Before Going to Korea

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

While I was in the service, I was at one point transferred to Korea. As part of this, I needed to put my motorcycle in storage, and to also make sure my treasured possessions, my shotgun, pistols, and rifle, were properly cared for.

This basically required my taking a few days leave to ride the bike "home" from Fort Benning, Georgia, to Melbourne, Florida.

Picture the thoughts that would go through your mind if you saw someone on a motorcycle with a pistol in a should holster, another on his hip, with rifle and a shotgun strapped across his back. Complete with appropriate magazines, a couple knives, and a machete.

Oddly enough, on the whole trip, I was not stopped by the law even once (this was back in 1981).

I did stop at a Denny's for coffee. Walked in, drew my .45 and dropped the magazine and pulled the slide back before putting it down on the table. Did the same with rifle, left the shotgun on the table with the action open, revolver broken open. And then ordered coffee.

At the time I did not think much of it, and it did not seem as if anyone in the Denny's (somewhere in Georgia) had any concerns either. I was clean shaven except for the neatly trimmed (to Army standards) mustache, and had a regular haircut. (I never ever went in for "whitewalls" . . . tended to think most people with that sort of haircut were really just "poseurs" trying to pretend they were "hardcore".)

When I finished my coffee, I stood up, let the slide forward on the .45, put in the magazine and returned it to the holster, sheathed the machette. Closed the action on the shotgun and slung it. Dropped the cartridges back into the .38 and holstered it. Let the action go forward on the rifle, and reinserted the magazine. Then I dropped a dollar on the table as a tip, picked up my helmet, gloves, and the ticket, and went and paid my tab. And walked out into the night, pulling on the helmet and strapping it down before mounting the bike and riding off.

Sometimes, these days, I think about that and wonder what was really going through the minds of the other patrons and the waitresses that night.

At the time, I did not think anything of it, I was just going home to put my bike and weapons in storage for the next year that I would be in Korea.

But, on reflection, it has always seemed odd that I rode the bike from Fort Benning to Melbourne without once having a police officer, trooper, or deputy pull me over to ask what I was doing.