After being trucked from the train station to Lackland, the new arrivals were quickly introduced to Air Force routine. They were given GI haircuts and issued dog tags, clothing, and supplies, then taken to the mess hall for dinner. Afterward, they were assigned places among the double-deck bunks that lined the main section of the two-story wooden barracks. Most of the recruits stayed up late memorizing their Air Force serial numbers, learning how to make their beds military-style, and getting to know one another. They didn’t get to sleep until shortly before being roused for a six a.m. roll call.
In rapid order that week, John and the others were administered typhoid and smallpox vaccinations. They were ordered to ship all their civilian clothes and shoes home, then given explicit instructions on just how to arrange their belongings in the footlockers by their bunks. The regimentation reminded him of the auto factory. He asked himself, Four years of this?
Even so, his immersion into Air Force life proved a blessing. Between the grueling physical training, intense classroom sessions, and battery of aptitude tests, Cash didn’t have time to brood over possible rejection or failure. He was so exhausted after the long, demanding days that he spent much of his Sundays, his only time off, sleeping. He rarely ventured out of the barracks except to go to church or pick up necessities from the PX.
While others in his training squadron grumbled about the lack of free time, John embraced the nonstop schedule. Though he hadn’t shown much interest in sports in school, he proved to be fairly athletic, mastering the various exercises designed to turn young men into soldiers. He did so well on the classroom instruction that others turned to him for help, just like the students had done at Dyess High.
Near the end of the stay at Lackland, John’s squadron took yet another round of aptitude tests, and he showed potential in several areas, including air police, aircraft mechanic, and radio operator. He didn’t know exactly what the last entailed, but he liked the sound of “radio.” When his application for that school was accepted, John was overjoyed. He had stood up against the big city boys and, in most cases, outshone them.
When he went home to Dyess for a few days before reporting to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, for more training, he felt like he belonged in his blue Air Force uniform. Even his father offered a rare handshake. During the third week of September, John R. Cash’s family again said good-bye to him in Memphis, but this time his mood was entirely different. John’s earlier nervousness was gone. On this trip, he didn’t stare anxiously out the window. When he finally went to sleep, he wasn’t looking for escape. He was looking forward to the six months in Biloxi. He was eager to get to know his classmates better, maybe play some music, and maybe even meet some girls.
Located on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, Keesler was popular among the airmen because it was just ninety miles from the bright lights and good times of New Orleans. Where better to spend a weekend pass than the most party-minded city in the South? Soon after he arrived at the base, John started hearing about the great bars and fast women in the Big Easy. Many in his barracks spent their first free weekend exploring both. But John stayed in Biloxi. Despite his excellent showing at Lackland, he wasn’t about to take his class work for granted. It felt good to excel. He even found himself doing something he had rarely done in high school: during his off hours, he actually studied. Besides, his Baptist upbringing raised a red flag about New Orleans.
John’s dedication to his studies increased as he learned about the important role radio intercept operators played in the Air Force. He wasn’t studying something mundane like repairing radios or constructing relay towers; he was learning how to eavesdrop on enemy radio transmissions. This was the Cold War, and the threat of Communism was being felt across America. It was challenging work, as foreign military strategists went to elaborate lengths to prevent their messages from being intercepted. They frequently sent out meaningless, distracting noises on the same frequencies before slipping in the real Morse code signals.
If eventually accepted as an intercept operator, John would have to listen to the competing signals through headphones for up to eight hours at a stretch, trying to distinguish the real transmissions from the decoys. Once the Morse code was isolated, he would then jot down the letters and pass them along to a group of translators who would try to decode them. The more John learned about the intercept mission, the more motivated he was by the touch of glamour and adventure associated with it. He even imagined himself living out some of the World War II spy movies he had enjoyed back in Dyess. He liked the thought of being a hero. Wait until he told his dad about this.
John finished the Morse code course weeks ahead of schedule, which made him the envy of many of the others in his training group. Ben Perea, a New Mexico native who was in the same class at Keesler, had heard of John but wouldn’t get to know him until they traveled on the same ship to Germany. “He stood out at Keesler,” Perea recalls. “He was the model—the one the instructors would point to. Everyone knew he was very smart.” It was a word—smart—that many of his fellow airmen would use in describing Cash.
As rumors of his accomplishments spread around the base, other airmen began searching out the young man from Dyess. They wanted to hang out with him, and he enjoyed the attention. They invited him to go with them to New Orleans, telling him again about the music, the food, and, mostly, the women. Confident about his progress, John surprised himself by actually toying with the idea of joining them.
II
John had been so focused on basic training at Lackland that he couldn’t remember even listening to the radio for the seven weeks he spent there, so it felt good finally to be able to relax enough to tune in the popular country stations at Keesler. He even found a new favorite singer, Hank Snow, whose rollicking “I’m Moving On” topped the country charts for five months in 1950.
Like Cash, Snow was a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan, and he was at his best on story songs—as much reciting the lyrics as singing them. Both qualities were later typical of Cash’s recordings. He was enamored by “I’m Moving On” because the lyrics employed railroad imagery (“That big eight-wheeler rollin’ down the track”) to express feelings of wanderlust and independence, the same sentiments Cash would turn to years later when writing the song that helped him get his first record contract, “Hey, Porter.”
It wasn’t, however, the only record John would later recall from his days at Keesler. He also favored Ernest Tubb’s “(Remember Me) I’m the One Who Loves You.” Hank Williams’s “Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” Red Foley’s good-natured “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” and a pair of Eddy Arnold hits, “Anytime” and “Bouquet of Roses.” He especially admired the pure romanticism in Arnold’s singing, how his crooning delivery made love seem natural and uncomplicated—just the kind of relationship John wanted.
By mid-October, John had met a couple of Southern boys who also enjoyed singing what they referred to as “hillbilly” songs. The three often got together in the barracks and took turns singing lead on hits of the day. Others teased them about all the fun they were missing by not going with them to New Orleans. Increasingly, the tales of sexual conquests began to tempt John. Finally, he headed off with them on a trip to Bourbon Street.
Caught up in all the boasting on the ride down, John bragged about his own experiences with women. From the way he talked, you’d think he was a real ladies’ man. In truth, John had dated a few girls in Dyess, even gone steady with a couple of them for a spell. But he hadn’t come close to a serious relationship, much less sexual intimacy with any of them.
Still, he was no virgin.
When he was fifteen, J.R. and some other boys hooked up one night with a girl who was known around the small town as “easy to get.” At her urging, Cash insisted, they took her to a riverbank, where she lay on a blanket in the moonlight and had sex with each of them. Even though the girl seemed eager, the experience was unsettling and left John with such a deep sense of shame that he never referred to the incid
ent in either of his autobiographies or in any of his formal interviews.
But he did speak of the night to a friend in the late 1990s. From the way he described the girl, it was possible she was at least somewhat mentally challenged, and John was still so sensitive about that night that he apparently changed the girl’s name to avoid embarrassing her or her family as he discussed it with the friend. According to A.J. Henson, J.R. never mentioned the name or the incident to him.
The only other time J.R. tried to have sex in Dyess, he told the same friend, was with a “nice young girl” he met while working at the roller rink in town. He somehow talked her into going to bed with him, but he was so nervous that he “couldn’t get it up.” The girl thought that was hilarious, leaving J.R. too embarrassed even to try to get intimate with any other girls during high school.
Now on the way to New Orleans, he listened to the other trainees talk about all the women who would be waiting for them—just like John had seen in so many of the war movies. He wanted a girlfriend, even if only so he could show off her picture to the other guys and look forward to her letters. Expecting to go to a dance or perhaps the local USO social club, he was shocked when his pals took him to a brothel. All the stories about “conquests” in New Orleans had really just been trips to houses of ill repute.
John’s first instinct was to walk away, but hormones took over. He went to a room with one of the prostitutes, and the experience reminded him of the night on the riverbank. It wasn’t just that it was against his Baptist teachings; the encounter was cold and clinical. He wanted to have sex again. He wanted it badly. He was still only nineteen, after all. But he realized what he wanted most of all was sex with a genuine connection. John returned to New Orleans a few times, but there is no indication that he visited another brothel. Mostly he stayed on the base, reading and singing country songs.
During his final weeks at Keesler, John was rewarded for his hard work when he was approached about joining a new, elite group of radio intercept operators. The USAF Security Service was set up in the fall of 1948 in response to the increasing complexity of enemy communication techniques. Security Service bases were located in Alaska and several foreign countries, including Japan, Korea, and Germany.
After interviews and a detailed security check, John was formally invited to join the unit and given his choice of duty in remote Adak, Alaska, or Landsberg, West Germany. They were choice outposts, reserved for the most promising intercept operators. The selection process didn’t focus just on test performance, but also weighed character, intelligence, and emotional stability. John opted for Landsberg because he wanted to see the sights of Europe.
To his great frustration, the security operation was so top secret that he was prohibited from telling anybody, including his family, about the delicate nature of his assignment. All he could say was that he was going to be stationed in Landsberg. But first he had to go through four more months of intense training to sharpen his intercept skills. On April 27, he headed back to San Antonio, this time to Brooks Air Force Base.
III
By late May, John was settled enough to begin thinking about life overseas, and again, he daydreamed about having someone special back home. Six months earlier he would not have had the nerve even to approach a girl he didn’t know. But his success in the training classes emboldened him—to a point. He began looking for a girl of his own everywhere he went in San Antonio, from movie theaters to cafés. It was easier said than done.
While his Air Force blues caught the eye of young girls, his shyness and his insecurity over his dirt farm roots resurfaced, making it hard for him to introduce himself to them. How, he kept asking himself, could anyone from Dyess stand up to a sophisticated big city girl? Even if he got a girl’s attention, John found himself unable to keep the conversation going for long. “Surely,” he kept thinking, “she’ll see right through this Air Force uniform and dismiss me as some hillbilly.”
After all the setbacks, John had little reason to believe that July 18, 1951, a Wednesday, would be any different. He and a friend were heading back to Brooks after a movie when John spotted the St. Mary’s roller rink, and it reminded him of the good times he’d had skating in Dyess. Specifically, he remembered the way girls used to show up eager to meet boys.
Dragging his friend along, John headed for the rink. It was near closing time, but he rented a pair of skates anyway and watched groups of young girls skating by. That’s when he spotted someone he would later describe as the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was petite—no more than five feet, ninety-five pounds—and she was skating with a girlfriend. He watched her for a few minutes, hoping she’d stop so he could introduce himself. But the pretty brunette kept circling the rink. The pressure on him increased when the announcement came over the loudspeaker that the rink was closing in fifteen minutes.
Almost before he knew what was happening, John started skating slowly toward the girl, not stopping until he actually bumped into her. To anyone watching, it would have looked like a scene from a screwball comedy. When the girl fell to the ground, John reached down to help her up, apologizing profusely. Though he wouldn’t find out until later, Vivian Liberto had been watching him, too, hoping he would come over and say hello. She might even have exaggerated the impact of their encounter and fallen on purpose.
Rather than J.R. or even John, he told her to call him “Johnny,” the first time anyone could recall his using that name. It was as if he wanted something new and more personal, a sign perhaps of just how fast and hard he’d fallen for this young beauty. Johnny stared into her hazel eyes and at her light bronze skin, trying to figure out what to say. Finally he blurted out, “Would you like to skate with me?”
When she replied yes, Johnny felt his heart racing. Crazily enough, the shy boy from Dyess started singing to her, but not one of his country favorites. Probably fearing she might have no interest in country music, he chose a pop song, “I Still Feel the Same about You,” which was a current hit by Georgia Gibbs. It was perhaps an odd selection, because the song wasn’t a tale of romantic bliss but an apology for having broken a girl’s heart.
Vivian was flattered. It was the first time anyone had sung to her. As they continued to skate, Johnny told her that he was from Arkansas and was going to be sailing to West Germany soon. She in turn said she was seventeen and a senior at an all-girls Catholic high school. Johnny was so dazzled by her that the Catholic part didn’t even faze him, despite all the whispering he’d heard in Dyess about the mysterious religion.
As they circled the rink, Johnny pretended he was a novice skater, which encouraged Vivian to hold onto him frequently because she thought he was about to fall. When the house lights flickered, indicating closing time, John felt himself panic. He didn’t want to let this girl go. “Can I take you home?” he blurted out, and his spirits soared when she answered, “Sure.”
Because he didn’t have a car, John had to accompany Vivian home on the bus. On the way, he learned that her family had deep roots in San Antonio. There was a popular market named Liberto’s, and one of her uncles had started the first Spanish-speaking radio station in town. Her father, Tom, owned an insurance agency and her mother was a homemaker. She had a younger sister and an older brother. When they arrived at her front door, he asked if he could see her again. After she said she’d like that, he leaned over and tried to kiss her. Stepping back, she said, “I don’t kiss boys on the first date.”
It may not have been the reaction John hoped for at the time, but it was, in fact, the perfect answer.
Cash was attracted by Vivian’s beauty, but he also quickly decided that Vivian was a “good” girl and that she’d make a faithful, loving wife and a caring mother. And, he would soon learn, she was even a fan of country music. If he had known that, he joked years later, he would have sung her an Eddy Arnold song. Within a week, he was thinking he would someday marry her.
In her room that night, Vivian retraced every moment of the evening. She told her
self she had found her Prince Charming. She spent much of the night tossing and turning, wondering if he’d really call. Her answer came early the next morning. John called not just that day but every other day until he left Brooks in early August. The pair also went out every time he could get away. They went to movies. They went to the malt shop. They went window-shopping. They held hands and strolled along the city’s picturesque River Walk in the moonlight. It wasn’t long before Johnny got that first kiss while they sat on the roof of a car at a drive-in. Soon after, he carved J.C. Loves V.L. on one of the wooden benches along the River Walk. They daydreamed about the future. They were collecting a remarkable number of memories for just three weeks together.
Even though Vivian’s father was concerned about his “baby” dating an Air Force man, Vivian’s younger sister, Sylvia, remembers that her parents couldn’t help but like this polite, respectful young man who said “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” without fail. Still, Sylvia recalls, her father was relieved when he learned Johnny was finally leaving for his new assignment in Germany. There was no way, he figured, that the relationship would last.
But Johnny convinced himself that it would. He told Vivian—or “Viv,” as he began calling her—that he loved her, would always love her, and wanted to spend his life with her. He told her he would write a letter every day—and he made her promise to do the same. It was heady stuff for a nineteen-year-old boy, but it was even more of a fairy tale for a seventeen-year-old girl. He seemed so mature in his uniform. She also thought he was smart, caring, a man of faith, and, of course, very, very sexy.
Johnny wanted to make love to her, but she refused. In reality, he probably didn’t try that hard, because he didn’t want to jeopardize his new dream by giving her the wrong impression of his intentions. One day, he told himself over and over, Vivian Liberto would be Mrs. Johnny Cash and he’d be a singer on the radio. This vision gave him immense comfort as he returned to Dyess in the final days of August. He had promised Viv he would call her before the ship left Brooklyn for West Germany, but he couldn’t wait.
Johnny Cash: The Life Page 4