In formation the first week I did what I was told not to do by different ones in the company. They said when asked if you have a license to drive don’t volunteer. They’ll just give you a broom or mop and tell you to “drive this”. Well, being adventurous I raised my hand when they did ask this question they called about four others and myself out of formation. Some in the formation were snickering until the First Sergeant directed us before them to report to driver’s training. The company required we have ambulance drivers when we marched to the field and we were going to be those drivers. We were then marched off to a building and given training in the Army fashion and once completed we were given a military driver’s license and shown how to check out vehicles from the motor pool. Ah, I had gained some relief from marching to the field. My legs were short in comparison to most of the guys and marching in step with them I had already found was difficult since they took longer steps than me.
If I’ve mentioned this before, please pardon me. I’m considered by some as being a bit forgetful, but I still have my “annual” as I call it. It’s like a high school yearbook of boot camp. It has pictures of all those I went through training with including instructors and candid pictures of us in training. I’ll put some of those in along for your amusement, I suppose. This will give you some idea of the settings I attempt to portray in this story. I am also using this book to help me remember some of the things I did then.
The first week consisted mostly of repeating the morning runs with progressive attempts at exercise. The runs continued to get longer with each succeeding day as well. Remember we’re in the draft and some of these guys are relatively overweight. I wasn’t in too bad a shape. I was about one seventy five at five seven or so. But some of these guys were having it tough. You’ve seen movies like “Full Metal Jacket”. Well, the Army’s boot camp back then was comparable, very comparable. So, if you want to watch something “live” check this movie out and watch it. We just didn’t have “Pyle” in our group, although we did have an interesting end to boot camp. Read on and you will see.
One particular guy named Dryden did something he regretted. During that first week we took out on our morning run and he decided he would not make it, so he dropped out at the corner where we make our turn to get on the next street and he walked back to the company area while we continued to run for about a mile that morning. When we got back to the company area, there he stood without a drop of sweat on him. It was apparent he hadn’t been anywhere. This was mid September in the Louisiana bayou. The temperature ran in the nineties with a very high humidity. I mean, we were drenched down in sweat after a mile run. The drill sergeants seeing this took his overweight self out into the street and ran along beside him and made sure he ran that whole mile before he was allowed to eat. This event led to the “fat squad”. All those deemed overweight were put in this squad and weren’t allowed to eat in mess until they performed an exercise regimen before each meal. The rest of us ate and then as the mess hall was clearing the final regular trainees, they were allowed to eat whatever was left, if any. There were about a dozen of these hapless fellow trainees in this squad.
Daily exercise consisted mostly of the hurdle runs. Not over them, but around them. There was the alligator crawl on mats. Then there were the hand bars and chin up bars. All of this was daily, without fail. The other stuff like the obstacle course was extra.
I'm the one squating holding the mat.
Marching. Now we spent quite a bit of time learning marching drills. I won’t go into detail. Suffice to say we learned teamwork from this. Everyone had to march in step, turn as commanded, and so forth. To me this was fairly easy. It had order and arrangement to it, which I am a stickler for anyway. And besides that, anytime we went anywhere we marched together. We marched to the field for hand to hand combat training, pugel training, rifle range and even to the barber shop.
This, by the way, brings me back to the A, B, C haircut choices we were given at the reception center. The first time we went to the barber shop as a company the drill sergeants marched us up to the door, got us in line and looked inside and told the barbers the only haircut allowed in their company was the A. That was the shorty short hair cut. Ah the bliss of having chosen the A haircut for myself. It was a bit of chagrin for those who chose otherwise. They had hoped to retain a bit of their Samson look, albeit a bit short for pushing down temple columns.
Oh, don’t let me forget. There were the shots. Much to my relief there was no square needle in the left nut shot, but we got shots almost every week the first four weeks we were there. I got used to the guns after a bit and the small needles were nothing to me at all. The only time we had trouble with shots was when they gave us two particular shots mid morning about the fourth week. These shots didn’t take long to prove excruciating. There was one in each arm that morning. In a matter of an hour or so we were unable to lift our arms above parallel to the ground. Then came lunch. Of course this meant the hand bars and chin ups, which required us to get our arms above our heads. This proved very painful. We made it through this with a few casualties. It made some sick to do so. Well, we made it through mid day mess and rested about thirty minutes and then we were called to formation and marched down to the end of the block to an open field next to a large building. We got into our hand to hand formation and did the motions with the AHHH’s and such. You know, you had to make those menacing sounds when you swept your open hand around like delivering a karate chop and all. You remember don’t you? Okay, follow me. As this progressed I started seeing guys falling out like flies. With the afternoon heat and humidity and those shots from the morning and being forced to flail our hurting arms around made some simply pass out. Literally. I wasn’t driving the ambulance that day, so I continued the drill while the dropouts were hauled off to the dispensary. I found out later these two shots give this expected result and they were prepared for this day.
Well, there were map reading classes, the infamous gas chamber where my friend Lawrence actually turned green when he came out. I’ve never seen anyone turn green before, but trust me, he did. I never, ever wanted to do that again and I don’t know anyone who relishes going to the gas chamber. All the things that make boot camp what it is was there.
Then there was the rifle range. This started with no ammo as you would suppose. Some of us had never held a rifle let alone shoot one. I had been hunting since I was young and always used a .22 caliber to hunt squirrels. I believed in giving them a chance over using a shotgun. Killing squirrels with a shotgun was too easy. I got my share with the .22. Now I was given a .762 size round in a weapon with 20 rounds minimum and would fire automatically all the rounds in about, oh, say, 2-3 seconds. In spite of what some say you make your weapon what you want it to be. Some like the M-1. I liked the M-16. It was recoilless. No kick whatsoever. Whenever I fired it all I got was hearing the spring in the stock “zing!” in my right ear.
Senior Drill Sergeant Paulovits came by to watch me one particularly hard morning while I was siting in my rifle. I couldn’t seem to get my grouping in on the 25 meter target. They had to be tight, yet mine weren’t for some reason. He commented that if I didn’t I’d surely bolo on the range. He was saying by this that I would not meet the minimum standards of marksmanship on the firing range. I was determined not to be on the bottom of this heap. I managed to get it right finally before having to give up my spot to someone else. My rifle was mine now. It was fit to me and my eye.
The day came at the end of the fourth week when the cadre said we were dependable enough to allow us to have a base pass. Up to this time we were not allowed to leave the company area without someone in charge to accompany us. This was a major freedom for many of us. Smoking had been somewhat limited and of course women and drinking were totally off limits. We could call home on weekends, that being Sunday for the most part. Our time was very limited, because when we weren’t in training we were washing clothes, in the soldier’s standards and regulations learning our standing orders and the like. There was boot polishing, ironing as well. We were learning to become self-sufficient as well as being a team member. I was still trying to get used to boxer shorts. I hated them. I don’t know why. When I was home I went commando during the weekends. I guess it was the extra material that really didn’t do anything but bunch up in my pant legs.
That Monday morning turned into the week from hell. The majority of the guys went to places on base where they could get that 3.2 beer. Of course they drank themselves silly on the stuff trying to get drunk for the first time in weeks for some and the first time ever for some others. I wasn’t a drinker at the time, so that was out of the question. I did, however, go to the base exchange and purchased a saucer cap. I didn’t have one for some reason and I didn’t like the issued ones. We had to wear our Class C’s on base liberty, which was short sleeve kakis. I was the only one in the company wearing Class C’s with a saucer cap. I didn’t have any sleeve rank, so I got saluted by soldiers from other training companies who mistook me for an officer since officers only wore rank on their collars and these guys didn’t know their butts from a hole in the ground if they were sitting on it.
Anyway, come Monday morning it was my draw to drive the ambulance. And it was the day the drill sergeants decided to run the company to the rifle range in full gear including rifles. It was seven miles to the range. We started out pretty good, but around mile two soldiers started dropping out. First there were a few. Now this morning there wasn’t an ambulance available, so I was issued a Ford F150 with a dropped back bumper like the ones you see on highway crews where they guy stands on the bumper and drops or picks up cones along the road as the truck rolls along. Okay, about mile three they start dropping out faster. It didn’t take long to fill the bed of the truck with these guys. Eventually the only place left for more guys was the bumper. In short, I had so many guys on the truck that that bumper was actually dragging the pavement. About mile four the trailing drill sergeants saw what was happening and came back to the truck and ordered ever last one off and back to formation. Oh well, so much for getting out of running to the rifle range.
I called my parents a couple of times during the first half of training. They told me Vickie was messing around and getting into trouble. For some reason I believed them, but I was taking it hard. I called her once and she seemed so eager to see me again. I told her I’d be home by year’s end, so just hang on. I sense this was the beginning of the end for us. Some days I’d get homesick. I got teary eyed one particular day right in the middle of a march. It was like a revelation that I wasn’t home. Not even close to home for that matter, yet I was so proud of the fact that here I was marching in step with over 200 other soldiers serving my country. This was the first time patriotism became a reality to me. This was my country and it was my responsibility to serve it for at least a short time and pay back something for my freedom as well as the freedom of even the ones who would later show disdain for my uniform. But there I was marching, tears down my cheeks, proud to be there, yet homesick and saying to myself that I wish my family could see me right now.
