Chapter 2
Camp life began ruthlessly at 6:00 a.m. with the playing of reveille blasted over the camp PA system about ten decibels too loud. Groaning, the new enrollees rolled out of bed in various states of dress and went through the motions of preparing for breakfast. The education assistant had explained the routine to them the night before, but the group around Hardesty's bunk just followed him like baby ducks after their mother.
Hardesty got out of bed, tired from staying up so late. He had ended his time in the woods by writing in his journal, slipping back in before light. Since camp life wasn't different from the last place he was in, he fell into the familiarity of the program without thinking. When he put on the blue denim work suit issued to them the night before, Spinelli and his buddies followed his example, then scrambled out the door when he headed towards the bathhouse.
The day outside was chilly and gray with the promise of rain. Morning dew dampened the grass and mist hung low on the sharp, forested mountains overlooking the camp.
“Man, it’s cold,” Spinelli said as he walked along the dirt path. The tips of his canvas slippers were dark from the dew. “Is this all it does around here?”
“No,” Hardesty said. “Sometimes it rains hard.”
Trudging over to the bathhouse, the group from Barracks II met up with a small batch from the neighboring barracks and filed in to clean up. Since most of the camp was on weekend leave, there were only about fifty men including Hardesty’s batch of new enrollees. When assembly sounded twenty minutes later, the groups gathered on the main ground in the center of camp and fell into a routine of physical training that lasted nearly twenty minutes. At the end of the exercise or as one of the boys put it, "physical torture," Commander Taylor came out and said a few words to the new arrivals. When he was finished, they trooped off to the mess hall.
Inside, Hardesty guided them to their assigned seating, a long table at which six to twelve men could be seated. As they sat down, some enrollees, obviously old hands at the place, started to call out to them from their table.
“Elllllmer. You’ll be sor--ree.”
“What’s an Elmer?” Spinelli asked Hardesty as he reached to pour coffee into his cup.
“Means someone who makes foolish mistakes.”
“I ain’t making no -- any mistakes,” Spinelli grumbled. “They better not meet me in the dark.”
A crew on KP duty brought the food to them to the tune of clinking silverware, ceramic plates, and scraping benches on the concrete floor.
“Holy cow, look at this,” Costello’s face looked like he couldn't believe the fare: ham and eggs, stewed prunes, cereal, coffee and milk.
While Hardesty nursed his coffee, the kids fell onto the food, their travel fatigue over. They acted like they hadn’t had a meal like this since the Depression hit. It was nothing to laugh about. He had been so hungry once that he made a soup out of grass. He quietly helped himself to the plate of ham sent around, then watched them for a bit. After twenty-four hours, he was beginning to sort them out.
