I met exactly three punx when I was in the military. The first was a girl when I was in my first week of basic training. We hadn’t been issued uniforms yet and I was dressed in my own clothes. I remember I was wearing this Operation Ivy shirt. While I was going through the line to collect the stuff we were being issued, she handed me my uniform and whispered, “Op Ivy! I love that band.”

Mike was probably the one I became closest with. I met him while I was stationed in England. I met him because he was wearing a Kid Dynamite shirt. We started hanging out as much as our different schedules would allow us to and did a ton of crazy shit together. Drove miles and miles to shows, stay up all night drinking coffee – we even started an emocore project that never really got off the ground (but had a name – Kisling Hall named after the barracks I lived in).

Once on one of our pointless adventures his car broke down on the English freeway. Neither of us had cell phones and ended up walking all the way back to base. 14 miles or something crazy like that. The entire walk back we attempted to hitchike to no avail. British people like to call you an arsehole for trying to thumb a ride. It wasn’t that funny though.

Mike and I eventually had a falling out. Of course it was about a girl. I was a stupid teenager.

The third and final punk I met was Jeff. He was from California and was of the GG Allin stock of punk rockers. I met him through a mutual friend and didn’t really like him at first. He would watch stuff like Jackass constantly and generally try to act like those dudes. He was in a band and lived with a bunch of civillian bros that were all like him.

I was watching one relationship of mine meltdown into another one which was dissolving in its own way. I lost my apartment and ended up having to move back into the barracks. Jeff got into some trouble with those sketchy dudes he hung with and got busted down in rank and was forced to move back in as well. A strange twist of fate and boom, we were roommates. It was weird. He didn’t really get me or my interpretation of punk but was willing to hang out and listen to Jawbreaker and chain smoke. He wasn’t a bad dude once I got to know him and the last 3 months I was in the military we hung out a ton.

I don’t talk to any of these people anymore but I think about them a lot.

***i wrote this for my zine but it got cut outta the final draft.