A question I’ve been asking myself in the past few days is: What is this like?
This being, of course, the pandemic. And the changes we’re all being asked to make in the ways we live our lives. Watching sports on TV is nearly impossible. No MLB, NHL, PGA and NBA.
There are no Broadway or other kinds of shows. Restaurants are closed. We’re being told by various powers that be to distance ourselves from friends, even family.
What’s this like for yours truly? Basic training.
I arrived at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, on Nov. 29, 1967. Lackland, by the way, is now being utilized as a venue where those needing to be isolated are being housed. Those who have been determined to put others at risk if they remain in the general population.
Starting on that late day in the fall of ’67, my life took a dramatic turn. Life, as I knew it, changed.
An avid sports fan, I could no longer watch games on TV. There was no TV in the barracks.
I couldn’t go to a show, or a restaurant.
I was distanced from my family and friends.. The distance measured by the many miles separating my hometown in western Massachusetts from San Antonio.
The country was at war when I started basic training. A war fought against a ragtag army wearing not uniforms, but pajama-like clothing. An enemy often unseen and unheard, hiding deep in the jungles and shallow rice paddy waters.
Waiting. Looming.
When I first entered the USAF, the war was bad. But it was going to get worse. Much worse. And that it did, just a few months into my four-year tour of duty.
The Tet Offensive was launched by The Viet Cong. And it overwhelmed us and changed how we viewed the reality of this disaster.
Yeah. That was then, and this is now. Still…
This time, at least for me, is like that time. I was being prepared for something. I was expected to make changes. I did. And I am.
Terrence McCarthy is an Easthampton native and a UMass graduate. He lives in North Carolina.