Nine years of service produces a lot of memories. I’ll start with boot camp, which is what I consider the gateway into military service for anyone who has raised their right hand and said yes to service with Uncle Sam.
My MOS (military occupation specialty) was 11 Bravo, which is infantry. Fort Benning School for wayward boys was were I did basic training and advanced individual training in one continuous block of training lasting 4 months. The first stop was Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where they had reception station, first uniform issue, first military haircuts, in-processing, shots, and so on. How it was set up was we would wait there until the entire basic training company arrived from all over, and once we had our allotted number of slots, we were shipped to Benning to begin training.
I recall arriving there early in the morning on the bus from the airport. It was one of those southern summer nights, very hot and humid, something I had never experienced before, and to this day, a humid summer night brings back that moment very vividly. The bus that took us from the airport to the reception station arrived at maybe 2 AM. We off loaded and were directed to the lobby of this movie theater. An admin lieutenant shouted that everyone who was NOT going infantry to gather in one sport. I guess 95% of the guys shuffled over there. Then, he shouted that everyone who was going infantry to move to a second sport. The rest of us moved over there, and I recall the comments from the other recruits. “You guys be crazy.” “Oh, man, good luck.” “Wouldn’t want to be them.”
I felt a little bit of that uh-oh feeling at this point.
It wasn’t too bad at Jackson, mostly hurry up and wait. We learned what Brasso is, and we got our issue of four sets of BDUs, which in 1982 was still the brand-new camo uniform that replaced the pickle suits. There were drill sgts there, but they didn’t act like I had expected them to from seeing movies like “The DI.” In fact, we all felt this was going to be a cake walk.
We were of course wrong.
It took maybe a week to get the entire company assembled, and even then, it was a small company, maybe three full platoons vs. the normal four platoons of a rifle company, so we never had a 2nd Platoon, and each platoon was relatively small, maybe 3 and a half squads in 1st Platoon.
The day arrived when we met our first drill sergeant, Sgt. Fowles. He seemed like a nice, laid back guy, got our duffle bags stowed, got us on the bus, and off we went. It was a nice drive, seeing first South Carolina and then Georgia flashing by the windows, and I do recall more than one comment that this was going to be way easier than the recruiters suggested basic would be.
We stopped briefly at the main gate and they checked our arms to confirm that we came up negative on the TB test, and then we drove to Sand Hill. Sand Hill was one of two basic training areas at that time at Fort Benning. Harmony Church was still using crumbling old WWII wooden barracks, and we felt very luck not to be heading there. Sand Hill, aka Sand Hilton, consisted of these huge brick barracks complexes, three stories tall and with a central mess hall, individual armories, drill pads in front of company offices, wash rooms, etc. Surrounding each complex were PT fields, obstacle courses, and so on. They were austere and wouldn’t win any architectural awards, but they were far preferable to Harmony Church. Minus the fire ants, of course, but we didn’t know about those guys yet.
So, the bus pulls up down the road from 6th Battalion, 1st Infantry Training Brigade, our new home for the next four months. The bus driver gets out quickly, up stands the until-then subdued SSGT. Fowles, and all hell broke loose. If you have seen the boot camp scenes from Full Metal Jacket, then you have an idea of what happened next. We were screamed at to grab our gear and get to the company area. I grabbed two duffle bags in a panic, and off we ran up the hill to the barracks, panting like dogs in the sweltering heat to where the entire drill cadre was waiting for us.
They were not smiling. We were told to dump our bags out at our feet by screaming NCOs, told to line up on these painted footprints, and nothing we did was correct. All of us found out what the front leaning rest position was. This savage verbal assault (I think that is a fair word to use in this case) went on for about two hours, and finally, we were herded up the stairs to our new barracks room on the second floor, assigned a metal rack in a big common room with four rows of racks and one wall locker each, and finally got to breath and wonder what we were thinking putting up our hands and saying yes to this.
Welcome to Bravo Company.
Being about the smallest guy, I was singled out quickly, but everyone was in different ways. That evening, we were marched to the barber shop and got our first Bravo Bulldog haircut, as the ones we got at Jackson were not up to Benning Standards, as they had left some hair up there. We were required to purchase certain items, one being a shaving brush for reasons I can’t even remember now. Sgt. Williams, one of our 3 platoon drills, suggested we look at each man next to us, as not everyone was going to make it.
Which was true. In my platoon, we lost maybe 4 guys out of 40 before we were done. One was flat-out crazy, and should not have been there. He tried committing suicide at least once, and a sight you don’t want to see is an insane naked private covered head to toe in talcum powder running through the barracks and wailing. Another guy from a different platoon we had nicknamed Missile Head. He had a pointy head, like Zippy the Pinhead. I recall observing him being forced to low crawl around the entire battalion for some indiscretion, and another time, on KP duty he had gone off and was hurling plates and glasses at everyone in the dishwashing area, and ended up being rushed and tackled by one of the drills as plates came crashing down and exploding around the guys. Another guy ended up being recycled, and as we left, he was being re-assigned to another company for a second go around. Another guy from a different company in the battalion died on a heart-related condition during morning PT.
If I said it was fun, I would be lying, or not remembering all of it, but overall, I consider Benning an important time, and as Joseph Campbell has written, it is a rite of passage. You come out changed, for better or for worse, but for most folks, I think for the better. The drill sergeants who you learned to hate you also learned to respect and appreciate as you evolve from a maggot to a soldier. You learn that you are capable of far more than you had expected or knew. And there were fun times. The Malone Ranges became our second home, and we tossed thousands and thousand of rounds down range. The weapons training of course was the main reason we were there, and that included the M16A1, the M2HB .50 caliber machine gun (“Ma Deuce, Might Heavy, Mighty Dirty”), the M203, the disposable LAW, or Light Anti Tank Weapon, the M60, hand grenades, and the beloved Claymore mine, the bounding Betty, and antitank mines.
Bayonet training was strange and sometimes scary. There we would be in a huge PT field with our M16A1s and the bayonet dangling from our TA50 web belt. Over and over, we’d answer the question “What is the sprit of the bayonet?” with “To Kill!” at the top of our lungs. “What are the two types of bayonet fighters?” The quick and the dead!” It was all pretty cool, except when we finally had to square off against a partner with a naked bayonet facing us. I of course got stuck with the dumbest guy in the platoon, the one who had experienced the joys of the blanket party at least once, and was sure I would end up with the thing sticking out of my chest.
I did survive that, the gas chamber for what they call “protective mask confidence course,” which is army-speak for being put in a room filled with CS gas, pulling off your M17 mask, and then taking a deep breath and seeing how long you can last before fleeing, and my frankly horrible skill at tossing a live M67 hand grenade. I also survived having a tank drive over my “defensive fighting position”, meaning you run and jump into a hole in the ground, an M60 tank drives over the hole, and you pop out and pretend to ready and fire a LAW into the vulnerable engine area with an empty tube, then scramble out covered with dirt for the next sucker in line.
We really did sleep with our weapons during field training, and found out how small a thing as a honey bun was for dessert can be after eating c rations for days at a time in the bush. C-rats alone have developed a sort of mythology to them with the many ways to make them edible, how to not blow up a can of beans and franks when you heat them by burning the little cardboard box (the secret is a few vent holes made with the P38), and how great Tabasco sauce is for the pork slices in juice, and what to avoid at all costs or go hungry that night.
You found fun where you could. One time, we were training on the high-speed shelter half, which is basically a pup tent. Each man is issued one half a tent, one pole and a few stakes. You button them together and have a pup tent. That night, it happened to be raining and I told my tent mate that under no circumstances should he touch the inside surface of the canvas. Why? Just don’t. Why? Trust me, don’t to it. Of course, he had too, and spend the night soaking wet. That I got a little wet too was worth it. Another time, my fire team was detailed to guard one of the rifle ranges. It was a spooky night, lots of wind, and there had been a brush fire through there not long before we arrived, so our mission was to make sure the place didn’t burn down. My buddy was pretty freaked out there in the dark, so on our two hour shift, I started telling him all kinds of BS ghost stories. He got more and more agitated, so I got more and more vivid, told him I saw blood dripping out of one of the range towers, stuff like that. He was finally absolutely freaking out, and then, the wind caused an ember to ignite a big tree stump just a few yards from us, and I of course told him the ghosts were angry at him, etc.
Overall, I would not trade a moment of boot camp, and the lessons learned there were far more than weapons, tactics, drill and ceremony. I think anyone who went through it, no matter what branch of service or MOS will agree.
Dane
