Never Volunteer

I left for Army Basic Training when I was seventeen years old. I was equally excited and terrified of what the next sixteen weeks of Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training would bring. My father, being the ever realist, gave me this advice before leaving:

“Keep your head down, and whatever you do, DO NOT VOLUNTEER.”

I remember thinking this seemed a bit dramatic, but, okay then. I will keep my head down and my mouth shut. It shouldn’t be too hard.

It would have been easy had I had a common last name. But my maiden last name was DiVencenzo. That’s right, ten letters with lots of vowels and letters not commonly seen in last names. For those that are not aware, having a unique last name is a blessing and a curse. And in the case of being a private in Basic Training? Yeah, let’s say it was a curse from the day I stepped off the plane in South Carolina.

I did my best to keep my head down from day one, but my last name made it impossible not to be noticed. First Sergeant Passmore loved to give privates with unique last names some sort of nickname.  I was one of his first to be named. I would be known as ‘Pizza,’ which brought along more jokes and ridicules that I am sure would not be deemed appropriate today.

But it was 1998, and no matter how bad the insult or joke was, I kept my head down. The volunteer part is where it got tricky. You see, when the First Sergeant gifts you a nickname, you don’t need to volunteer because you are voluntold what to do.

Now, is voluntold an actual word? I don’t think so, but in the Army, it became an official word. I was voluntold daily to be the runner for menial tasks or to come up to the front of the formation, just for the First Sergeant to ‘forget’ why he called me up in the first place.

I would get frustrated throughout my training, but I kept my head down and my mouth shut. I knew that part of our training involved being metaphorically stripped down so that you felt nothing when someone ridiculed you. We learned that we may still be an individual out in the civilian world, but we are a team in the Army. We operate as one unit, like a well-oiled machine.

I survived Basic Training and would move on to graduate from my Advanced Individual Training. Luckily, without adding on any additional nicknames.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to good ole First Sergeant Passmore. I’m sure he continued to deliver witty nicknames to more soldiers in the same predicament as me. I hope those soldiers knew to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. And hopefully, they were not voluntold as much as me.