I LEARNED THE SECRET of working in the mess hall the second time I was assigned to Kitchen Police (KP) duty. I thought that I learned it the first time, but I was wrong. KP's were allowed to chose their duty as they arrived: Dining Room Orderly (DRO), Server, etc. The Back Sink ,where pots and pans were washed, was always left for the last man to arrive. The Mess Sergeant always found the KP's waiting in line when he arrived at 5 a.m. 

I was somewhere in the middle of the line that first morning and coveted the DRO's all day. That looked like the job to have. They cleaned and waxed the floors and set up the chairs and tables for every meal, then seemed to disappear for the rest of the day. The cooks always found something for the other KP's to do all day. The man at the back sink never seemed to finish scrubbing pots and pans.

When my second turn came up for KP, I was up before anyone else. I might not have slept that night. It was a long time ago. In any event, I arrived first and claimed one of the two openings for DRO. Unfortunately, the other DRO didn't do his share. At lunch that day he was jawing with the Mess Sergeant and I was getting upset. I complained and the mess sergeant took me to the back sink. He gave my job as DRO to that man. I was not happy.

When I finally calmed down enough to survey my new domain, I found a large stack of very greasy pots and pans waiting to be cleaned. There was no stopper for the sink and a passing cook instructed me to cut a lemon in half and use that. How about that? Lemon fresh dishwater.

Next I discovered three water taps: cold, hot, and boiler. Boiler? I turned it on first and learned that it meant what the sign said. Boiling hot water poured out. I stopped it and took a moment to think. It had to be there for a reason.

I knew that hot water cleaned better than cold water. Wouldn't boiler water clean best? I filled the sink with it, added soap and dropped in a stack of pots and pans. Next problem: how to get them out.

Every cooking utensil had a hook on the end so that it could be hung up near the stoves and ovens. These appeared to be just what I needed. When I extracted the first pan I discovered that it was a clean as a whistle, no scrubbing required. As I pulled the rest out, I set them on the counter to one side. When I next turned to them, they were already dry. The heat they had absorbed in the sink had dried them.

One of the cooks was in the habit of washing his hands in the back sink. He only did that once while I worked there. He wandered up from behind me and plunged his hands into the water before I could warn him. They were beat red when he withdrew them, and he gave me a terrible look. I feared the worst, but he turned away without saying a word and left the mess hall. I don't remember ever seeing him again.

Thereafter, I slept late every morning that I was assigned to KP. I arrived just in time to avoid being classified AWOL. I shuffled to the back sink looking as sad as Br'er Rabbit when he was thrown into the briar patch (you know, the one where he had been born).

Actually, the greatest secret of manning the back sink was the fact that everyone left you alone so long as the pots and pans were clean, and that was easy. Being left alone was golden when you were a mere private in the Army. They didn't think of asking me to help unload the ration trucks when they arrived. Even the DRO's had to queue up to carry heavy bags and boxes of food and supplies.

Working the back sink also gave me the cat's bird seat in the mess hall. I got to see how the place was actually run. Most of the ingredients were as good as those I had seen in the kitchen of a restaurant that the father of one of my boyhood friends owned and operated. The food was well-prepared. The mess sergeant inspected the serving line every meal before the troops were fed. I remember once when he had the cook who was about to carve a roast, add slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley around the base of the cutting board to make the meat look more appetizing. This is a detail that could be found in any fine dining establishment.

Of course, Castro and his men never ate this well during their stay on Pico Turquino as they trained and fought to free Cuba. I learned in the research for my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, that they rarely had meat. They subsisted on boniatos, sweet potatoes, just as the American rebels had at Valley Forge. Of course, most of Fidel's recruits were used to short rations. They had grown up as the poorest of peasants, living as outcasts and outlaws in the Sierra Madres Mountains at the far eastern end of Cuba.

Most of the men who trained with me weren't used to Army chow. It seems that Southerners dominated the ranks of Army cooks and we were fed southern comfort foods like grits and creamed meats and vegetables. Creamed ground beef on toast, affectionately known as Shit-on-a-Shingle (SOS) was common breakfast fare. The Yankees hated it. I still eat it for breakfast to this day. If I learned one thing in the Army, it was to eat a good breakfast. It was often the only hot meal you got.

Our mess sergeant is one of the few men whose name I cannot remember. This is surprising as I grew to respect him as much as all the others whose names I remember so well. I discovered that he was truly dedicated to feeding us well. He often had the cooks make extra pies and other treats that he traded to the ration truck drivers for extra supplies for the men in our company. Whenever we were on a long march, he would station trucks along the way to make sure we had plenty of water and Kool Aid if we wanted it.

On one occasion, we were issued C-Rations to eat for lunch during a long march. At one point, we found our mess sergeant and his crew of cooks and KP's waiting for us. They instructed us to remove any cans of meat and vegetables that we had in our C-Rations kits and drop them in the large cans of boiling water that they had set up along the road. Farther along, we found them waiting for us with hot food.

I believe that all of the jokes, songs, and stories complaining about Army food were the products of boys who just didn't know enough to appreciate how good the food really was. It simply wasn't the same as their mom's had made for them.

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.

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.

IF YOU HAVE followed my blog postings about growing up on the Chesapeake Bay, you may well ask, what was I doing in the Army? Good question. I had grown up as a sailor. The Navy was the logical choice, wasn't it? Well, I tried.

I graduated from law school in 1965, at the beginning of the build up of U.S. Involvement in Vietnam. I went immediately to the local Navy Recruiting Office and applied for Officer Candidate School. Where were they going to find a better applicant? I was a college graduate. A sailor. A champion navigator. A Coast Guard licensed operator.  

I had dreams of becoming a member of what would later be known as the Brown Water Navy. Small boats delivering soldiers and supplies to the combat operations, patrolling the backwaters of Vietnam, and interdicting Viet Cong supply lines and channels of communication. Who was better suited for that job?

Also, I reasoned that if I were going to war, I would rather fight in an environment where I was master. What did I know about jungles?

The Navy loved everything about me except for my weight. Yes, I've struggled with my weight all my life. I have the upper body of a man about six and a half feet tall atop short legs. Although I am 5'8” tall, my inseam is the same as my 4'11” wife. Seriously, people who meet me are surprised when I stand up. What does that have to do with my weight? Well, actually, nothing.

“Come back after you get down to 175 pounds,” they said. I did. I went to a doctor who was dispensing some “miracle medicine” and shed the excess weight in just three months. The doctor was sent to jail. The recruiter sent me to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., for my physical exam.

I was working as a Post Entitlement Adjudicator (don't you love that title?) at Social Security in Woodlawn, Maryland at the time, and Washington was just forty minutes down the road. Thus, it was not a problem when the recruiter called and asked if I could return to Walter Reed for another x-ray. It wasn't even a problem the second or third time. I became worried at the fourth request. Is something wrong? The recruiter wasn't sure.

After some checking around, the recruiter learned that I had stepped into the middle of a dispute between a senior Navy doctor and the radiology department at Walter Reed. He was using my “case” as a lever to get them to produce better images. Their feud delayed my application for several months.

Meanwhile, I received a notice from my draft board to report for a pre-induction physical. No problem. I was happy to accommodate them. I expected to be enlisted in the Navy long before I would be ordered to report for induction into the Army.

My application languished with the Navy as the induction date approached. I approached the Army Recruiters to explore my options there and found them eager to enlist me for Officer Candidate School. My education and my test scores on the Army Battery of Tests were outstanding. Still, I expected the Navy to come through well before I was forced to sign up with the Army. 

My draft notice came and I was ordered to report for induction at 6:00 am on Monday, March 3, 1966. (No, I didn't have to refer to any record to get that date and time.) I had to enlist prior to close of business at 5:00 pm on the preceding Friday or report as ordered. Thus, at 4:15 that Friday, I borrowed a telephone and made my final call to the Navy from the recruiting office at Fort Holabird, Maryland. No word. I hung up and turned to the waiting officer and was sworn in. 

I went back home with orders to report to Fort Holabird at 6:00 am Monday to join the draftees who were being taken to the Reception Center at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

The Navy called at 9:00 pm that Friday night. “Congratulations,” they said. “You're in.” 

“No, I'm not,” I replied. “I'm in the Army now.”

“Well, you can apply for an inter-service transfer after you complete your enlistment in the Army,” they suggested.

Why did the Navy act with so little alacrity? It could have had something to do with the fact that the North Vietnamese only had a few assault boats, but it was enough to start a war.