His Black life shaped my white life, and ran me ragged. 51 years later, I still run

I regret to say this, but I’ve become one of those: an old man who still thinks he can run.

I’m 73. I’ve been running for 51 years. Lately, it’s been imitation running. A slog up to the Mason Middle School track, a few laps around, straining to pass the dog walkers, the slog home.

Running hadn’t been my idea. It was the drill sergeants’ idea. Four or five mornings a week at 5:30., two to three preposterous miles.

I’d never been an athlete. I was on the debate team. In required PE in 10th grade, we had to run “The Crazy Eight”— eight-tenths of a mile. In a class of 55, I was fifth from the last. I’d blame debate, except my partner was in the same class, and he finished third.

No: I had to learn in the heats and fevers of Fort Bragg, summer 1969, from Drill Sergeants Russell and Reed. Both were Black. All but one of my drill sergeants were Black.

They were my first Black teachers. I’d grown up in the Minneapolis suburbs.

That first stunned Basic Training weekend, Russell greeted us with a smile and a shake of his head. He’d just returned from combat in Nam; his eyes still had fear baked into them.

“You wait ‘til Drill Sergeant Reed gets here. He’ll put a world of hurt on your young asses,” Russell said, sympathetically.

Reed was on leave because his platoons kept finishing first in battalion competition. When he did appear, we saw why: His sheer presence commanded fear and respect.

He didn’t smile, ever. His glare could snap a head back. I was in awe.

He was not in awe of me. “College Boy,” he called me, among more unprintable epithets. I’d been drafted after a year of grad school. There were only a half-dozen of us with some college, and he leaned on us harder.

Yes, colleges were spawning anti-war protests. But I didn’t feel contempt from Reed; I felt concern. Unlike many others, we’d led cosseted lives. War would require us to up our game.

After a few weeks, I noticed that I felt better on running days. In Basic’s two months, I never once had six consecutive hours of sleep. Try staying awake for eight hours of classes. My head bobbed less on the days we ran.

When it came time for the final PT test, non-athlete that I was, I came into the final of five events, the mile run in combat boots, with a perfect score of 400. I needed to run a 5:55 for 100 points. I managed a gasping 6:20. My total total was 483, fifth in a platoon of 48 or so.

I got a hint of a nod from Reed. I was hooked.

Assigned to the infantry — where else did an English Ph.D. candidate belong? — I drew an inside straight and ended up in Germany, where I continued to run, voluntarily, no drill sergeants yelling at me.

Back in the world, I took a job at Pacific Lutheran University and kept running. In my 40s, I ran the first of ten Sound to Narrows races.

At 60, despite a disintegrating disc, I began training for triathlons and competed a half-dozen times in the Triple Threat series at JBLM.

At 67, I was ready to retire from the classroom. I’d noticed that I was becoming more confrontational. If a student was slacking off, or vacant, or just passive, I’d get right in her grill.

A few saltier phrases crept in. It dawned on me, not without irony, that I was channeling a bit of Drill Sergeant Reed.

Maybe I was just getting old and cranky. Or maybe I sensed that some kind of strong male energy was not culturally welcome anymore, and I was unconsciously providing it anyway..

My body was not supposed to retire, too. But it did. Knee. Back. Hips. A shoulder that just had surgery. Inevitably, wind. A world of internal hurt.

But I still ran. In my sleep. At 4 a.m. recently, my wife woke me. “Dave, you’re running.” “I know,” I said, “I was sprinting. I was even ahead of you.” She does CrossFit.

It’s been about four years since I last ran smoothly. And my legs are acting like four year olds. They jitter and jerk not just in sleep, but during Netflix, during naps, on road trips.

They want, I suppose, youth. But there is no drill sergeant to goad you back to youth.

It’s been a good run, those 51 years. I still try. Both my back and my ego are used to the pounding.

Congress may re-name Fort Bragg. I’d suggest Fort Drill Sergeant Johnny Reed. His Black life tempered my white one. And he sure put a lot of miles on my old ass.

David Seal lives in Tacoma’s North End and is a retired English professor at Pacific Lutheran University. He’s a former TNT reader columnist.