was a grey day in early November. The cold wind was blowing off the big water, and the waves beat angrily on the shoreline. A violent storm somewhere over the horizon was whipping the ocean's fury into a froth of whitecaps -- just as my recent loss roiled my own sense of well-being. My beloved wife was gone, and I was alone in the twilight of my life.

I sighed as I lit my battered pipe. The ancient Zippo had a roaring lion and A-20 insignia of the 312th Bombardment Group. I puffed to make the tobacco in the bowl glow cherry red and thought back over the years.

I recalled the thrill of our first kiss, the happiness of our marriage, and the joy each child brought. I hadn't thought about those things much. But sixty years had flown by, and all that remained were the vignettes of my life.

*****

Lord knows!! I didn't ask to be drafted... still, the "Greetings" arrived on Thursday, the eighteenth of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-three. A week later, I was standing in a line of scared kids wearing nothing but my underpants -- Happy Thanksgiving.

The Army took a day to poke, prod and administer the oath. Then they put me on a train to Fort Benning, in Georgia. That was the first time I'd ever been on a train. In fact, it was the first time I'd been away from home.

I don't remember much about the ride down. You don't think clearly when you're overwhelmed by anxiety. I mean, seriously!!... one day, you're a kid with a comfortable life. Then BAM!! You're stuffed onto a train full of strangers, going God-knows-where to do God-knows-what. The situation would stir up anybody's feelings.

There were a few boisterous types, idiots who thought this was a great adventure. There wasn't a lot. But they were yukking it up in the front of the car. Most of us sat in stony silence, staring miserably at the passing fields - swathed in our desolation.

I wasn't afraid of death. Hell!! No kid EVER thinks that far ahead. But the loneliness and all-encompassing fear of the unknown pressed down on me like a giant hand.

I tried to sleep, but the seats were uncomfortable, and there was too much movement around me. I heard people talking. But the dominant sound was crying. That included the guy I shared the rock-hard, second-class coach seat with. He was a skinny kid, like me. But he was a lot shorter. I should've said something to him. But I was afraid ... mainly because I was one teardrop short of joining him.

I was tall for my age, maybe six-two and a hundred and seventy pounds. I had grown into my gangly frame and was a pretty decent baseball player. But I was just a boy with every child's insecurities and vulnerabilities.

Of course, I also had all of the teenage urges. Those manifested themselves in pimples and persistent blue balls. I might've found relief from the latter. But my Pastor had stressed the sinfulness of Onan. Thus, I was hesitant to take the problem in hand - so to speak. Later on, that particular fairy tale was one of my chief problems with Lutheranism.

I felt lost as I stared at the frozen fields and the passing small towns. I kept telling myself, "You gotta face it like a man Erik." But I didn't believe a word. I knew whatever was waiting at the end of my miserable ride was going to be worse than what I'd experienced so far -- and with that, the tears began to fall.

*****

Our gang hung out at the Hotspot, which was the town diner. It included Jed Sharpe, who was the smartest kid in our school, and his girlfriend, Betty Moran, who was the prettiest. There was also Ace McClure, who lived down the block, and his girlfriend, Maggie Patterson.

Ace was the only fellow who could handle Maggie -- if you catch my drift. But then again, Ace was a lot worldlier than the rest of us. I put it all down to the books he read. Ace didn't belong in our backward little town, and Maggie was never going to leave. Nonetheless, they were sweethearts in their own way.

Maggie had the biggest jugs I'd seen outside a Wisconsin milking shed, and there were rumors that she wasn't a virgin. THAT intimidated the shit out of us guys because none of us had the slightest idea what we'd do with Mags if we ever got her alone.

Then again... the actual mechanics of whatever Ace and Maggie were up to was a mystery to us. It was as if they had some arcane knowledge that the rest of us didn't share. So, we made envious jokes and wild speculations about what the two of them were doing.

Me and Bobby Dooley and Bill Weinstein, and Heinrich Dorf were the other guys in our group. We were so far from understanding the nuances of sex that we must've sounded like idiots acting oh-so-sophisticated. There were girls in the group, too, Madge Blunt, Jilly Springsteen, Greta Thornberry, and Patsy O'Toole. They were just as clueless as we were.

Jed had a car. So he and Ace would double date to the movies in Eau Claire on sultry summer nights. The theater over there had something called "air-conditioning." The rest of us would go down to the lake. We would build a fire, sit around, and talk.

Patsy O'Toole seemed to have a thing for me. Patsy always followed me around, and she would sit next to me while we discussed the travails of life in a world full of crazy adults. That part of Wisconsin was thriving back then. There was a war going on in Europe, and we were America's dairy. So, we all lived comfortable lives.

My old man worked with Ace's dad over at the Grange Hall, and he got me a part-time summer job, tossing feed sacks into piles and moving those big metal milk cans for trans-shipment. It was starting to put some genuine muscle on my frame.

I was thinking that the Grange might be the life for me. It paid good money, and the work was steady. It seemed like the perfect situation after ten years of depression. That is, if you wanted to settle down and get married. The problem was that rumors of the draft were everywhere, and it was hard to make plans with that kind of dark cloud hanging over your head.

Patsy was an Irish girl. The Irish produce some beautiful women. Patsy wasn't one of them. She had the banjo eyes and a long nose that're characteristics of a lot of Hibernians... along with plenty of frizzy red hair and freckles. But she was a sweet girl, very warm-hearted and sympathetic. I might also mention that she had a body rivaling Betty Moran's, not that we had any idea of what to do with it.

It was after 10:30, and the rest of the gang had left. Patsy and I were sitting in the flickering flames of the dying fire. That's when she turned to me, blue eyes almost obsidian in the dark, and said, nervously, "Would you like to kiss me?" I looked at her hesitantly. I was a hopeless mix of shy and naïve, which no doubt explains why I had never had an actual girlfriend.

As a substitute, I was every girl's best friend. Betty Moran and I hit it off swimmingly because I was too self-conscious to take the first step. We'd hang out at the Hot Spot -- just the two of us. Jed didn't mind. He knew I was too inhibited to make a move on her.

Nevertheless, since Betty and I were friends, not potential lovers, she would tell me things Jed didn't know... like how relentlessly Duke Williams hit on her. Duke's old man owned the bank. So, the Dukester was entitled with a capital "E" ... pun intended. Duke didn't stand a chance if Jed was on the scene. Nonetheless, it didn't stop him from chasing after Betty like Caligula on aphrodisiacs.

Rather than piquing Betty's interest, Duke's attention grossed her out. She admitted sadly, "You'll know I've hit rock bottom if I ever give in to that guy." It would have been tough-bananas for Duke if Jed found out what he was doing. So, I kept that information to myself. Jed was nobody to mess with, and he loved Betty to distraction.

On the other hand, Duke always got what he wanted... eventually. That was something that I thought about when Jed told us he'd signed up for that government flying program. What would happen if Jed ever went away?

Now, out of the blue, Patsy had offered herself to me... at least for a kiss. Women were indeed unfathomable creatures. The problem was that due to my shyness, and the Lutheran propaganda about sex being evil, I had never made out with a girl. And yet, I had enough pent-up steam in my boiler to power the entire City of Milwaukee. So, I wasn't going to turn down any offers.

Patsy leaned toward me, eyes closed, and I leaned toward her. Our lips touched and inevitably, the raging teen hormones took over. Patsy made a little sound and threw her arms around my neck. I grabbed her and the situation abruptly became very serious.

Our lips were crammed together, and my heart rate was approaching the redline when Patsy opened her mouth. Which led to the novel experience of me having my tongue inside another person. Lordy-Lordy... THAT was a new and stimulating thing ... if not slightly unhygienic. Our tongues dueled back and forth for a minute, accompanied by a loud storm of panting.

Then, whether the situation overcame her or she just wanted to lay down, Patsy slowly reclined on the blanket. I propped myself on one elbow, and moved my hands so that one was behind Patsy's neck. I remember thinking, puzzled, "Hmmmm... What do I do with the other one??!

Well, one obvious option was Patsy's big right tit. Patsy really had beautiful boobs. I had appreciated them from afar. Now I was squeezing one of those massive bouncers over her t-shirt and bra. That caused Patsy to produce a loud moan, which I understood as permission to proceed.

Patsy was panting and moaning, and I was industriously exploring her bountiful chest. With all the rolling around, her t-shirt eventually worked its way up over her cheap cotton bra, revealing two splendid peaks. All I could think was, "What a pair." Moses standing atop Mount Nebo must have had the same feeling.

So... fuck Martin Luther and his ninety-five theses!! The mating imperative was driving the bus!! I shifted my hand from outside Patsy's bra to inside and grabbed an immense bundle of naked pleasure. It had a red-hot, rock-hard center that was rapidly becoming stiffer and stiffer.

I don't know about Patsy. But that was the point where whatever passed for rationality went out the window. I instinctively began to move on top or her. She moaned with approval. Then she made a mysterious grunt and gasp and commenced to thrash around. It was such strange behavior that I paused puzzled.

The moment she stopped writhing... Patsy shot to a sitting position - tossing me on my back as she did it. She said, anguished, "What have we done!!" As far as I was concerned, the answer was "nothing". Unless you counted putting my nuts in a vice, which was nothing to write home about

But Patsy was an Irish Catholic who clearly saw herself getting tied to a stake for the sin of being human. She hastily pulled her t-shirt down and stood up. Then she said, in a strained voice "I gotta go! Thank you, Erik..." And she disappeared, rushing up the path toward town.

I just sat there staring at the lake, trying to get my jumbled wits back together. The ending was unsatisfactory. The spasm Patsy had had was inexplicable. The experience was addictive.

That night set Patsy and me on the path to a quasi-boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, which matured both of us... somewhat. Neither of us were anything but ordinary. But I was big and getting much more muscular and Patsy still had a body to die for. So, we'd hang out around town and there were a lot more of those sessions -- ones like we had had that hot July night.

We never went much further than the first time. Patsy'd made some accommodation with the Saints of the Catholic church. But second base was where it stopped. I was finally allowed between her skinny legs, which was where I was headed the first time... fully clothed of course. We'd dry hump and she'd have those little convulsions.

Now, however, once the wriggling stopped Patsy kept going. So, our sessions sometimes lasted hours. I was allowed to play with her fabulous boobs as much as I wanted. But I wasn't permitted to touch anything further south.

Patsy, in turn, seemed downright eager to stoke me until I blew - like Old Faithful. I wondered if she enjoyed herself as much as she seemed to. Women were still a mystery to me. Nonetheless, the trivial sexual experiences we'd had were the gateway to a genuine adult relationship. And my face was starting to clear up.

Patsy and I shared something intense and personal-- something that was only between the two of us. It built a bridge that brought us gradually closer together. Which made me wonder how many of the husbands in that town married the first female willing to fuck them.

Patsy was a sweet and unassuming girl. The sort of woman that America was built on. Patsy was good-natured and generous - while at the same time she could be demanding during our special moments. She was also very smart. She was training to be a teller at Duke's dad's bank, and she worked hard. But, to Patsy, the bank job was only a bridge to the time when she could start popping out little Irishmen.

All-in-all, Patsy and I were the classic small-town couple -- folks who would live and die in obscurity, contributing nothing more to humankind than the next generation. That suited us just fine. We had no desire to be important... to be famous. We were happy living within the confines of our little Wisconsin town, knowing that our names would fade with the passage of time.

The draft was the only cloud on our horizon. People like to think that they're in control of their lives. Then, something comes along to remind them that they exist at the whim of forces and events much greater than themselves. Because, if you got the letter you had to drop everything and report to an induction center.

The draft had been around for a year, and we'd never heard of anybody who had been drafted. So, it was just one of those vague fears that pop up in the middle of the night to worry a fella. Then, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December of my senior year, and the government started drafting everybody.

All the boys in town lived day-to-day, anticipating the bad news. I would go down to the mailbox with my heart in my throat and reach in - as if there was a diamondback rattler coiled in there. It wasn't that we weren't patriotic. But there's a big disconnect between the boyish ideal of patriotism and the reality of putting your life on hold while you're dragged off into an utterly alien world.

Everybody in our town professed a love of America. We all stood for the pledge of allegiance or when they played the Star-Spangled Banner. But going into harm's way to defend it was a burden that only affected people my age. By 1942 the minimum draft age was eighteen. Meaning they were drafting kids.

Patsy made all the difference. She told me she had no idea what she would do if I were drafted. We were planning to get married. It was just a matter of putting this service commitment behind me. Knowing I had a future with a person who actually cared about my sad fate made it bearable.

Duke's old man knew the score and he was an important guy. So, he immediately got his little boy a 4-F -- flat feet are a terrible and debilitating condition. Me?... my old man worked at the Grange. So, I was out of luck. I wish I could tell you that I gladly accepted my fate. But it was really just a matter of being out of options.

Having to face things you can't avoid is a sobering experience. It might have been my first step toward adulthood. But I was scared shitless rattling along on that cold, rainy November night, heading toward an unknown destiny.

*****

We arrived at Fort Benning in a bright Georgia morning. Even the gung-ho types were exhausted. The Army had been managing draftees off-and-on since the Civil War. So, of course, they had a plan. The idea was to keep us constantly in motion.

We were hustled off the train and formed up into loose rows, standing there in frightened silence. Then a monster in a round hat strutted up to my group. He was my height but fifty pounds of rock-hard muscle heavier. His face was like the side of a mountain.

He stood ramrod straight, eyeing us with contempt. I stared back at him in horror, and he caught me gawking instead of "eyes front." He strolled over, positioned his face three inches from mine, and said in a voice that could have been heard two towns over, "Why are you staring at me boy?!! Do you have homosexual tendencies?!!"

I gulped and stuttered, "N-N-N-N-No."

He yelled, spit flying, "That's NO SIR!!"

I said, trying to sound keen, "NO SIR -- SIR.!!"

He said scornfully, "Drop and give me twenty and I want the rest of you to understand that you will call me Sir, or Sergeant, when I talk to you." I did my twenty pushups with his boot resting heavily on my shoulder blades. All the work at the Grange had paid off.

After that first painful lesson in military discipline, the good Sergeant went on to outline our situation. We were government property now. Uncle Sam owned us, and we would do anything that he, or his surrogate in a round hat, said. We would do it immediately and without question, or we would hate the next thing that happened.

The Army separates you from your previous life by tearing you down to the studs and rebuilding you in their image. As an incentive, they appeal to your sense of personal pride and esprit de corps. But they spur you on by kicking your ass. The whole idea is to present you with a progressive set of physical and mental challenges. Overcoming those challenges makes you into a man.

By the end of recruit training, I was ten pounds heavier, much stronger, and more self-confident. Plus, I had a new set of disciplined habits. Sounds like a warrior -- right? The problem was... the Army had failed to check my vision in their haste to kidnap me out of my old life. And sadly, good eyesight is a prerequisite for hitting the broad side of a barn.