by Robert Braswell

Created on: July 01, 2007

Basic Training Haircut

After I signed the ownership of my life over to the US Government, I was then sent to the barbershop to get a haircut, or a scalp I prefer to think of it as. My hair was cut exactly the way as seen in those old black and white war film clips on TV of World War I and II. In those clips, hair is purposely butchered to try and make you feel ridiculous. Forget about styling it like they do nowadays, such a thing didn't exist back then.

When I first entered the barbershop I noticed mirrors strategically placed on the opposite wall across the narrow room and directly in line with each of the six barber chairs. They, of course, were there for obvious reasons. So, watching the shape of my heard metaphorically change its shape into a lop-sided bowling ball was a little frightening. Okay, extremely frightening.

Initially, the barber made one clean stroke with his clippers down the middle of the top of my head, leaving me to feel ridiculous. Immediately following his purposeful first swipe, he pointed at the mirror for me to see my reflection of his artwork, all the while continually smiling at me and not caring as to what I was thinking.

I just gave him a get this over, will you? kind of look in return. My hair was probably still several inches long on top still, so it made me look ridiculous. I think Dagwood Bumstead would have been impressed in seeing someone else having a style much like his own. The weight of my head, not surprisingly, got lighter as the barber continued cutting off the rest of my hair.

When he was through scalping me, I refused to look in the mirror to view his masterpiece. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. I just casually got up out of my chair and went outside to join the rest of the new recruits who had also just gotten scalped.

Resisting running the palm of my hand over the top of my head to feel the hair stubble was impossible. It felt so weird. It was like this uncontrollable urge that I had to be reminded of what just happened, I guess.

My hair hadn't been this short since the fifth grade when my father gave me a Mohegan style haircut. I wore a baseball cap for weeks afterwards so I wouldn't be embarrassed when I went to school.

But, I wasn't embarrassed here. It just gave me a creepy feeling.

When I got outside and began glancing at all the oddly shaped noggins around me, I began to laugh hysterically. I couldn't help myself. The appearance of these guys' heads and the way they had changed so dramatically was comical. Immediately, everyone joined in and started laughing uncontrollably as well.

But, when the laughing quieted down in a few minutes, my situation began to sink deep within me that Uncle Sam owned me now. I already knew that it was going to be that way before I enlisted, but I was unaware of how it was going to make me feel.

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