My War - Installment 1

THE BEGINNING

24 August 1965 - 0900 hours

"...that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to them; and that I will obey..."

"Well, Stan that's that. We should be leaving for Fort Jackson as soon as we finish eating our box lunches."

"I just hope basic isn't a drag," replied Stan. “I'd hate to wash out and not make it to flight school."

"If we wash out of flight school, all we have to do is serve our two years active duty enlistment, a stint in the guard, and then our obligation to Uncle Sam would be completed. You would have to be in pretty lousy shape to wash out of basic training," I said.

"You're right about that, anyway," said Stan “If or when we finish flight school, nine chances out of ten we'll be heading for South East Asia. That fact worries me to no end."

"Don't sweat it; we don't know that for sure," I replied. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Just trust in God..."

"Hey, Stan, drop my box in the rubbish can, would you, please? For now let's enjoy the ride south. It's the last enjoyment we're likely to be having until basic training is over. We're in the Army now."

We all shuffled, somewhat reluctantly, to a waiting bus that was parked outside the induction center building at New Cumberland Army Depot, New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. We were headed for the train station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg was just a short bus ride of about fifteen or so minutes across the Susquehanna River.

As we rode, I stared in silence through the dirty window, looking down at the river and the Dock Street Dam. I thought of the many times that I had gone to the New Cumberland Army Depot as a kid with my best friend Mike. His dad was an Army Officer who retired on disability after World War II. We used to ride over with his mom, and I remembered how a big man at the commissary used to weigh Mike and me on a huge scale outside the warehouse on the loading dock.

I looked around. Everyone sat in their seats very quietly. They seemed to be deep in thought, perhaps about what they had just done or what was ahead of them. I, too, slipped deep into my own thoughts. In my mind I was reviewing the events leading up to this day.

I had just graduated in June, a mere two and one half months before this day in August. During my senior year I had not been able to decide what to do after graduation. If I didn't go directly to college, I would probably be drafted and would have no choice in what I might want to do in the service. I didn't believe that I was ready for college just then. I had considered many different prospects during my last year in high school. Flying was what I wanted to do. Working at a local airport in Hershey, Pennsylvania, home of Hershey's famous chocolate had made me believe that all the more. Actually, I was crazy about flying and aviation in general. While working at the Hershey airport, I started flying. I flew every chance that I got, and anything that I could get to fly. My favorite was an old Aeronca 11BC Chief^®; I think I liked it best because it only cost five dollars an hour wet (with gas). My budding love for flying had turned into an obsession. I found out that it would take what seemed to me forever to get a private license let alone a commercial license. It also was outrageously expensive for the instruction. So, I started to check around. The realization that the military service could be a viable alternative started to form in my mind. The Army had a program that fit me to a tee-The Warrant Officer Flight Training Program.

I checked with the local recruiter and started to get specifics on the procedure to begin qualifying for the program. He mentioned a number of tests that I needed to take; I would have to score high on them, then the test scores would be reviewed. Eventually, I would be interviewed by a military board and the determination would be made as to whether or not I could enter the program.

I commenced to read everything I could get my hands on about flying and more specifically helicopters. Helicopters were what the Army flew most. In my research I discovered that the Army actually had more aircraft than the Air Force; and originally the Air Force was the Army Air Corps. Many trips were made to the state library to check out immense quantities of books on helicopters and flying helicopters - books on their history, books on meteorology and anything about aviation that I could find. I became a walking encyclopedia on aviation and specifically helicopters.

I had visited the Army recruiter umpteen times and made arrangements to be tested for flight training before enlisting. I scored high on my tests, did well before the review board of field-grade officers (Major and up), and was guaranteed flight school in writing before I ever signed on the dotted line. Of course, that was if I made it through basic training without any hitches. At this point I was very proud of myself.

When I told my guidance counselor at Central Dauphin Eas High School what I was going to do he seemed upset with me. He told me, as he had in the past, that I would never amount to anything. He told me that I was just a “nobody.” I was upset by his comments. Perhaps he had some bad feelings about the military. I had not been a bad student or anything. I had not been a trouble maker. I had lettered in varsity sports, run cross country, competed in field events on the track team in discus and javelin, and played a little football. In any case, I considered myself to be somebody already, a soon to be member of the United States Army.

Some of my friends at school began wondering what was causing me to be so preoccupied. I told them of my plans. Some thought I was crazy with the action in Vietnam beginning to pick up. Others seemed slightly interested. I told a buddy of mine, a fellow school mate, about what I had done, and he seemed interested. Stan was a fair-haired fellow a little shorter than me at about five foot seven or eight inches. He was basically a nice guy and we seemed to get along well. I never thought of him as the type to go into the military, but he asked me how he could learn about helicopters and who to talk to about getting tested. I gladly gave him some advice on a few books to read. He was intelligent, so I believed that he would be able to do well on the tests for flight school. I was able to help him because I had just gone through the same thing. He did well on the tests and before the review board.

We learned together from the recruiter that we could join the service on a program called the "Buddy System." We would sit at school during spare moments and daydream about entering the Army together and about flying. We were childish in a way with our silly daydreams, but flying was my goal, and the Army was the only way that I could see that would enable me to grab a hold of that dream. We ended up joining the Army on the "Buddy System" in August of that summer…

Lost in thought I did not even notice the movement of the bus as we approached the train station. Even the train station reminded me of home; my father had worked for the railroad for twenty-eight years while starting his construction business. The sky was gray and seemed full of foreboding as we pulled to a stop. I could see the recruiting office across the street, on the corner of 4^th and Chestnut, and for a brief moment had second thoughts. It was too late for that, though.

"OK, you guys, here we are. Grab your belongings and head into the train station," a voice bellowed out interrupting the silence on the bus.

"Hey, Stan, can you picture yourself sitting in a seat on the train for the next thirty-six or more hours straight? I hope the seats are comfortable."

Just then someone whom I presumed was in charge yelled. "Every one of you should have your train ticket out and in your hand. Let's get crack'n. Move it. Stop the “pansy-assing” around. Grab your bags and get a move on. Get into the station and get on board."

Gosh, this was really it. I was leaving my boyhood home of Paxtang, Pennsylvania. Everything I was familiar with was soon to be far behind me. I thought of my good-bys from that morning with my parents and felt a bit misty and unsure, but there was no turning back.

We all moved onto the train and excitedly looked for our places. Did we luck out or was the Army playing tricks with our minds? "All right!” yelled someone from down the car. "This is something else, two men to a cabin or stateroom or whatever they are called." We had beds and a bathroom with a sink and everything. First class all the way! This Army stuff was all right. Perhaps we had it all figured wrong.

After a few minutes of milling about we found our rooms and started to settle in. Stan and I had a room to ourselves. We stashed our belongings and started to explore the train. There was a dining car and lounge car and the whole works. After satisfying our curiosity we settled down and started to get acquainted with some of the others with whom we were traveling. The pressure was off for now. We had been sworn in earlier in the day, but since we had boarded the train there was no one watching over us.

It seemed that Stan and I were the only two enlistees on the entire train, the only RA (Regular Army) enlistees. All the others were "weekend - warrior" types, going on their long stint of active duty by going to basic training. I despised getting stuck with these flunkies. Thinking about being stuck with some of those fellows brought to mind one incident which took place while I was being tested at New Cumberland Army Depot. There were a number of others taking various tests at the same time. The majority of the men were National Guard types. One guy in particular sticks out in my mind. This guy was so DUMB, or maybe just totally uneducated, that he, in all sincerity, had the test upside down and did not know it. I mean, you can tell when a person is faking dumb, but this guy was unreal he was not faking anything. I suppose that they were not all that bad, although I certainly did not like the idea of that kind of goof defending the country. I was RA, gung ho, and patriotic.

That afternoon and early evening were passed in quiet bull sessions until we all went to the dining car. I told myself that the first day of Army life had not turned out too bad.

After supper we returned to our rooms to freshen up a bit. There had been some scuttlebutt about getting up some card games for that evening. The idea sounded all right to me. The rooms in the train's Pullman cars were set up in two's so that they could be opened up into one large room. This was done by means of a solid folding partition. It seemed unfortunate to me that Stan had volunteered our room to be used as one of the card playing areas. Gone was any hope of a good night's sleep, unless I did it in someone else's room, or on the floor in a corner. I was not much of the card buff at that time in my life. I was intrepid enough to sit in on the game for a while as long as the bets did not get to be too large.

The evening passed with everyone engrossed in the card game. Smoke was hanging heavily in the small gaming area, a most overwhelming condition for a young man from a nonsmoking family. Before we knew it, it was somewhere between three and four in the morning, and I was totally exhausted. My lungs hurt; my clothes and the room reeked from the smell of the smoke. I suggested that we break up and get a little sack time. We had no real idea about what we would be doing the next day, or what time we would be arriving in Columbia, South Carolina and Fort Jackson. We could very easily begin again in the morning after breakfast if we really had the urge to continue. There probably would not be much to do anyway except look at the heat-drenched southern landscape and the lazy little whistle stops. My argument was convincing, and the game was reluctantly coming to a close. I sighed with relief when everyone finally left the room, and I could fold down my bunk and go to sleep.

I surprised myself, waking up around 0800 to the clickety-clack of the train wheels on the rail joints. The scenery had changed during our night’s passage from the rolling hills and mountains of Pennsylvania and northern Virginia to the seemingly endless fields and farmland of the Piedmont. It seemed like we had been on the train for days already.

As I sat alone at breakfast in the dining car, men, obviously some of the raw recruits, straggled in looking as if they had spent the night drinking in the lounge car. I watched in silence and kept to myself milling over in my mind what I thought would be in store for me in South Carolina.

After breakfast we folded back the partition between our room and the next, and got ready for the day's card game. It looked hotter than heck outside, even though it was still early in the morning. Heat waves shimmered off of every object in the scenery outside. I was quite happy to be on the train enjoying the air conditioning and even the card game. We finally got around to meeting the fellows who were occupying the other half of the gaming room. I had not been aware of who they were the previous evening because of the number of people present and the amount of confusion. Stan had opened the partition before I returned from the dining car, so I had no idea who our neighbors were.

There was one fellow in the room that I disliked immediately. I had noticed him the night before and earlier that previous day. His name was John. He, first of all, was one of the Reservists, which was one strike against him from the start. He was the proverbial BIG mouth. His mouth was always in motion telling everyone else what to do. Besides these terrific attributes, he struck me as kind of stupid at some grass roots level. He was not a bad looking guy; around six feet, heavy framed, dark hair and eyes, kind of beady, but I disliked him and his pushy ways. I suppose he was just too cocky! He probably was not really stupid; he was just an ass. In spite of my dislike for John, we settled into our card game with Big Mouth trying to take command of everything and everyone.

Unfortunately our leisure did not last. The conductor told us that Columbia was about forty-five minutes away. Abruptly the card game ended and the smoke-filled room settled back to a semblance of normalcy. I sat and stared blankly out of the window at the scenery. Trees and bushes, houses, barns and fields whizzed past my field of view. I sat, inwardly, shaking from a combination of fear and excitement as the last miles that separated us from Columbia clickety-clacked by.

The picnic was over. I knew it as soon as I stepped off of the train. The temperature must have been at least one hundred and ten degrees, and the relative humidity was unbearable with moisture nearly dripping from the air. It was like stepping from a refrigerator into a greenhouse. This extreme change was devastating; it actually took my breath away. That same feeling would come back to me in another place in the not too distant future.

There would be no more civil treatment. We were herded onto a waiting, un-air conditioned bus. The bus immediately headed for the Reception Center at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The sky was an intense blue, the foliage lush and green and almost dripping, due to the humid air.

We entered the gate, and within a few minutes caught our first glimpse of the reception center. This was to be our home for the next few days.

The bus pulled to a halt and we were urged to exit quickly. We were greeted by a Drill Sergeant who chewed us up one side and down the other, just to make us feel at home. The DI escorted us to the barbers. Our first real joy of Army life at Fort Jackson was to be a hair cut a la Army style, zip, zap, next! Those barbers and I am not too sure that they could really be classified as barbers, must have cut upwards of two thousand heads a day each.

After our hair cuts, we were herded off again. The scraggly formation was definitely not marching. In any event we arrived, en masse, at our tents and were assigned bunks for our stay at the reception center. I was rather disappointed. I thought that we would at least have a barracks with toilets and showers. But then, it could have been worse, and who knew, it might even get worse.

We were tested for three days. It could have been less. It seemed like more. After three days in the same clothes, in the unbearable summer heat of South Carolina, everybody was fairly ripe. We were supposed to have gotten our uniforms by then, but for some reason we had not. We waited longingly for that day to arrive. Not that everyone was anxious to get into a uniform - it was just becoming unbearable in the one set of clothes that we had been told to bring with us. The big day arrived. We would finally get our uniforms and at least looked more like soldiers, I thought. The time had come to officially shed our reeking civvies (civilian clothes) and don the lovely and stylish fatigue uniform for the first time.

We marched to the Quarter Master's shed and formed a single line moving into the building for our issue of clothing.

"All right, recruits. Put your belongings on the counter top knives-knuckles, (of the brass variety, we had some hoodlums in the group), girly books, everything. You won't be needin’ these things or getting’ them back, you shit heads."

We each were issued a duffel bag and clothing. From there we walked to our company area in formation. We were to be the Delta Devils, rah, rah, rah.

Most of us threw away the civilian clothing in which we had spent most of a week. There was no place to have them washed. We put on our fatigues, went outside, and were called into a rude formation. Now we could walk (march) to the mess hall like real soldiers. Our men looked more like a whole company of Beatle Baileys, with baggy ill-fitting fatigues that were either too big or too small.

"Attnhtn. Hup-whoo-hee-hore, hup-whoo-hee-hore." Off we went to the mess hall.

We finally were able to settle into the task of “Basic Training.” We were all Private E-1's earning the incredible sum of sixty-four dollars per month, or there about, plus all you could eat.

Fate must have decided to twist the screw because Big Mouth John was appointed our squad leader. A more severe blow could not have been rendered to those of us, the glorious few, who were RA Regular Army).

Calisthenics were of course, part of our daily fare. We ran five miles each morning with our Company Commander, Captain Thompson, leading the company. He was quite gung-ho, and macho, the epitome of the "Regular Army" man and officer that I aspired to be. Of course, this little bit of exercise was before breakfast. Then we would double time to the mess hall and go across the horizontal ladder of twenty-five rungs to the doors of the mess. No crossing, no breakfast. That was not until a person was, at least made to feel like a turd. I pitied the poor fat buggers in the platoon who never made it across the ladder during the whole course of Basic Training. I could not imagine the complex mental problems they would probably develop during their stay at Fort Jackson. They would more than likely feel that a job as a watchdog would be an upgrade after some of the Basic training crap they had experienced.

I learned early how to get out of KP duty. I volunteered to be a truck driver. The drivers were on call and did not turn KP duty. We rarely drove either, so it turned out to be a good deal.

Our basic day was filled with exercise and drills and drills and classes and drills and classes, marching, hand to hand combat with pugil-sticks and without. Thanks to Dr. Armond Seilder, inventor of the Pugil Stick training method during World War II. We northern boys were not used to the tremendous heat and humidity. Men in my platoon and company were dropping like flies. One fat guy dropped one day around 1015 hours. The Sergeant went over and cursed him as he lay unconscious on the ground. I believed his abuse was more for show than anything else, the guy obviously could not hear him. It was a play to give us the feeling that DI's (Drill Instructors) were hard as nails. Our DI (Drill Instructor) did show compassion on a number of occasions.

One thing that kept me going was thinking about the future when I would become an officer. I told myself that I would make a special trip to Fort Jackson just to give my old DI a hard time. Every time someone did the least thing wrong, the DI was on him like the stink on poop.

"Hey, you recruit, bend over, reach down between your legs, grab hold of yourself by the ears, and pull your head out of your ass."

Obstacle courses were a major part of our training as we progressed, and I enjoyed them very much. I had grown up in the woods doing the kind of things that were part of the obstacle courses. I lived in the woods when I was a kid. I spent my time camping, and hunting and fishing, making dead-fall traps and catching chipmunks and snakes to sell to the other kids in school. When I was seventeen, my father made me tear down my tree house. I had lived in that tree house every summer all summer for a number of years. I loved the obstacle courses; they were a piece of cake for me. It was more like playing games than work, even in full field dress.