Case One- We were in Basic Training, the first eight weeks of training that is designed to bust your will to bits and make you WANT to cooperate with the Commander and with your fellow soldier. Every humiliation imaginable was done to you by the Drill Sergeants and the Company Commander.
My Psychology minor in college prepared me to psych out the system and avoid making myself stand out as a problem to the cadre. Then, a weekend came when we were allowed to wander a bit, and 90% of the trainees headed for the Post Exchange (PX) for snacks and necessities, but mostly for the cheap beer.
The other trainees told me the PX beer was wretched and made the drinker sick, REAL sick. And, these boys had been on a beer fast for a couple of weeks. So, they got their beer and sat along the wall near the entrance and drank themselves cross eyed.
As I walked into the PX, I saw this scene. Every one of those boys was in a mighty funk and looked like the very essence of misery and sorrow. They had been drafted out of the hills of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Black guys drafted off the streets of Harlem and Brooklyn. They did not like where they were, had lost all memory of wanting to be a great soldier, and the jukebox was playing this song:
This was 1968, and the song was popular then. No sooner had the song ended when one of the soldiers would walk over and drop his coins in the slot and pick the same song again. By the time I left the PX I too had a case of the mullygrubs from the whole sorry scene. Whenever I hear this song, I have flash backs and see that scene of those pathetic soldiers sitting there, all of them on the verge of tears and feeding their misery on dose after dose of cheap beer and that song.
Case Two: After Army training, my wife moved to Kentucky, and we were allowed to live off the Army Post in a small town. My wife and I had found a fantastic Italian restaurant half way between Fort Knox and Elizabeth Town, Kentucky. It was owned by a Sephardic Jewish lady named Ma Ganci. Her cooking was highly authentic and from the west of Italy. Ma Ganci had a genuine sympathy and love for the soldiers at Fort Knox, and she pampered them and tried to cheer them up.
My wife and I were sitting in a booth, and behind us was a booth of four soldiers on pass, like me, from Basic Training. They liked Ma Ganci's cooking, and they got to talking about how good it was. Then, one old boy from eastern Tennessee softly said, "But, I sure do miss my Mom's spaghetti." His Mom's spaghetti would have been made very much unlike that made in Italy or in NYC for that matter. His Mom would have boiled the pasta to death, added the sauce in the kettle, and cooked it all until it was soggy. Then, she would have chopped the pasta all up, and you were supposed to eat it with a spoon like oatmeal. But, it was Mom's, and it was back in the Smoky Mountains where a soul belonged.
It got real quiet, and I knew what was happening. Every one of those soldiers was just thinking about home, their Mom's cooking, and how did they get into the sorry state they were in?
Ma Ganci soon came around and tried to cheer them up, and she always managed to get them to think about something else. People who do this for soldiers are very special folks. Could YOU be one of them if you tried?
Tommy Emmanuel, the one on the left who sings that he came from Sydney, is from Australia. He has been to hundreds of venues in the USA and sings and plays his guitar in a way that charms Americans. He loves to sing our songs.
