Airplanes Blog

Archive for November 21st, 2009

 

This may be difficult to believe but I do not think there was ever a doubt in my mind as a child that I would some day be a Soldier serving in the U.S. Army. Some of my first memories, with pictures to confirm them, are of me in a small uniform, with a toy rifle or an American flag in my hands. I even vaguely remember digging a hole in the front yard of my grandmothers house as a defensive measure in case of attack. The only attack that came was from my grandmother when she saw the hole.

Throughout my childhood and preteens I participated in war games with my playmates and friends. Between these games, movies and television, I learned a great deal about small unit tactics. I learned that cautious well planned movements are most effective, that you can never have too much ammunition, surprising your adversary is of great advantage, pain is not a good thing (especially if it is yours), everyone cannot be the leader at the same time, fire and maneuver by teams or two individuals is generally very effective and that a direct frontal attack against a dug in position is effective only if you greatly outnumber the enemy.

There were, of course, obvious reasons that I and my male friends were so into military and “Cowboys and Indians” play and games. We were born in the middle of a War the likes of which the world had never before or after seen. Many of our relatives had served overseas and talked about their experiences. The radio, television, movies and newspapers were full of stories, pictures, newsreels and even full blown movies about the war. While at the same time the Westerns were very popular on the Movies and Television . Even before the T.V. took over our minds radio kept us spellbound once a week with the adventures of “The Lone Ranger”.

During my teens there were more pressing matters than “Soldiering” to occupy my mind. There was my newfound interest in girls, football, school work, girls, driving, tennis, track, girls, finding new ways to drive my parents crazy, books, chess and girls. It was only after High School that I was really faced with the notion of being in the military. That question was resolved the first year of college. At Jacksonville State College (AL) ROTC participation was mandatory for two years, after which one could participate for an additional two years and graduate as a Reserve Second Lieutenant in the Army.

Other than having a profession that the Military really needed (Doctor, Lawyer, Chaplain etc.) whereby one could get a direct commission I believe that college Reserve Officer Training Course (ROTC) is the least traumatic way to get a commission. I of course, took the hard way, Infantry Officers Candidate School (OCS).

There is another way to obtain a commission which I would not recommend. When I was in college I commuted back and forth the seventeen miles from my home town of Oxford with friends that had close to my own start and end of classes. At one time an older gentleman joined our pool for a while. He was a retired Army full colonel going back to finish up his schooling, which was interrupted by World War II. On the way to school one morning I asked him how he had gotten his commission since, from conversations, I knew he didn’t go through ROTC or OCS. His reply was that he had been an enlisted soldier at the battle for Guadalcanal. He was the only survivor in his company so they gave him a battlefield commission as a Second Lieutenant to command the company while it was being re-manned. Now that is the really hard way to get a commission.

I did not go beyond the two year requirement for ROTC because I took a part time job and dropped from a full time student to a part time. I was going to be in school well passed the four years normally required as a full time student to graduate. After five and a half years when it was clear that I had the required grade point average and the points necessary to graduate I again had to seriously think Military options.

It was 1967, the draft for Vietnam was in full effect and I had been deferred to attend college. I knew that soon after graduation I was going to get that “congratulations, your friends and neighbors have selected you—-” letter from the local draft board. It did come but I had been in the service for several months at the time.

I looked into all the Services, including the Coast Guard, talked to their recruiters and took their tests. The only service looking for officers or that had a program other than ROTC to train officers was the Army. I wasn’t smart enough to understand at the time that this was due to the number of Army Officers that were killed or severely wounded in Vietnam. Since I was a college graduate and passed their battery of tests, I was eligible for OCS if I made it through Basic and Advanced Infantry Training. At the time, it sounded like a great idea so I signed on the dotted line.

From an intellectual prospective, I knew that military life would be much different from what I was accustomed but little did I realize that when I made that agreement with the Army, I basically sold not only my soul but my mind and body as well. The change was quick, almost like a train rail switch being activated just before the train arrived and sending me and the other passengers/recruits on the train in a completely different direction in life.

That was one of those few life decisions that a person makes in their lifetime that establishes or defines what that person will be the rest of his days. I have often thought about what one word might describe what the initial years and sometimes all ones military life was like. I think the word “surreal” fits most appropriately.

My initial two year experience in College ROTC was parade field and classroom activities. This was nothing like what I was subjected to in the Active Army.

My first hurdles to be jumped consisted of passing the medical exam, the psychological evaluation, and the Officer Review Board interview. Each of which could take an article to explain so lets just say that none were particularly pleasant and I did pass all three.

I was given a ticket for a bus ride to Montgomery Alabama where the exam facility was located just a few blocks from the station in a converted warehouse along the rail tracks. Upon arrival I was assigned a bunk for the three day ordeal that lay ahead. There were no walls in the place, only partitions and the double-decker bunks, at least a couple of hundred bunks were in a relatively small area.

Turns out my bunk mate on the lower bunk was one of the good old boys from somewhere in south Alabama. He was in a National Guard unit and had not been attending meetings so the Unit had turned in his name to the draft board. He was bragging that they would turn him down for sure due to medical problems. He listed all his aliments starting with vision in only one eye, knee problems and several others that I have long since forgotten.

I saw him again later in the day sitting on his bunk after our physicals had been completed and he was not smiling. I ask if they had turned him down. They did not turn him down and in fact had added insult to injury by inducting him to the Marine Corps.

As for me things went well and shortly thereafter I found myself on an airplane for the first time and headed for Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training. I remember that after landing in Philadelphia and being bused to Fort Dix I was freezing to death. Not being smart enough to check the weather in Jew Jersey, I had only worn a short sleeve shirt with a sweater.

It was after midnight when they got us a quick meal in the mess hall and over to the distribution center where we were issued clothing and our TA50 gear. For you civilians the TA50 means all your combat gear such a helmet, back pack, shelter half, canteen, mess kit and so forth. We were assigned a barracks to sleep in about 2AM.

As luck would have it we spent over a week waiting for the next Basic Training class to start which meant not much of anything to do and in general being bored. Then on the Friday before we were to start training on Monday, we were all standing in line at the mess hall for lunch when we had a couple of surprise visitors.

This tall skinny Sergeant first class (7 stripes) wearing a smoky the bear hat came striding up to us with a small skinny corporal in tow. He announced that he was our assigned drill instructor (DI) and as such he was the new mother and father that the U.S. Army had seen fit to issue us for the duration of our basic training. He further told us that he needed to pick a trainee platoon leader. At that he pulled the little corporal to the front and said that the corporal was a Vietnam veteran and a mean son-of- a- bitch. He told us that the corporal was the recipient of a silver star for valor.

The sergeant then challenged us with the deal that anyone who would step forward and knock the corporal on his ass would be the trainee platoon leader. Shortly thereafter this very large muscular Alabama National Guard recruit stepped forward, slammed his fist into the corporal’s mouth and knocked him on his ass. In fact it almost knocked him out.

There we had our trainee platoon leader. The only problem was that he was not the brightest bulb on the tree. Actually we figured if he had managed two more points on his I.Q. Test he would be considered smart as a rock. He didn’t last very long as the leader once the training started.

Monday morning early our training cycle began and we were bused to our barracks and assigned rooms There were several of us to a room which meant that cooperation and organization were a must. From this point none of us would ever be able to go back to what we were the day before. We were at the threshold of becoming soldiers.

We would see the world differently and from a vastly different prospective. The world would no longer be a comfortable safe place to live and raise a family. From now on we would see a world of war, death and destruction made up of nations, that posed a possible threat to our Nation. We learned the many ways to kill other nation’s soldiers with our hands, knives, explosives and weapons of many kinds.

William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy, on November 24, 1997, broke society down into sheep (vast majority of people), the wolves that prey on the sheep and the sheepdogs that protect the sheep from the wolves. We were training to be the sheepdogs of society and learning the ways of protecting the sheep even to the death. We also quickly learned that the sheep did not particularly like the sheepdogs because they were like the wolf in many ways and the sheep were fearful of them. Besides if there are no wolves in the tree line at the moment, who needs them, they are dangerous, not so well mannered and bothersome.

The “who needs soldiers in peacetime” mentality has been around since there have been armies. I think my favorite poem “Tommy” by Rudyard Kipling says it best. “Its Tommy this and Tommy that and “Chuck him out, the brute” but its “Savior of is’ country when the guns begin to shoot.” You see, Tommy/Mr. Atkins was one of those bothersome sheepdogs too.

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