THE WISDOM OF the Army is memorialized in a library of Army Regulations, Training Manuals, and Field Guides. We were given a shelf full when we began Officer Candidate School. As I stored them away in my desk I paused when I found FM 5-25, Explosives and Demolitions. I was in heaven. 

We had learned the barest essentials in Advanced Infantry Training: How to insert a detonating cap into an explosive and how to ignite a fuse. Obviously, we were going to learn a lot more in OCS. There were pocket guides to blowing up bridges, radio towers, railroads, concrete embrasures, and more.

My fascination with explosives and demolitions began with a pretty young girl I met in junior high school, Mary Loizeaux. I think every boy had a crush one her. Did I mention that she was very pretty? Her allure grew when her family was featured in a magazine supplement to the Sunday Sun newspaper. They had a trampoline in their house that made her even more alluring. But it was her father who fascinated me even more. He founded Controlled Demolitions Incorporated. You've probably seen their work featured in television news broadcasts of major hotels being destroyed. Now that got my attention. Still does.

I had grown up with a fascination with explosives. I had manufactured my own black powder and gun cotton. I might have been crazy enough to make nitroglycerin had I been able to get my hands on the ingredients. At least I knew what I needed and how to blend them safely[?]. I wasn't certain that I was going to survive OCS, but I knew damn well that they weren't getting rid of me until after training in explosives and demolitions.

I was very fortunate to be teamed up with a classmate who was deathly afraid of explosives and was happy to have me do everything. I was happy to do it. Fortunately for me he didn't know that military explosives are far more stable than commercial ones. They have to be inasmuch as they are handled in abusive environments such as battlefields where more sensitive ones, like dynamite, might detonate accidentally. I can still see him cringing at a distance as I pounded a lump of composition C4 on a concrete work bench to get it into the desired shape. The stuff you see in the movies is more soft and malleable. It's fake. I once had to pry a coil of detonating cord out of his hand. He had thought it was plastic clothes line when the sergeant sent him to retrieve it from the storage locker.

We learned restraint with explosives. Most people tend to use too much when they don't know what they're doing. For example, I had a friend who I helped clear a field of tree stumps before I joined the Army. His father gave him and his brothers each a plot of land to build houses when they got married. My friend's parcel was covered in cedar trees. His father contracted with a lumber company to clear the trees but failed to negotiate to have them remove the stumps. He decided to use dynamite.

In practice, you need just a small amount – a quarter or half of a stick – to loosen the dirt and then drag the stump out with a logging chain and a pickup truck. However, my friend's father used three sticks with each stump. We went away – far away – when he detonated them. We found his father later under his truck. He was afraid to come out until it stopped raining tree stumps.

The Army also taught us about sympathetic detonations. Most explosives are detonated with the shock from a smaller detonation, such as a blasting cap. However, solid materials can transmit a sufficient shock from a nearby detonation to set off other explosives. I had seen this effect before joining the Army.

A contractor hired an explosives expert to clear an exposed shelf of bedrock so he could expand a commercial park. The expert supervised the drilling of holes for the charges and the contractor then fired him thinking that he could finish the job himself now that the expert had planned everything. He decided to save time by placing the charges in all of the holes thinking to detonate them one at a time. However, the shockwave of the first detonation was transmitted through the rock setting them all off simultaneously. The story that appeared in a local newspaper featured a photograph of a hole in the wall of an office building where a chunk of rock the size of a small car entered the building. Fortunately no one was injured, although a secretary was shoved against a wall as the rock propelled her and her desk backward.

I couldn't help applying my lessons as I wrote Rebels on the Mountain. I knew that there were nickel mines in the Sierra Madre mountains in Eastern Cuba and that the Fidelistas had stolen explosives there. They also stole them from military posts that they raided.

My research showed me that they derailed an armored train on one occasion using explosives, and that they dynamited buildings during their final offensive. It was obvious that they needed someone who knew how to handle them and I provided fictional character, an engineering student, Juan Tumbas, to fill that role. I couldn't find any extant documents proving me right or wrong.

EVERY WEEK WE were given a schedule of activities. One in particular perplexed us: Crack & Thump. We debated the possible meaning of this arcane class name until the last moment. No one could bribe the cadre to give us even a hint. 

We were taken to the training area in buses and led down a sloping trail to a hollow. We sat on benches and waited for the class to begin. A training sergeant welcomed us briefly and a rifle shot cracked over our heads. We heard a distant “thump” a few seconds later. There was no mistaking the crack of the rifle bullet breaking the sound barrier as it passed. We didn't realize until told that the thump was the sound of the rifle that fired it.

We were instructed to count the seconds between the “crack” and the “thump” to estimate the distance to the person who had shot at us – about one second for every 300 meters. If fired at by a machine gun, we began counting from the last crack until the last thump.

The sound of the bullet cracking overhead won't tell you anything about the direction from which it was fired. You listen for the thump and point in that direction. That's where you find the shooter.

It takes discipline to use “Crack & Thump” well. The first crack starts the adrenalin flowing quickly followed by the exhilaration that comes when you realize that the bullet missed you. It also isn't very helpful in a fire fight when multiple weapons are firing simultaneously. This technique is most effective when searching for a sniper.

I'm not talking about an “offensive” sniper – one shot, one kill. You've seen them on television and in the movies. They wear a ghillie suit to blend into the terrain. They use high-powered, long range rifles with telescopic sights and silencers to suppress the “thump.” They also use special “loads” with smokeless powder and special muzzles to suppress the flash. They infiltrate enemy territory and assassinate key personnel.

I'm referring to ordinary soldiers employed as snipers. Basically, they function as skirmishers hidden in positions forward of their main defensive lines. There serve to detect the approach of enemy forces, and delay them while their comrades get ready. They use camouflage to help secret themselves – a little grease paint to mask their face and hide reflections, and a few pieces of surrounding flora to break up their outline.

We practiced spotting snipers in many different situations and times of day. However, I disrupted one class with the hiccups. The aggressors were well hidden and we were struggling to identify them one evening. Dinner hadn't agreed with me and I let rip with a belch that could be heard over the entire training area. We were then able to spot them easily. They were giggling uncontrollably. It's a technique that I was loathe to apply in Vietnam.

THERE WERE RULES in Officer Candidate School. The curriculum was planted thick with them like the cedar forests back home. There were rules governing every aspect of our lives for those twenty-six weeks. What we ate and how we ate it were regulated. What we wore and how we wore it were regulated. How we displayed the clothing that we weren't wearing at any given time was regulated. How we deported ourselves in any situation in the barracks, in a vehicle, at a training site, on the parade ground, anywhere, anytime.

Each Tactical Officer carried a pad of pink demerit slips that he distributed frequently. A loose thread on your uniform would be ignited like a fuse and you were expected to shout “Boom!” when it burnt out.

Now that may seem ridiculous to you. It seemed so to me at the time. Only later did I learn the lesson. An infantry officer has to be detail-oriented. For example, we were provided with a detailed diagram of every drawer and shelf in our rooms. We had to roll every t-shirt to a specific width and diameter. Socks and undershorts were similarly described. After we finally got everything just right, the Tactical Officer would shift one thing just a little, maybe a quarter of an inch. If he came back the following day and found that we hadn't corrected it, we received a demerit. Demerits accrued like head lice and just as welcome. There were consequences for collecting too many.

When we became infantry officers, we were responsible for details that meant the difference between life and death. Were our men servicing their weapons properly? Did they have enough food, water, and, most importantly, ammunition? The six months that we spent in Officer Candidate School were dedicated to teaching us about weaponry, tactics, and communications. These lessons passed in their time. However, conditioning us to be detail-oriented never ceased. Everything, including what we ate and the way we ate it, was part of that conditioning. I've never lost it.

There were no exceptions to the rules. For example, no officer candidate other than a senior was allowed to walk anywhere outside the barracks unless they were in formation (and formations most often moved at double-time). One night I went to the laundry with everyone's tickets. All the others were restricted to study hall until they brought their grades up and I was the only one who was safe academically. Of course, I ran to the laundry. However, on my return, I must have looked like a beast of burden staggering under a load of heavily starched uniforms. We had to “break starch” – change uniforms – sometimes two or three times a day which is why we arrived at OCS with at least ten sets of fatigues. Unfortunately, two senior candidates spotted me and I was berated for walking. They then helped me transfer my load to my back so that I could honor them with twenty pushups without dropping the load.

Those of us who successfully completed the first seven weeks of OCS and became intermediate candidates could look forward to an occasional weekend pass. I was about to receive my first when our Tactical Officer decided that I should paint a picture of the U.S. Army Commissioned Officer's Head Badge, on the transom window above the door to his office. (I had a reputation from decorating our platoon halls with my art.) I demurred inasmuch as I expected that I would be off base that weekend. However, I would be happy to do it the following weekend. He looked surprised. “You don't have too many demerits this week?” he asked.

“Sir, no, sir,” I replied. We always began every statement to an officer with “sir.”

I found my room papered with demerit slips when we returned from training the next day. A signed blank check sat on my desk with a note to use it to buy whatever supplies I needed. I spent excessively, but he was pleased when he saw the result on his return to duty the following Monday. I believe that my Tactical Officer, Lieutenant John Robb, was somewhat intimidated by me. He was a college graduate as was I, however, I held a post graduate degree in law and he only had a bachelors. Of course, I was older. Maybe “intimidated” isn't the correct word, but I did get away with taking certain liberties. For example, he announced one day that he wanted us to paint our latrine. Candidates were famous for decorating their barracks competitively with other OCS companies. I have heard that some OCS platoons had paneled their Tactical Officers' offices and installed stereo systems. However, this practice was frowned upon by our time at OCS.

Lieutenant Robb put me in charge of the project in recognition of my supposed decorating skills. He told us that we could paint the latrine with any color scheme we wanted so long as I approved. He made a point of telling me that his favorite colors were blue and gold. Ghastly! Another weekend was ruined.

I had to smile when I saw all of the company cadre standing outside the barracks with their mouths hanging open when they returned early that Monday. The sun hadn't risen yet and our latrine glowed with an unearthly orange light. I had selected a tasteful combination of peach and cream. We even painted the inside of the light globes peach to accentuate the effect. 

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face even when I heard my name echoing throughout the barracks.

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.   

THERE WERE FOUR paths to a commission as an officer in the United States Army. I say “were” because I cannot speak with authority about present practices. However, in those days, graduates from the Military Academy were commissioned as second lieutenants in the Regular Army. They were obligated to serve at least four years on active duty. It was a fair exchange inasmuch as they had been paid to attend one of the finest engineering schools in the world and their degrees as well as their commissions earned them great respect, especially in the job market.  All other commissions were in the United States Army Reserve (USAR). 

College students who participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) were commissioned as second lieutenants when they graduated. (We referred to them as the Royal Order of Trained Cowards – all in good fun.)

Enlisted men found their path to commissions via Officer Candidate School. There were eight at one time. However, by the time of the Vietnam War, they had been consolidated into four that I knew of: Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Military Police, and Signal Corps.

A direct commission to second lieutenant could be awarded to an enlisted or warrant officer for exceptionally meritorious or valorous service on the battlefield. These commissions, also to the USAR, were commonly referred to as “battlefield commissions.” Most were rescinded at the end of the war during which they were awarded, however, there were notable exceptions with some rising to great rank.

Direct commissions to captain were awarded to professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Whereas most commissions in the USAR carried a two-year obligation for active duty, direct commissions to these professionals carried a four-year obligation. When asked why I didn't accept a direct commission as a lawyer, I averred that I didn't want to commit to four years although taking the OCS route committed me to a minimum of three years and going the hard way through all that infantry training. The funny thing is that I ended up serving more than five years on active duty.

Truthfully, I have long harbored a notion that doctors and lawyers as well as officers in the non-combat arms, should have been warranted rather then commissioned. All warrant officers – there are four grades from Warrant Officer 1 to Chief Warrant Officer 4 (now there is a fifth level, the Master Warrant Officer) – are superior to all enlisted men and inferior to all commissioned officers. Doctors and lawyers as well as non-combat leaders could have functioned perfectly well, commanding enlisted men only, to accomplish their missions. They didn't need the special rights and privileges enjoyed by commissioned officers as agents of the United States.

During World War II, candidates were hustled through a greatly accelerated program and graduated as second lieutenants, known as “90 day wonders.” At the time I attended OCS, the program of instruction lasted twice as long – 26 weeks. Eleven weeks as a Junior Candidate, seven weeks as an Intermediate Candidate, and eight weeks as a Senior Candidate. Senior Candidates were referred to as “Third Lieutenants” – an unofficial rank with power to make miserable the lives of lower candidates.

I am told that once upon a time commissioned officers were also deemed to be “gentlemen.” My commission did not contain that appellation. I was merely commissioned as a officer. However, inasmuch as all officer candidates rose from the ranks, there was no presumption that any of us had been exposed to the manners of a gentleman and, thus, we were taught to deport ourselves as such. We had an unbreakable honor code that allowed neither a direct lie nor a lie of omission, known as quibbling. My fellow candidates elected me to our company's Honor Court where all suspected breaches of the code were tried. The lesson was hammered into us repeatedly that it was better to admit a mistake than cover up one. Men lost their lives and battles were lost whenever an officer lied or so much as quibbled.

It was said that you could easily ascertain the path by which an officer earned his commission by observing the number of times they “shook themselves” at the urinal. It was also said that those who graduated from OCS didn't bother. I will neither confirm nor deny. I have speculated that those who graduated from West Point may have avoided using their right hands for fear of soiling their beloved class rings. 

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.   

MY MOTHER HAD one pressing question that she needed answered: Why did I need a box of Kotex sanitary napkins? It was one of many items on the checklist that I had been given when I received my orders to report to Fort Benning for Infantry Officer Candidate School. I didn't know the answer and she made me promise to write with it as soon as I found out. 

My parents drove me to Fort Benning from our home north of Baltimore. There was an airline strike and tickets were hard to come by. We arrived in Columbus, Georgia, the evening before I was supposed to report, so we had a good meal and spent the night in a motel just outside the gates to the post. We drove to the OCS barracks the next morning with directions that were provided by the MP at the gate.

A soldier wearing a blue helmet and white cravat, both bearing the OCS logo met us outside. He greeted us politely and instructed us to say our goodbyes there at the car while I retrieved my duffel bag from the trunk. He then led me around the side of the building as my parents drove away.

There were other duffel bags lined up on a concrete patio outside the barracks and the soldier had me leave mine with them. He then instructed me to remove all brass insignia from my uniform and place them in a nearby box. “You won't need them anymore,” he said. “You're no longer an enlisted man. You're an Officer Candidate.”

The first letter that I received from my mother contained a comment as to how impressed she was with the polite young soldier who greeted us. It made me laugh. If only she knew. The blue helmet marked that polite young soldier was a Senior Candidate. The lowest ranking commissioned officer in the Army is a second lieutenant. Senior Candidates were treated as “third lieutenants” and it was their mission to inflict the same pain upon us Junior Candidates as other Senior Candidates had inflicted upon them – and then some.

He led me to a room where a table and chair were arranged with a tray and silverware from the mess hall. A strip of white tape was placed six inches from the front edge of the seat. I was shown how to sit on just the front six inches at the position of attention: Back straight, knees together, and hands on lap.

I was shown how to eat a square meal. The fork or spoon was raised perpendicularly from the tray to mouth level and then returned to the tray along the reciprocal route. Chewing did not commence until the fork was returned to the proper position and the hands were back on the lap. The knife remained diagonally across the upper left corner of the tray when not in use.

The Senior Candidate also told me that each table in the mess hall had four seats, and that candidates had to remain standing behind their seats after arranging their trays and silverware properly until the fourth arrived. When he had his articles properly arranged, he would assume the position of attention and command, “Take – seats,” at which time the four sat down in unison.

Lastly, I was admonished to avoid “eyeballing” the candidate seated across from me although we were staring directly ahead. I learned later that this required focusing on a point behind the other candidate. If your eyes met, you began laughing. It was unavoidable.

He then took me into the hall way to demonstrate the proper method of “making way.” Whenever an officer entered a hallway in the barracks, the first officer candidate to see him would command, “Make – Way!” At this time, all officer candidates in that hallway had to stand at attention against the nearest wall, with a space just wide enough for a sheet of paper to pass between their shoulders, posteriors, and heels, and the wall, and remain their until the officer exited the hallway.

With this portion of my orientation complete, the Senior Candidate morphed from a polite young soldier into a bizarre imitation of Sergeant Snorkel from Beetle Bailey comics. It was unexpected. Indeed, up until that moment, I had never experienced harassment at any time during my previous four months of service, in either Basic Combat Training or Advanced Infantry Training. I was shunted into the mess hall where Dante's fourth circle of hell was being reenacted with other Senior Candidates afflicting other Junior Candidates with all manner of vexations.

The “real” officers, our cadre, arrived that evening and introduced themselves. We had a captain – the company commander, a first lieutenant – the company executive officer, and one second lieutenant assigned as “Tac” officer for each platoon. I was assigned to the second under Lieutenant John Robb.

We were assigned in pairs to our rooms where we each had a bunk, a wall locker, and a footlocker. All were typical for Army barracks. However, we were also given a desk, chair, and chest-of-drawers. There was a diagram explaining not only the placement of the furniture, but also the exact method of folding and placing all articles of clothing, etc. on display in that furniture. We later learned that the “Tac” officer would make the rounds every day, measuring everything with a ruler, and assigning demerits for every deviation from the standards shown in the diagram.

We had about three days to get everything in order. It took that long to have “Follow Me” patches sewn onto our left uniform shoulders and OCS decals affixed to just about everything else. We were also issued two pairs of brass OCS insignia that we wore on our uniform collars much like a second lieutenant wears his gold bars. We came to hate that insignia. It was constantly inspected by every passing member of the cadre who would issue demerits if it wasn't perfectly clean. Getting the Brasso polishing solution out of every nook and cranny was virtually impossible.

Everything had to be kept impeccably cleaned and polished. We spent hundreds of hours during that six months spit-shining everything, including the floors. It took a couple of weeks, but we built up a sheen on the floors that looked like a mirror. Of course, we never walked on them. We would take our boots off whenever we entered the barracks and carry them around our necks with the shoelaces tied together so that we could climb from one piece of furniture to another to avoid stepping on the floor. It was sometimes necessary where we could reach a foothold on the furniture, but we limited our path to just a couple tiles so we only had to polish those regularly. Of course, the “Tac” officer walked wherever he liked when he inspected and we had to re-polish and buff those tiles.

The Kotex? I know you hadn't forgotten my mother's question. Those were stapled to the bottom of wooden blocks that we placed under the legs of all the furniture. We also affixed them to the bottoms of our footlockers, so we wouldn't scuff the floor too badly when we slid them out from under our bunks. 

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.   

MY RIDE HOME to Baltimore from Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, was one of the most interesting flights of my life. There was a strike against the airlines at the time and only Delta and a few independents were flying. Most everyone else took a bus home, and I figured that if everyone else was avoiding the airport I might have a chance. Silly. 

Columbia Metropolitan Airport in those days was archetypical of those serving small cities in the American south in those days. An elegant terminal sat parallel to a single runway. A single road approached it with lanes divided by a long fountain. When I got inside, I found the place crowded with hopeful passengers, most of them in uniform.

You couldn't travel anywhere in the United States in those days without rubbing elbows with servicemen of every branch. We traveled in uniform to take advantage of cut-rate standby fares. However, looking at the crowd and the lack of any airplanes, I opted for a full-fare ticket. I had some savings that I could bank on when needed.

I waited eight hours at the terminal before a single Delta jet arrived. I had passed the time with other servicemen, drinking beer and playing pinball machines. When the jet pulled up to the terminal, we waited expectantly for all of the passengers to unload. The airline agents told us to be patient when we asked where it would go next. "We don't know yet," they explained. Yet?

Some passengers collected their luggage and left the airport after deborading. But many joined the waiting crowd until a Delta agent climbed on top of his counter and asked, “How many of you are heading west?”

A number of people raised their hands and held them aloft while he counted. He hadn't asked if they were traveling to a specific destination, just a direction. He then asked how many of us were traveling north. I held my hand up until counted with my fellow travelers. There was no need to ask if anyone was headed east. There's wasn't anything but water that way. And, he didn't ask for southbound passengers. I can only speculate why.

Those head west outnumbered us and he announced, “This flight is now bound for St. Louis. Anyone wishing to travel there please come to the desk with your luggage and we'll check in as many as we can.”

Those of us left behind watched forlornly as the plane loaded and departed, and we settled in for another wait. No one could tell us if or when another plane might arrive and I was tempted to head for the bus station.

A second plane arrived two hours later and the same scene was replayed. This time, after hands were counted, the Delta agent announced that the plane was headed for Baltimore and I thanked my lucky stars that was exactly where I wanted to go. I had just enough time to call my family and give them our estimated time of arrival at Friendship International Airport, before we were whisked away as another group of stranded travelers watched in dismay.

I had a few minutes at Friendship to watch the same scene replayed as I waited for my father to arrive to pick me up. I wondered why I hadn't seen a Piedmont flight all day.

I had flown on Piedmont Airlines to Columbia, South Carolina, when I started Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Jackson. To be more accurate, I flew on Lake Central Airlines from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. And then on Piedmont from there to South Carolina. The first leg of that trip was on a DC-3, twin engine airliner. It was my one and only flight on that classic airplane. I remember well clawing my way up the aisle to my seat. The plane sat on the ground at a steep incline from the rear to the front because it was a “tail dragger.” Its undercarriage consisted of two large wheels, one under each wing, and a small wheel at the tail. The seats were woven wicker. My mother turned white as a sheet when she saw it and I probably didn't help things when I joked that I had been granted a discount in exchange  for helping wind up the propellers.

We landed at Washington International Airport in Washington – safely, I might add – and taxied to the far end of the terminal. When I got inside, I was directed to the Piedmont boarding gates at the far end. I began walking in that direction and then running when I began to worry that I would miss my plane. I began to believe that the terminal building was longer than the runway. Of course, I arrived in a sweat to learn that my flight had been delayed.

Piedmont flew me to South Carolina on a Convair 440 twin engine airliner. This one sat level on the group on tricycle landing gear and the seats were upholstered. Surprisingly, the soldier seated next to me disappeared in a cloud of white smoke when the door was closed. The stewardess allayed our fears when she announced that it was only condensation from the cooling system and would disappear when we reached cruising altitude. 

Cruising altitude in a Convair 440 is just slightly higher than a piper cub. In many ways, flying at that altitude was like taking a road trip; you got to see the sights along the way. And, we stopped at many of them, including every small airport. Of course, my fellow passenger disappeared in a cloud of condensation every time we landed at one.

Thinking back on those adventures, I believe that I would rather take another flight on a DC-3 or a Convair 440, than every subject myself to a TSA pat down in a modern airport. 

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.   

STAFF SERGEANT RAMBO had an epiphany during a war game in Germany. He was killed in action while serving as a squad leader. It wasn't a technical call. No umpire walked up and handed him a black card announcing that he was dead. It was sudden and unexpected. 

A sniper hiding in a tree killed Sergeant Rambo as his armored personnel carrier drove under it. Rambo was riding in the Track Commander's (TC) seat with his upper body protruding from a hatch on top of the vehicle, just behind the driver's hatch. He knew at that moment that he would die in Vietnam.

The Army gave him a stay of execution by sending him to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, before deploying him to the war in Vietnam. There he served as one of the cadre in my Advanced Infantry Training Company.

I don't remember making Sergeant Rambo's acquaintance until after we had graduated. It's strange when I reflect on the fact that I don't remember any of our training cadre from that school. I remember everyone from Basic Combat Training clearly, even their names. I remember all four members of my training squad, though I can't remember one of their names. The other three were Mort Beech, Bill Downey, and, of course, me. The fourth, as I mentioned earlier, was a Harvard Graduate. I wish I could remember his name. He is the only Ivy League graduate who I ever met who had an ounce of common sense.

Harvard (I'll call him that unless I can come up with something better) drove the sergeants crazy. He always did exactly as he was told. Think about that: “Exactly what he was told to do.” He was once told to put a crate of one pint milk cartons and a block of ice into a cooler. That's what he did, and he crushed the milk cartons under the weight of the ice. (He didn't do it gently.)

“Boy, what's the matter with you?” the sergeant screamed. “Don't you have any common sense.”

Harvard looked at the sergeant with all the guile of a cocker spaniel puppy.

I was prepared to observe, of course he doesn't. He's an Ivy League graduate. However, I learned that there was a method to his madness. Within a week or two, the sergeants never asked him to do anything. They were afraid of the consequences. In fact, the only consequence was that Harvard never had to do anything while the rest of us worked. I wish I could find even one other Ivy Leaguer that smart.

I digress. We graduated. The four of us were awarded Zippo lighters with the Army coat of arms and engraved to announce that we were the top squad in the training cycle. I had three weeks to wait before Infantry Officer Candidate School began, so I hung around Fort Jackson for one of them. I had already taken two weeks leave between Basic and Advanced Infantry Training, and could only take two more for the year.

There wasn't much to do. The Army was building a replica Vietnamese village at Fort Jackson for training purposes, and layabouts like me were regularly dispatched there to work on it. But, one morning I was called out of formation by Sergeant Rambo along with Harvard for a special detail. Rambo took us to the PX and bought us coffee and donuts. We sat around for an hour, smoking and drinking, and listening to Sergeant Rambo's premonitions of death in combat. Mostly, we were wondering why we were there.

An hour later, Sergeant Rambo glanced at his watch and said it was time to go. He drove us to a barracks building where he borrowed a floor polisher. We loaded it into his truck and he next drove to one of the laundries.

The PX system maintained a variety of shops on the base that were leased to civilians who operated them. This laundry was leased by a German woman who had married another soldier who was then deployed somewhere overseas. Sergeant Rambo had been looking after her in her husband's absence. The Inspector General was due to inspect her shop later that week and we were being loaned to her to help prepare for it.

We spent about three hours cleaning up her place and waxing the floors before Sergeant Rambo returned to pick us up. I remember I had a pleasant time with her. I was able to practice my German (I had been taking an Army correspondence course), and she treated us to homemade strudel (best I ever had).

After we dropped off the floor polisher where we had borrowed it, Sergeant Rambo took us back to the PX for another round of coffee and donuts. There we were admonished to tell everyone that we had been working at the Vietnamese village that day.

In return for his kindness, I offered Sergeant Rambo the wisdom that I had learned from Sergeant Dunne in Basic Combat Training. Dunne was a fatalist. He told us, “If there is a bullet with your name on it, there's nothing you can do. It's fate, and there was no use worrying about it. However, we should do everything we could to avoid all those other bullets marked 'To Whom It May Concern'.”

Somehow, I don't think that Sergeant Rambo was comforted.

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.   

WE WERE TREATED more like real soldiers in Advanced Infantry Training than we were in Basic Combat Training. There wasn't any free time in Basic. We were being trained almost every minute of every day. In AIT, we had some time to ourselves, to relax, go to a movie, and visit a craft shop. 

The craft shop systems operated by Army Special Services (never to be confused with Special Forces) is one of the best kept secrets in the Army. I was in charge of Special Services for a time at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii after I completed my tour of duty in Vietnam. We had woodworking equipment, a color and black & white photo lab, golf driving range, tennis courts, and more. At Fort Jackson I began throwing clay.  

It was at the potter's wheel that I had time to reflect on the decision I had made to volunteer for the infantry and the possible outcome. The feel of the clay spinning in my hands often lulled me into a fugue state wherein I could think clearly.
I never actually made anything there. I simply threw a lump of clay on the wheel, centered it, and drew a cylinder. I might give it a crude shape like a cup or a bowl. But, at the end of the evening, I scraped the clay off the potter's wheel and threw it back into the bin. It is the most relaxing art media in which I have ever worked. No matter what tensions I took back to the barracks from a day of training, I left them at the craft shop.

It wasn't until I ran the Post Theater at Tripler that I came to understand the system. Army Special Services took just about every film that came out of Hollywood including, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Only a few more than 200 were produced each year and we kept each one only a few days. Every film began with the playing of the national anthem while patriotic images were projected on the screen. Every member of the audience, including military dependents, lept to their feet and remain standing at attention until given the order to “Take – seats!”

For those of you who have never served, let me explain. Every order has two parts: Preparation and Execution. You wouldn't hear, “Take seats,” spoken without a pause. The command is given “Take” to prepare you to act in unison, and “Seats” to cue everyone to sit down. When you watch television or a movie, listen to see if they do it correctly. “Atten – tion!” “Stand at – ease!” “Forward – march!”

My wife can tell you that I am almost always annoyed by the portrayal of the military on television and in the movies. Few make the effort to get it right. Sloppy hand salutes are particularly grating. The salute is a sign of respect between soldiers and those who do it sloppily are showing disrespect.

I am also unhappy when the military are used for comic relief or as the villains. They rush in to destroy aliens without waiting to discover their intentions. They exacerbate any catastrophe by responding precipitously. You'll occasionally find people who hold the military in little regard commenting in this blog. They hold the military in low regard.

Fortunately, the military holds all civilians in the same high regard. They will defend your rights and liberties regardless of your political or ideological beliefs. The military doesn't start wars, never have. They end them. And, President Reagan had it correct when he said that the best defense is a strong one. Nothing will deter the bullies of the world like the prospect that they will get their noses bloodied if they mess with you. Pacifism has never deterred war. It has only invited it. This is not opinion. It is historically demonstrable fact.

That being said, we didn't serve because we loved war. No one hates war more than soldiers. They know that they will be the first to go in harm's way.  

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.