Hank Smith (37:56)
After my mission, I had just a very strong, powerful impression. One of the few times in my life where I just got some real direct instruction. I should go join the Military I did. So I ended up joining the army against my will. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, but I went and did it and I found myself, you know, went through basic combat training and did all the training and ended up at my first permanent station out in Fort Stewart, Georgia, which is a huge army base out there, 26 miles, I think, every direction of swamp. It is the hottest, steamiest, swampiest place. We had a little orientation, we came in and they said, okay, first thing you got to be careful of is you need to know that every puddle of water on this army base has a resident water moccasin and alligator. Don't be hanging out there. There were mosquitoes, there were bugs, there were sounds in the night. It was quite a place. I was the company clerk of a combat engineer battalion. To be a combat engineer, the army handbook said, you just have to have one attribute, strong back. That was the only criterion. I lived in an open bay billets, 20 bunks and 20 wall lockers in a row and one big open room without air conditioning, concrete slab floor with some of the wildest people that I have ever known. And I grew up in Northern California and I grew up with hippies and I'd been on a mission, I'd seen a lot, but these guys were something else. They're just the most profane hilar and hard living guys that you'll ever meet. And this was my life. But on Sunday mornings I would get up, my buddy across post would come and pick me up and we'd drive, it seems like 20 or 30 miles to Ludwiki, Georgia. Let me think. No, because I was a returned missionary and because I think it was part of the design, I got to serve in the elders quorum presidency and I got to be an assistant ward clerk. I was also a stake missionary and a ward mission leader and I was in the Sunday school presidency, like all at the same time. So I got like six years of church experience in one year. I'd go to church early in the morning, probably teach a couple of lessons, and then afterwards I'm a stake missionary. So we would do a little training for our ward missionaries and then we would go out and do some missionary work. And I would get home, you know, at 8 or 9 or 10 o' clock at night I would show up. We lived in this little building that was out in a wooded area up on one corner of the post. And it was dark, there was no lighting around it. There was just a little 6 by 6 foot cement slab And a door, and then you'd go in. I remember several times showing up at that door awash with the spirit, having been serving and doing and being rewarded the way that we are when we're trying to look out for each other. And putting my hand on the doorknob to go in and think, okay, I'm going back into the world now. I would swing that door open and walk inside. It was like from the door to my bunk, I could just feel the spirit wash away because the spirit couldn't live in that environment. The vocabulary and the music and whatever was going on. That difference between light and darkness. Light attracts light and darkness attracts darkness was. These were good people living really bad lives. I loved them. One day, they were going out on a Saturday night, and I was laying on my bunk. I remember I was reading a biography of Brigham Young, of all things. In the middle of chaos, a couple of these guys come over and say, lon, going out drinking. You should come with us. Why come? You just stay here all the time. And I wouldn't stay a long time once they were gone. I'd go find stuff to do, but you should come with us. What makes you think you're better than us? Yeah, how come you think you're better than us? They're getting a little bit aggressive. And finally all I could do is take a deep breath and say, well, here's the thing. I've made promises, like, to God, and I'm just doing my best to keep them. And with that, they got kind of quiet and wandered off. It wasn't right in that moment. But later I ran into one of these guys. He was this big African American kid from Louisiana with a bunch of gold teeth. He was just this huge personality. Frankly, it mattered to me what he thought of me. There's a charisma about him. He was a wild thing, though. I was walking out of one of the buildings there and ran into him, and he says, so, you know, I used to go to church, too. I said, really? He says, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, I was in the choir and everything. I've made those promises, too. The only difference between you and me is I haven't kept mine. And he walked off solemnly. And I thought, well, people can feel light, too. In my simple little way, I was home from my mission. And the way I end up in the army is I went to the temple to see if I could get some direction on what I should study. I'd been at BYU for a year. I hadn't been a good student, so I was hoping I could get a little direction. So I'm praying, should I be a geologist? And I went to the list of my mind, and I had this impression I should go join the military instead. And it made no sense. Then I find myself a few months later, I'm in Georgia in the middle of this swamp. This made no sense. I had a little index card in the drawer of my desk in the little order I worked in that said, that which does not kill us makes us stronger. And I would look at that every day and say, okay, I'm not dead yet. So this is working.
