I think, like a lot of other people who have been in the service, you'd been delayed in what you were doing. You wanted to catch up and the best way to catch up was to move as fast as you could toward a degree.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I would have benefited a lot from proper training. I could have done with a strong wake-up call about getting jobs.
While I was serving, I worked as an adventure training officer, teaching soldiers how to ski, canoe and climb.
My two sisters were always cooking. I wanted to be in the police force, but I didn't get in because I just so happened to procrastinate a bit, and I hadn't gotten my application in at the right time.
In those days, reserve duty lasted for six years, which, I might add, was three times as long as service in the regular army, although to be perfectly honest, I was unable to fulfill my entire obligation because I was taking acting classes and they said I could skip my last year.
It ended up taking eight years to finish college because I got deployed and went overseas.
School was pretty good about letting me take up music and that's where I had my first musical ideas and first said, 'Yeah, I'm going to be a musician.' I just had to do a quick stop gap in the army first.
I spent two years in the military service, then I trudged around in repertory for quite a while. I somehow wound up at the National Theatre, though, and then I was definitely on my way.
Going back to high school and college, I believed I would be involved in public service. I literally could not conceptualize anything else.
In 1967, I signed up for the Army, where I earned an equivalency diploma, then went on to join the Special Forces. That was really was the turning point in my life. I became more disciplined and focused. I went overseas and was in combat, got wounded a couple of times, lost a lot of good friends but matured a great deal.
They managed to find time... to tell me that there was no chance of my being accepted for service and that really I should be surprised to still be alive.