SFC Perkins was the administrative sergeant for our Signal Directorate. I learned my classified documents management primarily from him since there were no formal training classes for this back then. When he felt sufficiently comfortable with me, he got me certified to manage the classified cage consisting of documents from Confidential to Secret and Top Secret. He was elated when we passed our first classified documents audit performed by a Department of the Army audit team.
SFC Perkins treated me as an equal even though I was only a Private First Class when I joined the Signal Section. Over a few beers at the Trail's End Club after work one day, he asked me where I was from.
“I’m Mexican but made and raised in Texas, sergeant,” I replied.
“Oh, then we have something in common,” sergeant Perkins stated.
“Well, you’re surely not Mexican, so you must be Texan,” I said.
“Noooo, but my wife is Mexican. In fact she was born and raised in Mexico. I met her at some department store when she was working as a sales clerk. I was stationed at Fort Bliss near El Paso, and there are so many Mexicans there that I was determined to learn Spanish. When she told me she was Mexican, I tried the few Spanish words I had learned. That didn’t impress her. Apparently, I mangled the words I knew. She took pity on me and suggested we continue speaking English. We got married a few months later. Had no one at the wedding since her family lived deep in Mexico. Just her and me, two Mexican witnesses and a Hispanic Justice of the Peace who conducted the ceremony in Spanish. I didn't understand most of it, but we did get a marriage certificate in English, so I believe it was a valid and legal marriage.”
I shared with him that I, too, spoke Spanish. Sergeant Perkins always expressed gratitude for my management of the classified cage and often told me how it had been a huge headache for him before I took over the cage. Perhaps for this, he got me promoted to Specialist Fourth Class earlier than normal.
I came back from the mailroom one hot miserable and muggy day. I had just sat down at my desk with the fan blowing hot but moving air. “Oh, have you picked up mail yet, Ojeda?” asked SFC Perkins. “I’m expecting some mail from back home.” Together we sorted through the bundle of mail and picked out some three letters addressed to him. He went back to his desk while I was still trying to cool down from the hot, humid weather.
After processing the mail to the appropriate section distribution boxes, I delivered Moreno’s mail to him. SFC Perkins called me to his desk. “Ojeda, I just got a letter from someone I don’t know, and it’s in Spanish. Can you read it for me?” I took the letter and read enough to realize that it was a letter from some Mexican telling SFC Perkins that he was very much in love with Perkins’ wife and had moved in with her while Perkins was in Vietnam. It was a brief letter, and my written Spanish was sufficient to grasp the substance of its nature. The Mexican wanted to know if Perkins was going to divorce his Mexican wife. Perkins was waiting for the translation.
Sergeant First Class Tenorio worked in our Training Directorate within our Signal Section and was older and wiser than most Sergeants First Class. He was from Guam and was fluent in both Vietnamese and Spanish. Sergeant Tenorio was on his second tour of Vietnam and once told me over a few beers that he had two daughters with a Vietnamese lady he’d been living with in Tan Son Nhut, Vietnam. Meantime, he was married to a lady from Guam who was back in Augusta, Georgia, and taking care of three children he had with her. “Ojeda, don’t ever get yourself into a situation like this,” he once warned me. “I love my kids and wife back in the states but I’m really attached to my Vietnamese girlfriend and my two kids with her. This shit is going to blow up in my face some day, and I’m gonna have to be ready and make the best possible decision to lessen the pain to both my families.”
“Sergeant Perkins, my written Spanish is not really good enough to fully understand it,” I lied. “SFC Tenorio speaks and writes Spanish well. Maybe he can read it for you.” I gave it back to him, and Perkins went off to see Sergeant Tenorio.
I was sitting at my classified cage when our administrative officer showed up at the window. He asked for some document which I signed out to him. He kept looking at me then said “Is everything alright, Specialist? You seem perturbed.” Captain Connelly had already served his active army commitment and had left the army for a lucrative career as a successful lawyer somewhere in Delaware before being recalled back to active duty and sent to Vietnam.
“I can’t talk here, captain. Let’s go to your office,” I suggested. I locked up the classified cage and walked with him to his office. I detailed Sergeant Perkins’ situation and how I understood the letter sufficiently but had lied to Sergeant Perkins that I was unable to understand the letter. I explained my concern that it might create major depression for Sergeant Perkins and possibly even suicidal thoughts.
“There is an excellent library in the command building,” said the captain. “I’m sure you could find a Spanish/English dictionary there. That would help you translate the letter for Sergeant Perkins.” The captain had completely missed my point. I had actually gotten the essence of what the letter stated. It was the telling to Perkins about it that concerned me.
Frustrated with Captain Connelly, I got up and left his office thinking what a waste of an education he’d paid for. As I was walking back to my classified cage, I passed Perkins’ desk. “Ojeda, Sergeant Tenorio read the letter for me. Thanks for trying, though.”
“No problem, Sergeant Perkins,” I responded. “I hope it was not anything serious.” With a wave of the hand, Sergeant Perkins responded with “Naw. Just the normal shit.”
Crises averted – for me, at least. I never learned the outcome of Sergeant Perkins’ dilemma.
I was walking to my hooch past the Enlisted Club and decided to walk in for a beer and listen to some Filipino band blaring out Perez Prado's Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White. They had dual trumpets seemingly in a contest to see who could play the loudest. I ran into Sergeant Tenorio at the club who had a table right by the bandstand. He was waiting for Sergeant Perkins and shouting over the trumpets asked me to join him. I declined and took a table far from him and the bandstand. As I was leaving, he shouted out to me above the murderous version of Perez Pardo's mambo, "You understood Perkins' letter, didn't you, Ojeda?"
"Yeah, I understood it, but I just didn't have the heart to translate it for him," I shouted back. "Sergeant Perkins is not a tough, calloused guy. I was afraid he might overreact and go kill himself."
“Welcome to life, Ojeda,” Sergeant Tenorio offered. “And it just gets worse from here.” It was difficult trying to carry a conversation with the overly loud and boisterous Filipino band.
Sergeant Perkins left a few months later. We never discussed his situation about his wife’s boyfriend but being that he was a good and forgiving man, he probably just forgave his wife and continued married life with her sans the Mexican.
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