Signing in Puerto Rican: A Hearing Son and His Deaf Family

8. The Whole World Watching

136 8 The Whole World Watching ONE NIGHT IN my junior year of college, over dinner, I dropped a bombshell on Mom and Pop: “I signed up for the U.S. Marine Corps. A man in a military uniform came to the college last month. He was recruiting students for a program called the Officers Candidate School, the OCS. This program is very tough. It prepares young men to be officers in the Marines. I have to go to training camp next summer. If I complete the training, then, when I graduate from college, I will become a Second Lieutenant in the Marines. From there I will serve three years. With my college degree and military record, I will have an excellent future. I think this is a great idea for me, so I joined the OCS. Next summer, I will be in training camp for two and a half months, so I won’t be here.” The signed interrogation began: “Where is the training camp?” “Will they pay you a salary?” “When you graduate and go into the army, will they send you away? Does that mean you will no longer live with us?” “The Marines . . . aren’t they in Vietnam? Isn’t it dangerous there, where many boys are dying?” I patiently answered their questions. Military service was a given in our family. Several of my Ayala uncles had served, Tomás, Estéban, and César in World War II, Chelo in Korea. Pop’s only brother Miguel also served in the Army. Pop’s deafness kept him out of uniform, but he proudly said that a lot of deaf people helped during World War II. “We were in the Defense work,” which he signed by clasping his hands into fists, and crossing his arms in front of his chest. He vocalized “defense” loudly and firmly. The gesture reminded me of those railroad-crossing signs you saw in TV programs like Lassie and The Andy Griffith Show. By the time I was finishing college most of my Ayala and Torres cousins had enlisted or had been drafted. So as I described my plans to Mom and Pop, they mostly kept their reserve and nodded their acceptance . Years earlier when I was just an eighth grader they were surprised when I announced my intention to be a Christian Brother; then soon after they were perplexed as I switched to try out the priesthood. Now in the middle of college, I was alerting them to my post-collegiate life. Motionlessly, they stared at me. “We don’t know what you’re up to this time, but let’s hope you know what you’re doing.” That’s what their faces said to me. I spent the summer of 1967 in the ninety-five-degree heat of Quantico, Virginia, as “Candidate Torres of A Company, Third Platoon , Officer Candidates School, U.S. Marine Corps.” From the first day we were subjected to a test of will. The job of our platoon sergeants was to determine our physical and psychological readiness for war and to detect if we had the “intestinal fortitude,” as they constantly repeated , to lead men into battle. The Whole World Watching 137 138 The Whole World Watching We were led on forced marches and other tests of stamina, with full gear. (Hey, who did they think they were dealing with, a punk? This was Andy Torres, veteran of years of Ring-a-Leevio and handball on the Block! Having ascended the four stories of “Mount 514” thousands of times, I could handle these tests with no problem!) We learned martial arts and practiced hand-to-hand combat. We marched and marched and marched all day long: “Left face,” “Right face,” “Right Column . . . March” (Damn, those I remembered from Boy Scout days!). For endless time we stood at silent, lifeless attention in the baking sun, flies buzzing our noses and ears. Breaking discipline, just once, to flick away an insect or to scratch oneself invited rebuke and threats. At attention, you could be overtaken by pure boredom if you hadn’t devised mental stratagems. (Thank God I had memorized scores of doowop and Motown songs. Singing to myself kept my heart pumping and alert, and I never dozed off.) On occasion, a candidate weakened under the onslaught of sun rays and drudgery, and, out of curiosity, sneaked a sideways glance at the Sergeant. This violated the...