THE ARMY GAVE me a rifle soon after we arrived at Fort Gordon, Georgia, for Basic Combat Training. It was an M-14 magazine fed, gas-operated, semi-automatic weapon, caliber 7.62mm.  

As I researched Castro's revolution, I learned that the Fidelistas were provided with weapons in Mexico. Most of them were given .30 caliber hunting rifles with telescopic sights. Fidel was convinced that the Cuban soldiers would fear his marksmen. A few of his men had submachine guns and some others had World War II era M1 carbines – the weapon depicted on Che's statue in Villa Clara. Most of their ammunition and supplies were abandoned when their vessel, Granma, ran aground and the Fidelistas waded ashore. Their remaining weapons and ammunition were lost when more than 70 of the 83 rebels were killed in the ambush that awaited them as they emerged from the mangrove swamp where they had taken shelter after abandoning ship.

The peasants recruited by Celia Sanchez had to bring their own weapons to the rebel camp on Pico Turquino. Those without weapons were turned away. Fidel simply didn't have any to supply to them. In one instance that I used in my novel, a young man who had been turned away, joined the Cuban army and then deserted after he was issued an M-1 Garand. The M-14s that we were issued at Fort Gordon replaced the M-1 in the U.S. Arsenal. 

We arrived back at our barracks one evening after training to discover that someone had installed close circuit televisions (CCTV) at the end of each floor of each building. Our first lesson on the CCTV was the care and maintenance of our rifles. We pulled our footlockers together and followed the televised instructor as he field stripped and reassembled his weapon. In no time we were competing to see who could do it the fastest, blindfolded. 

I had fired thousands of rounds of small bore ammunition – mostly .22 caliber – before I joined the army. I also shot trap and skeet with shotguns. Thus, I had no problem when it came to zero our weapons. We had to place three shots inside a one inch square target at 25 meters. Most of us Southern boys accomplished the task with just a few shots to adjust the sights. We then relaxed the rest of the day as the Yankees fired hundreds of rounds attempting to duplicate our feat. It was like having a day off.

I'm convinced my weapon was captured by the Viet Cong and thrown back as unfit for use. It was in pretty bad shape, but it served its purpose. I fired Expert when the time came to qualify with it. However, during night firing exercises, the sear pin wore away and it emptied the full magazine of twenty rounds with just one pull of the trigger. The sergeant in charge of the firing range was livid. “Who the hell's the John Wayne on my firing line!” he shouted as he came looking for the offender. Obviously, he believed that someone could pull the trigger that fast.

I kept my mouth shut.

I was lucky to keep the barrel pointed down range when that happened. Later, when we fired the AR-14, a fully automatic version of the M-14, we discovered that no one could control it. The barrel jerked off target when firing short bursts of just two rounds.

The Manual of Arms was equal parts a guide to marching and saluting with a rifle as well as how to fire it. Both halves were drilled into us until we could obey any command reflexively. Firearms safety was our first and foremost lesson. A battlefield is dangerous enough without the men around you mishandling their weapons.

I well remember our first time on the firing line. We were instructed to stand behind a row of stakes in the ground – one for each of us sticking about six inches above the earth. The sergeant in charge then ordered us to lay out weapons with the muzzles pointed down range, resting on the stakes in front of us, and then stand at attention with the butt end of rifles between our feet. He expressed his dissatisfaction with our performance and had us retrieve our weapons and do it again. And again. And again. It became apparent to me that he was establishing his control over us.

We learned three basic firing positions: standing, sitting, and prone. To qualify, we had to fire accurately on targets as far away as 400 meters from all three positions. There were three levels of qualification: Marksman, Sharpshooter, and Expert.

We also had to learn how to fire our weapons in combat. It wasn't enough to simply shoot at targets. We had to know which targets to engage and when to engage them. Fighting as a unit is vastly different from fighting as an individual. Individuals such as snipers shoot to kill – one shooter, one bullet, one kill. Infantry units such as fire teams, rifle squads, and rifle platoons shoot to destroy, neutralize, or suppress the enemy. 

Fundamentally, Fidel's recruits were snipers and he had to fashion them into infantry units. A sniper may inflict serious damage on an enemy. He may even demoralize an enemy. But, a sniper cannot defeat an enemy. His cover and concealment is usually compromised after a shot or two and he has to withdraw before a well-trained infantry unit can maneuver to locate and destroy him. It takes an infantry unit to destroy an infantry unit. Thus, I could reasonably infer that the Fidelistas had to train the recruits to function effectively as infantry units before they could do any more than harry the Cuban army forces. Again, lacking any credible evidence to the contrary, I assumed in writing my novel that they were trained as I was at Fort Gordon.

Our weapons had to be cleaned and ready to be issued to the next class when our eight weeks of Basic Combat Training ended. The company armorer made sure they were cleaned well enough when we turned ours back to him. Each platoon was given ample cleaning supplies and a whole day to make them ready for inspection. Each man made several attempts to satisfy the armorer that his weapon was clean enough.

Unfortunately, I was detailed to the mess hall that day and had only a few minutes to clean my weapon. Of course, all the cleaning supplies were used up by the time I made it back to our barracks. I tore up a t-shirt to make cleaning patches and used a bottle of Jade East aftershave as a solvent. You should have seen the look on the armorer's face as he brought the weapon close to look down the barrel. He quickly pushed it away and looked at me incredulously. I shrugged and explained that I had been on KP all day. He shook his head and put my weapon on the rack. That was the last I saw of it.

Postscript: Upon arrival in Vietnam, I was issued an M-16. I never fired an M-14 again.  

I DON'T KNOW if the Fidelistas learned how to march while being trained in Mexico. I cannot find any resource describing the training that they received there. However, the New York Times correspondent, Herbert Matthews mentioned seeing the rebels marching during his visit to their camp, and I was able to infer that marching found its way into their little army. The Fidelistas must have learned it in Mexico to be able to pass it on the peasants recruited in Cuba by Celia Sanchez. Again, I did not expect to find diaries or letters written by mostly illiterate peasants. 

The importance of marching isn't as apparent as it once was. It's easy to see how the Romans used well- practiced formations and movements to defeat barbarians and build an empire. However, it's not so easy to see how such tactics apply to modern combat wherein individual riflemen fight from scattered positions. Still, marching is important as a tool for instilling discipline, building a sense of camaraderie, and teaching men to react unquestioningly to commands.

In my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, I supposed that the recruits would not have liked learning to march. I used that resistance to create a conflict between the recruits and the Fidelistas, one which I resolved in a manner that helped build bonds between them as compañeros. Interestingly, in my own experience, the recruits themselves asked to be trained to march.

Just after we had been issued our uniforms at the U.S. Army Reception Center, we were moving as a mob to our next processing station. A company of men, basic trainees I suppose, marched past us and men around me began asking the corporal who was leading us to call cadence. The corporal looked confused at first, then shrugged and began, “Left, right, left, right.” Within a few paces we had sorted ourselves into a crude formation of ranks and files, and began marching in step. We weren't going to win any awards, but we looked like soldiers for the first time.

I believe that we simply wanted to belong or, at least, appear to belong. Although I was in my early twenties at the time, I was surrounded mostly by teenagers, and it may just be that they were responding to peer pressure and I got caught up in it.

Marching became integral to everything we did once we began Basic Combat Training. Everything occurred in formation. There were formations to facilitate moving a large group of men from point A to point B. There were formations for exercising. I suppose you could even call a single file waiting to enter the mess hall a kind of formation.

Formations in ancient times were densely packed. Shield bearers occupied the front ranks and carried short stabbing swords to pierce enemy defenses when they were pressed up against them. Spearmen followed close behind using their long weapons to reach past the shield wall. Other shield bearers and spearmen followed in ranks behind to replace the front two when they fell in battle. Archers and javelin throwers launched their missiles from behind.

Modern warriors fight at more widely spaced intervals. Soldiers who form up into clusters invite destruction by exploding weapons. However, widely spaced warriors are more difficult to control effectively and even greater discipline is needed to keep them fighting as a cohesive team. Thus, infantry trainers begin teaching recruits ancient formations and movements to learn the discipline and cohesion of a unit, and later increase the interval as they teach them modern weapons and tactics.

Marching alone does not make an effective fighting force. Indeed, too much of it can be detrimental to combat effectiveness. Historically, garrison troops march well and fight badly. For example, as I studied the war in Korea in preparation for writing my next novel, Behind Every Mountain, I learned that the first troops rushed to Korea from American garrisons in Japan following the Communist invasion of the south, were driven back relentlessly by the enemy. Likewise, in Cuba, although the army outnumbered the rebels 40,000 to 300, they were beaten in every engagement, but they marched well in Havana.

The most extreme form of marching is the goose step. It was developed by the Prussians in the 19th Century to help keep ranks in line as they approached the enemy. Inasmuch as closely spaced ranks of goose stepping soldiers are not practical in modern warfare, and it is no longer used except in ceremonial parades. It remains popular in as many as thirty nations to this day as a symbol of military discipline. It was long derided in the United States as symbolic of oppression. As George Orwell observed, “It is only used in countries where people are too scared to laugh at their military.”

As I wrapped up this posting, I was amused to find that it is used today by the Cuban military. 

INASMUCH AS the vast majority of Castro's Fidelistas were illiterate peasants from the Sierra Madras Mountains that had harbored Cuban outcasts and outlaws for many centuries, there were few written personal records or diaries to help me write Rebels on the Mountain. Furthermore, the records left to us by the leaders of the revolution, including Castro and Guevara, are self-serving propaganda of dubious historical accuracy. Thus, I had to rely on common sense as well as my infantry training and experience to deduce what might have happened during the Cuban Revolution that brought Fidel to power.  

The Cuban Army had been armed and trained by the same people who trained me, the United States Army. Most of their officers would have been trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas which shared facilities with the Infantry Officer Candidate School that I attended at Fort Benning, Georgia. I remember seeing many foreign nationals wearing a variety of uniforms as I went to classes there.

Fidel and his rebels had been trained in weapons and tactics by another Cuban they found living in Mexico, Alberto Bayo. Born in Cuba and educated in the United States and Spain, Bayo had been a leader of the failed Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. He then emigrated to Mexico where he operated a furniture factory and instructed at a military academy in Guadalajara. Most of the Fidelistas he trained were killed on landing in Cuba after their harrowing voyage on the cabin cruiser Granma. Thus, the surviving Fidelistas had to train the peasants recruited by Celia Sanchez before they could be trusted to engage in battle with President Batista's forces. Although many of these peasants had engaged in guerrilla actions with Cuba's Rural Guards, they had no training or experience fighting as organized fire teams, squads, or platoons.

I suspect that their reactions to the training was not significantly different than mine. Men are boys everywhere. They would have grumbled at the physical exercises designed to build their strength and endurance. They would have bridled at the discipline and complained about everything, especially the food. They would have made games at every opportunity, creating impromptu competitions to show off their prowess and skills. I know because that is what everyone around me did in Basic Combat Training.

When our buses arrived at Fort Gordon, Georgia, the gate was locked. A sergeant opened it with a bolt cutter and we may have been the first Basic Trainees on the post since Korea. Although the Army's Signal School was still in operation at Fort Gordon, the barracks that we arrived at that day looked like they hadn't been used in decades. Dust and dirt coated everything and the interiors of the barracks were dimly lit by what little light could penetrate the film on the windows.

There were four two-story wooden barracks buildings assigned to our company, two on each side of a one story office – the orderly room – and a one story mess hall. Our commanding officer (CO), Captain John Sevcik, and his cadre were waiting for us as we arrived. There was surprisingly little shouting as we were told to drop our baggage by the buses and gently herded into crude ranks and columns surrounding a wooden platform that we would later learn was the PT Tower – where a sergeant would stand and lead us in the Army's Daily Dozen stretching and bending and strength-building exercises.

The CO stood on the PT Tower beside a console stereo system. It was playing the Ballad of the Green Berets which was popular until the war became unpopular. The company First Sergeant and other non-commissioned officers who were to become our training platoon sergeants, stood in front of the PT Tower staring back at us. They looked as curious about us as we were about them. 

One other officer, Second Lieutenant Archembalt, stood to one side, smoking a pipe, attempting to look mature enough to be a leader. It didn't work. He looked every bit of twenty years of age, maybe nineteen, and his uniform and gold bars looked brand new.

The CO introduced everybody and gave us a brief overview of the program that was laid out for the next eight weeks. He assured us that he and the cadre had just one objective, to provide us with the very best training possible. He sounded sincere enough to be believable.

We were divided alphabetically by last name, into four platoons. Thus, I found myself alongside a few other trainees who would be alongside me all the way to Infantry Officer Candidate School. We were assigned to the first platoon and introduced to Master Sergeant Dunn, our platoon sergeant, and Staff Sergeant Gore, his assistant. Strange how I can remember these people so clearly more than forty years later. They told us to grab our baggage from where we had left them next to the buses, now departed, and meet them at the first barracks building. 

I recognized the buildings. They were built from the same design as the ones I had lived in at Fort Holabird while studying languages at the Army Spy School when I was a fourteen year old Sea Scout. I had to chuckle when I remembered the signs on the center posts informing us that these wooden structures would burn to the ground in one hundred eighty seconds if a fire broke out. The wood was so thin and dry, I believed them and I took a bunk on the first floor.

It's important that you understand that I was totally unprepared for all that happened during those eight weeks of Basic Combat Training. My father had avoided service during World War II and Korea, and his surviving brother, who I barely knew, was significantly older, and he had served as a Dough Boy during World War I. The Army he had served in bore no resemblance to the one I found myself in. Thus, all I knew of the Army came from World War II propaganda films and documentaries as well as Beetle Bailey Comics. 

My first surprise came during my first meal at the mess hall. The Mess Sergeant tolerated no nonsense whatsoever. However, I came to discover that he was determined to feed us as well as possible. Luckily, I had been cooking for more than twelve years by this time and recognized that the food was excellent. The grumblings from the other trainees surprised me until I realized that they were used to eating whatever their mothers put in front of them and that is what they expected. I, on the other hand, used table condiments judiciously to adjust flavors. The basic ingredients and cooking was just fine to me.

One thing that everyone appreciated was the plentiful supply of fresh milk. I suspect that everyone else was like me. We had grown up drinking it. Indeed, my mother frequently told me that our milkman (yes, we had milk delivered to our home in those days) wept when I left and she reduced the deliveries, and then rejoiced whenever I came home on leave.

Our first lessons on that first day came in the barracks. How to make a bunk that would pass the sergeant's critical inspection. How to sleep head to foot to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases. How to keep our areas clean. Our personal effects were divided into two groups, those that had to be displayed and those that could be locked away in our footlockers. Funny, we were issued an old fashioned razor that had to be kept scrupulously clean. It held a double edged blade and had to be disassembled to replace it. I believe it may have dated back to the Spanish-American War. We were also given a gift pack from Schick and for many of us, we began using that brand for many years thereafter.

We used the remainder of the day, well into the evening, cleaning our barracks building. Each platoon also contributed men to a work party to help clean the orderly room. By the time we went to bed that night, no one had any problem sleeping. Unfortunately for a few of us, that sleep would not be undisturbed. At least one person on each floor of each building had to be awake at all times to watch out for fires. Remember, as I mentioned before, our living quarters were real firetraps.

I HAD LIVED on Oahu, one of the Hawaiian Islands, for about three months when I developed island fever. It came as a recurring dream. I was driving around the island when I saw a bridge. I could see cars crossing it but couldn't find any means of accessing it. For some reason, I was certain that the bridge connected to San Francisco and I desperately wanted onto it. The frustration continued into my waking hours. I grew restless and slightly depressed. A lot of people gave up and returned to the mainland under the spell of island fever. Then, as suddenly as the affliction appeared, it abated after about six months, and I settled into island life. 

Oahu is about forty-four miles long and thirty miles across. Image then how much worse it would have been had I been trapped on the tiny island of Run, an insignificant speck in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago. Just two miles long and half a mile wide, it is remote, tranquil, and these days largely ignored.

Those who would study history, as well as understand current events, would do well to pause and take note of Run. Although it is no longer significant, the impact of the shot and shell fired to capture and retain it still echo today. This tiny island was the center of a war between Britain and the Netherlands. In settling this war, the Dutch ceded Manhattan to the English, thus establishing the beginning of the British Empire and setting in motion the events that would culminate in the creation of the United States.

How could this infinitesimal spot of land in the middle of an ocean on the other side of the world have such significance. Well, it was the most productive of the Spice Islands. Each pound of Run's harvest of nutmeg yielded a 3200% profit. It's price was inflated by inflated claims that it could cure the plague and other dread diseases. At the very least, it could render putrid meat palatable. And, it was rare. Indeed, its source was a mystery to all but a very few.

Nathaniel's Nutmeg is the story of Nathaniel Courthope who was sent by King James I in 1616 to discover its location. In addition to the perils of navigating his way through uncharted waters to an island located more than six hundred miles from the nearest landmass, Courthope had to elude the massive armed fleet of the Dutch East India Company that was hellbent on preventing him or anyone else from encroaching on their profits.

Once there, Courthope also had to deal with the indigenous natives, cannibals who guarded their home fiercely from all but the Dutch with whom they had trade agreements. Also, the island was ringed with razor sharp corral reefs and the shattered remains of others who had been lucky enough to find the place but not skilled enough to land on it.

Despite all these obstacles, Courthope and his band of adventurers arrived and took hold of the island. Even more incredibly, they fought off every attack by the Dutch for more than four years until the peace agreement with the British was negotiated.

Giles Milton has reminded us in his novel, Nathaniel's Nutmeg, that a even a small band of adventurers, or a seemingly insignificant event, or a tiny place can have a great impact on the fabric of history. These small things are the threads from which the tapestry of our world is woven. Take any one away or alter it in any way, and our world may be a vastly different place than the one we see around us today.

HOW MANY TIMES must centralized planning and control fail before we learn? It has never succeeded, not anywhere nor anytime in history. The most dismal failure is occurring today in North Korea. People are suffering. They grow smaller generation by generation because of malnutrition. They live in constant and abject fear of everyone within and without their country. Can you imagine living that way? And all of these ills arise from the simple fact that one person holds all the reins of power and citizens have never evinced any will to resist it. 

It wasn't always thus in Korea. In the beginning, they were a very successful civilization. At a time when the Britons painted themselves with woad and the Romans were building an empire, Korean civilization was already well established. The foundations of this civilization may be traced back to some time around 1100 B.C.E. when a Chinese sage, Ki-tzse, led his clan into the mountains of Korea to escape a new dynasty that had taken power in China. They integrated with the rugged people who occupied the mountainous peninsula and built great cities and institutions. 

Korea grew and prospered for more than four hundred years, until 1582 when the powerful Japanese Regent, Hideyoshi, sent an army of 300,000 to occupy Korea as a stepping stone towards the ultimate conquest of China. The Japanese drove the Koreans north, killing thousands and destroying their cities until China intervened at the behest of the Korean monarchy and helped repel the invaders.

As the Japanese were driven back into the sea, they continued to rape the nation. They kidnapped skilled workmen and women. They stole Korean treasures and religious artifacts. They ground a hatred for all things Japanese into the Koreans, a hatred that has been passed on generation to generation, often refreshed with new outrages, and continues to smolder to this day.

Korea might have recovered from the devastation, but a new dynasty arose, the House of Yi, and established a rule fatal to all progress. The King took control of everything, a precursor to the centralized planning and control that afflicts North Korea to this day. No one was allowed to rise in stature or wealth beyond the limits imposed by the King. Even the size of a family's home was determined by the King. The only path to success lay in service in the King's court. However, yang-bin, civil servants also had to be cautious. Any display of ambition might have resulted in forfeiture of one's rank or even one's life.

Unlike Cuba with its long history of revolution, North Korea submits mutely to tyrants. It appears that passivity is a national trait of Koreans and they endure every insult, every privation, without thought of rebellion. At the very least, there is no historical record of the people rebelling against their oppressors, either foreign or domestic. Those few who did attempt to rebel used passive means which might have worked against more civilized tyrants but, in the case of the Koreans, only resulted in mass executions, especially when they attempted to stand up to the Japanese. This lack of a heritage for rebellion only encourages tyrants to rise and subjugate the people.

THE GLEN L. MARTIN Aircraft Factory disappeared during WWII – from the air – thanks to the 603rd Camouflage Battalion. However, any Axis warplanes that might have flown over it wouldn't have had much difficulty aiming their bombs. The tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Middle River intersected forming an arrow pointing directly at it.

Although the plant produced many different types of aircraft during WWII and the Cold War, including medium bombers, it was most famous for its flying boats including the China Clippers and the PBM Mariner.  

Patrons at the Baltimore Yacht Club bar looked over the backbar and through a solid wall of windows that provided a panoramic view from the Martin Plant on Middle River to Miller Island. Tolchester Beach and the Eastern Shore sometimes peaked through the mist directly ahead. Thus, we had a ringside seat to watch Martin flying boats taxiing to takeoff and returning to the boat ramp at the aircraft plant. The test flights of the Martin P6M SeaMaster jet-powered seaplane bomber were the most spectacular. 

The first taxi tests were held during the winter. It was a winter during which the bay froze over completely and we enjoyed the side show of the Martin personnel attempting to keep a channel open for the big planes to taxi back and forth. The planes stood out starkly against the white background.

When Spring came, they were ready for the first flight. We sat at the bar and watched it taxi across the bay disappearing in the east. The wind was blowing from the west and, although we weren't aviators, we knew that it would be flying directly towards us to takeoff. The first hint we had that the plane was coming was a distant puff of smoke. Minutes later, the plane appeared as a dot against the hazy Eastern Shore. When we were able to make out the hull, wings, and vertical stabilizer, water was spraying from each side. Obviously, it wasn't yet airborne.

The bartender was the first to become concerned. He began grabbing bar glasses, four at a time in each hand and set them on the floor. Periodically, he would swivel to the backbar, grab bottles, and set them on the floor. He stopped only occasionally to gauge the distance between the plane and the club house, then resume his work at a faster pace. Those of us at the bar climbed off of our stools and began backing up as the plane got even closer and was still on the water.

We don't know how high the plane had ascended when it passed over us, but it couldn't have cleared the club house roof by much. The whole building shook as though in an earthquake. The roar of the four huge engines was deafening. Later, the engineers discovered that the jet exhaust had burnt the paint off the plane's hull and they had to make modifications to protect it.

As Spring wore on, and we had readied our boats for their first cruises, we began chasing the SeaMasters whenever we had a chance. Picket boats enforced a safety zone around the flying boats and we had to keep our distance. Still, we found the water boiling in their wakes as the big engines belched flaming hot exhaust fumes behind them.

In the evening, we would steal past the Martin Plant, then past Ethel's Boat Yard on Frog Mortar Creek, and beach our boat at a drive-in movie theater nearby. The parking lot ran right up to the creek's edge. We brought lawn chairs with us and enjoyed free movies while a variety of Martin aircraft made their final approaches low over our heads.

I had my first hands-on experience with a computer at the Martin Plant when I was about 15 years old. They had set up a Tic-Tac-Toe game during an open house and invited attendees to play against a computer. Nine windows, about ten inches on each side, contained an “X” and an “O” shaped tube. The computer always went first placing an “X” in the center. A button was located below each window so that the human player could designate where to place an “O.” As I crawled forward in the line, I could see that every game ended in a win for the computer or “Cats Cradle” – a tie. When my turn came, I placed my first “O” in the upper left. The computer responded with an “X” in the window to the right of it. My game was about to end in a few seconds in another tie. However, glancing around I saw that the attendants weren't paying attention, so I pressed the two buttons below my “O” simultaneously and both illuminated. The computer responded dumbly with another X in the top right. I paused, admiring my handiwork, and then announced, “I won!” I don't know if the attendants ever figured it out.

I made a scene demanding my prize. Of course, none were provided inasmuch as no one was expected to win. They finally scouted up a ball point pen engraved with the company logo and shooed me away before I could cause any more trouble.

That was me – the trouble maker... 

RECEPTION CENTER WAS a rude awakening to the reality that we were actually in the Army. This wasn't a dream.  

I rode a train filled with other recruits and draftees from Baltimore to Columbia, South Carolina. The train originated in New York and stopped in Philadelphia to collect others along the way. I came to know a few of these. We stayed together throughout subsequent training – a couple even graduated from Officer Candidate School with me.

I had ridden on trains many times before, but never on an overnight trip. We slept in Pullman cars, four to a room, and ate in dining cars. All-in-all, it was a comfortable beginning.

We were transferred to buses in Columbia and driven to the U.S. Army Reception Center at Fort Jackson. It was not prepared for the rapid buildup in forces and we were assigned to six-man tents with wooden floors and coal-burning stoves. I shared one with four boys from West Virginia and one from Massachusetts. The Yankee sat on his bunk with a grin on his face. He finally turned to me after our first hour together and asked it I understood a word of what the others were speaking. Actually, I understood them better than him.

Fortunately, the boys from the south were used to living in a primitive environment and assumed responsibility for tending the stove. I will be forever grateful to them inasmuch as I hadn't prepared for the cold weather that awaited us in early March. Seriously. This was the “South.” Wasn't it supposed to be warm? Well, no, it wasn't, and I froze wearing little more than slacks, dress socks, loafers, and a dress white shirt, under a London Fog jacket without the wool liner that came with it.

Then, of course, came our haircut. Everyone has seen films and photos of recruits and draftees getting their locks shorn. What they fail to show is the final step, the shampoo. It smelled like Pine-Sol and felt as though it was applied with a steel wire brush. It made your scalp tingle.

We were corralled into “mobs” and led to classrooms where our “processing” began. Rumors were rampant that the food was laced with potassium nitrate (saltpeter) to suppress our libidos. The rumor was encouraged by a corporal who wandered among us ordering us to keep our hands out of our pockets. Strangely, he never removed his from his pockets.

The most useful lesson I ever learned in the Army came that first morning. We were ushered into a large classroom. About two hundred school desks, the type with a writing arm attached to a wooden seat, were arranged in columns and rows with military precision. A stack of papers and two sharpened number two pencils, all bound with a rubber band, sat on each desk. A sergeant posted at the door instructed us to stand next to the nearest unoccupied desk and keep our hands in our pockets. I worried that he and the corporal outside might end up in a fight over the “hands-in-pockets” business. Most of all, he admonished us to not touch anything on the desk. Several young men picked at the papers and were instantly “jumped” for their transgression.

Finally, when the room was filled, we were told to sit at our desks and fold our hands on top without touching the papers or pencils.

“Could we take our hands out of our pockets?” someone asked, and the sergeant glared. His first troublemaker.

After repeating these instructions several times, we were told to sit.

Next came the instructions for completing the first line of the first form, a blue card at the top of the stack, just under the pencils, with our name – first name last, first name, and complete middle name – in the spaces provided. We were also instructed to continue to the second line and provide our date of birth and Social Security Number, if we had one. We were to stop there inasmuch as we were not yet considered qualified to continue to the third line that obviously awaited our home address. The instructions were repeated several times.

I was becoming angry. They were treating me like an idiot. The damn card was self-explanatory and we had many more forms to complete. This was going to be a long, boring day at this rate. 

Finally, the command came to pick up a pencil and complete the first two lines only. As I complied, I felt a movement to my right. Looking up, I found my neighbor with his hand in the air. Was he kidding? I turned to my left to draw my other neighbor's attention to this idiot and found that he too had his hand in the air.

In that moment, I came to understand the Army and its ways.

Most of our meals at the Reception Center came in boxes. I decided that someone had a brother-in-law who held stock in the company that baked Twinkies. They were a staple with almost every meal. And, there was coffee, lots of it. Cowboy coffee – thick enough to float a horseshoe. I came to appreciate it.

Blessed relief came when we were finally led to the quartermasters building and issued our first set of uniforms. It was almost like a cartoon machine where they fed civilians in one end and soldiers emerged from the other. We began by handing them a form that we had kept from the processing station and they began making stencils with our name and service number – preceded by an “RA” for recruits and “US” for draftees. By the time we were measured and passed down the line, we were handed uniforms with name tags sewn on and duffel bags stenciled with our names and service numbers before we exited the building. I found the nearest changing room and tried to put on every stitch they issued to me: four sets of fatigues, boots, wool socks, underwear, field jackets, etc. I was even tempted to climb into the duffel bag to get warm.

We placed our civies in whatever bag we carried with us or in a cardboard box if we came with nothing. The Army paid the postage for it to be returned home together with a pre-printed postcard telling our families that we had arrived safely and were having a wonderful time.

On the third day we were issued our first orders, to report to such-and-such a place forthwith for Basic Combat Training. Most of us were assigned to basic training companies at Fort Jackson, but loaded on buses that night to head for Fort Gordon, Georgia. Spinal meningitis broke out and they wanted us out of there before it spread through the ranks. 

I liked that. Adaptable.

Surprisingly, we lost a few of our number in those first days at the Reception Center. They broke under the pressure of all that paperwork, I suppose, and received medical or “other than honorable” discharges. Seriously.

HOW MANY LIVING VETERANS would you guess there are in the United States? What percentage of the nation's current population belongs to that "happy band of brothers" who have  answered the call to duty?

You can't have missed the fact that our last surviving veteran of World War I died recently. Nor can you be unaware that we have been losing veterans of World War II rapidly, approximately 850 of them die every day. Veterans of the Korean War aren't far behind. 
Now, even some of the veterans of Vietnam are beginning to depart. It probably will be a while before the ranks of veterans of the wars in the Middle East begin passing on. 

No one seems to have the courage to question the service of those who fought during World War II. However, many, especially among America's intelligentsia, have vilified those have served in all of the wars that followed. Of course, they haven't when I'm around to hear. Their forbearance in my presence is one of the few signs of common sense that they exhibit.

To borrow from Winston Churchill, "Never have so many owed so much to so few. How few? Approximately 22 million veterans according to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. That's little more than 6% of America's 350,000,000 citizens.

That leaves almost 94% - more than 9 out of every 10 of you - who have not had the privilege of serving. Thus, I have decided to include more detail of the experience in my reminisces about Vietnam. Let's just say that I'm going to share the fun so that you will understand just what you missed - that which we, who served, endured.