This rifle, still missing, wasn’t going to deter us from being tested, though.  When the day came for out obstacle course test, it was done similar to that some see on TV when a cop runs an obstacle course to determine enemy vs civilian, to kill or not kill and if to kill how quickly to respond to the threat.  The course ran through the woods with mock buildings and underbrush with tight spaces in some areas where anything could happen in an instant.  We all ran the course about a minute apart from each other and we were timed to see how quickly we would maneuver the course.  All  of us did so within the designed time, but some quicker than others almost running into the man in front of them.  But this was only one part of the test.  There was the second part to come that I dreaded.

The second part consisted of most of the exercises we had done over the last eight weeks, but they were timed and we had to do so many crunches, traverse the hand bars in a certain amount of time and such.  There was the grenade throw, which doesn’t sound like a hard thing to do, but it had to be within a small circle down range and we were graded on how close we came if not in the circle.  What part of all this I dreaded most of all was we had to run a mile in six minutes three seconds.  Don’t ask why there was three seconds added on this.  All I could figure was they wanted to give us a hedge, but what they really wanted was six minutes or less.  I ran the mile is something like five minutes fifty eight seconds, just under the limit, but it was considered excellent.  Quite a few didn’t and it took points off the general score.  By the way the total of all we did, obstacle course and exercises were graded on a scale up to 500 points.  The drill sergeants told us that whoever got a perfect score got to have a free night out before we graduated.  I fell short though.  I made 492.  But I was happy to know there was only one person who got a perfect score and he was one of my buds from North Carolina.  I think in order to pass the test one had to make better than four twenty five or more.  From what I remember no one failed.  A couple of them came close, but we all gave a sigh of release when we were done.  No one was unhappy with their score.  It was just the idea that we passed.

We had been out to the field for a few days prior to graduation and practiced marching out to the field in front of the dignitaries and family who would come to see us graduate.  We’d all get into the company formation with flag bearers and stand orders as directed to pass in review with “eyes right”.  You who have been in the military know what I’m talking about.       

Then the day came.  With one hundred eighty of our company from Texas, you can imagine there were a lot of families that traveled the distance to see their sons graduate.  Unfortunately for those of us remaining there weren’t many families present to admire our new found ability to march around, not really knowing what all went on behind us for the last eight weeks.  This ceremony was the official acknowledgement that we had completed successfully all that was required of us to be called soldier.

          After the graduation ceremony was over we all marched our last march together back to our company.  We broke formation and went to our barracks.  There was no time to waste.  The ceremony was in the morning and orders were ready to be passed out.  Our drill sergeant came in and we all gathered around not much unlike what you might have seen in Full Metal Jacket.  The drill sergeant had a list of assignments and orders for each of us.  I was scared to death of what might come next.  I did know that those who were assigned to North Fort would be going to infantry training with a likely next stop of Vietnam.  Even now at my fittest I was not mentally prepared to accept such orders.  It was a given that the Texas guys were going to different directions and those orders were given out and then there was the forty of us left.  As each name was called in alpha order I heard North Fort after North Fort.  To clear up a possible thought here let me interject here that Ft Polk was divided into two parts.  South Fort was where basic training occurred, which is were we’d been for the last many weeks.  North Fort was a “more of the same” training only more detailed and with more and bigger weapons training, like machine guns and stuff.  Okay, back to giving out orders.  With Rowe being nearer the bottom I had to await with anxiety as they called out different ones, but finally they came to my name.  I heard something about a fort, but I had to hear that again.  The drill sergeant looked up and said to me.  “Somebody’s watching out for you, soldier.”  I asked again where this was.  He repeated Fort Sill, OK, soldier, missile crewmen.  Huh?  What?  Missile crewman?  What kind of missile crewman would I be?  I had to see those orders.  The drill sergeant had a corporal helping him pass the orders out and I was more than ready now to see what this was all about, because it didn’t sound like Vietnam.  Wow!  I was handed the orders and I looked at them to find the line that said the important thing I wanted to know.  There it was in black and white.  I was going to be a Sergeant Missile Crewman.  While I was still basking in the idea of not going to Vietnam I heard Lawrence Shaw’s name called.  Remember him?  He came with me from Bath, North Carolina?  They announced to him orders to North Fort.  I looked over and saw his face.  He turned a whiter shade of pale.  My heart sank for him. 

          After the orders were given out all the guys from Texas were boarded on buses and taken away to where ever they were to go, but all the North Fort soldiers were to stay in the barracks one more night and then go up the next morning.  I was also to stay overnight and board a bus with others heading for Fort Sill the next morning.  So, Lawrence and I had one more day to pal around before parting ways.  Before we went off the base exchange I stopped by the company office and asked the company clerk who put all the orders together what this was I was going to train for.  He was an older Staff Sergeant who looked at me and said something I then remembered from earlier in boot camp.  He said he’d look out for me and he did.  He then told me that a Sergeant Missile Crewman was trained in a compound at Fort Sill, hardly ever going outside to the field except maybe to train fire a machine gun or something.  He also said there were only two places on this earth where these type crewman went.  They were Korea or Germany and that would be determined once I get to my training battery.  He wasn’t getting any argument from me on this knowledge.   

       Later, after dark he and I found a phone booth to call home and I let him go first.  As he was talking to his mom he began to cry saying he didn’t want to go to Vietnam.  I felt sorry for him.  I didn’t want to go either and I had managed to dodge that bullet.  Then I called home and told everyone back home to their relief that I was not going to Vietnam.  After that Lawrence and I went back to the barracks and talked about the past eight weeks and how it had affected us.

           We had gone into the Army the first of September as green as the uniforms we were given, lost all our hair on a barber shop floor, ran ragged for eight weeks, through most anything you could imagine and now here we were.  Here we sat in a nearly empty barracks waiting for the sun to come up fresh to a new adventure awaiting us.  What would we be encountering next?  I knew I had eight more weeks of training and it was almost Thanksgiving.