Ah. Ingrid?

Ah. Ingrid?

I almost married Ingrid. When I close my eyes, I can still see us standing close together in the lamplight on that little footbridge in the park, totally taken by each other, when I asked her to marry me. She didn’t even think about it before saying yes.

Ingrid was thirteen years my senior with a twelve-year old daughter and a ten-year old son. She was 34. I was 21. Her daughter’s name is Susan. Her son’s name is Robert.

I don’t remember Hoop’s first name. His last name was Hooper. Fellow Military Policeman in Bad Kissingen, Germany. Hoop was tied up with this beautiful young German girl. No. I don’t know if she had hairy armpits. I never saw them. But she didn’t shave her legs so there is some wiggle room for speculation. I don’t know what became of their relationship. He probably knocked her up, moved on, and left her to deal with his genes. Pretty common scenario created by servicemen overseas.

Ingrid was this German girl’s aunt from NYC who was in-country for the summer. They wanted to take her to the Schweitzer House … a really nice upscale German food and beverage establishment … and asked if I would be her blind-date.

That blind date turned into something akin to a Summer of Forty-Two for the two of us.

[Huge disclosure coming up here.]

When I joined the Army, I was running away from Fairhope. I was running away from myself and a world that I was largely responsible for creating. I was a three-time high school drop-out, had had a brush with the law from hanging out with an older scoff-law one night, and had acquired a heavy dose of sub-culture mentality with the emergence of the hippy movement. [Don’t bogart that joint my friend … ] I was also a late bloomer and still a virgin when I enlisted in the Army, knowing full-well that enlistment meant a chance of seeing Vietnam.

Vietnam? The idea didn’t scare me. Honestly, there was a part of me that viewed it as a chance to be shipped home as a local hero who finally did something good. Fortunately, the President issued a recall before my Basic Training was over. That virginal status in life didn’t make it through Basic Training. It was a three day break half-way through Basic Training at Fort Knox. That status in life change came about with the help of a twenty-dollar prostitute in Louisville, KY at the downtown Holiday Inn.

Ingrid needed me and I needed her. We fell deeply in love.

I had reenlisted not long after arriving in Germany. I figured what the heck. Reenlistment bonus added cash to my pocket. Three hots and a bunk. Laundry service. Medical. I didn’t see it as a bad idea at the time. Several months into re-upping, the idea lost all appeal. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I got screwed over a few times in ways that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Sometime before first meeting Ingrid, I had begun working on a plan for a medical retirement of sorts. It was an easy plan that simply involved exercising and entertaining my propensities. I was surrounded by and enjoyed the tools that were needed to pull it off. I just had to keep failing the program. With the readily available alcohol and hashish, it was easy to keep flunking the program.

Ingrid knew what I was doing. We had talked about it.

My Lieutenant, someone who knew me quite well, also knew what I was doing. In fact, he’s the one that privately mentioned it to me to begin with. West Point grad who was a really decent human being. He knew how I had been screwed over and screwed around. Pulled from the road for no reason and assigned to the arms room. Pulled from the arms room and assigned to the motor pool. Pulled from the motor pool and assigned to a clerk’s job at the MP station. All in about twelve months-time. None of those jobs remotely resembled my Military Occupational Specialty.

I hated to see Ingrid fly out on her way back to NYC. But the plan had worked and I had finally been approved for a discharge. She would fly home. I would fly home. Then I would fly to NYC.

Ingrid miscarried about three months after she got home.

I never made it to New York City. There’s more to the story. Something about a plane and train ride that got in the way.