Monday, December 10, 2007

Shake 'n Bake Sergeant

A funny thing happened to me last week. I received a flyer in the mail. It advertised a book about the Non-Commissioned Officer Candidate Course ... of which I was a graduate in 1969.

The flyer alone triggered memories which I had thought were buried over 35 years ago.

Assuming I can resist the impulse to lay a bunch of "NSTRH" (No Shit, This Really Happened!) stories on you, I'd like to give you some idea what it was like in 1968 and 1969 for a 23-year-old draftee with a college education in America.

I graduated from State University (where I now work) in 1968, and was immediately drafted. I had applied for a post-graduate job with The Teacher Corps, which intended to send me to East St. Louis as a Teaching Assistant, but the draft notice arrived first. (This was before the days of The Draft Lottery.) I wrote my state senator and my congressman for support, but the Army had me and wouldn't let me go. I even offered to go to East St. Lewis for a year, and then report for military service ... but it wasn't acceptable. (I later discovered that Fate had not been that unkind to me; ESL was a war zone, but the Teacher Corps didn't give you combat training before your posting, and they didn't let you carry a gun.)

The next thing I did was to marry my college sweetheart. Six days later, I reported for duty and was sworn into the U.S. Army (September 20, 1968).

I was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington ... the nearest Basic Training Center. On the bus to Fort Lewis, I discovered that every man on the bus was a recent college graduate. Bummer, man!

Upon arriving we met an unpleasant man who randomly picked me out of the group to be the Platoon Guide. (Not so random; I later determined that I was the only married man in the group. Apparently the army considers this a measure of maturity. It was my first indication that the U.S. Army had its head up its ass.)

At the end of the nine-week Basic Training, my platoon was found to be no better or worse than any other platoon in the company. We couldn't compare ourselves directly against any other platoon because there was a Meningitis Epidemic in the army at the time, and we were quarantined in our platoon barracks for the entire period.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1968, we had a 'Family Visitation Day'. My parents drove my wife up from Oregon to have a lunch with me. My father brought me beer in a thermos bottle, and my wife and I held hands (and other parts, under the table) as we spent two hours in a large room with most of the members of the Company. Meningitis was officially declared a non-issue for this period. Then our families went back to where-ever they had come from (no "Married Enlisted Men's Quarters" were made available for Conjugal Visitations) and we went back to our barracks.

Over the Christmas/New Years holiday, we were granted leave. I went back to my wife's apartment in Corvallis, my parents having granted her the loan of their car. On New Year's Eve we held a huge party in her apartment, where we all got drunk as skunks and I beat the crap out of my best friend (who was in college as an R.O.T.C. scholarship student.) At 6am the next morning I tracked my bruised best friend down at his apartment and made him drive me and my wife back to Fort Lewis. We were all hung-over, my wife was nauseus the whole time. It was snowing, the freeway was so inundated with snow that we put on tire chains even though the terrain was flat. We broke three chains on the 12-hour trip to drive 300 miles, and my wife threw up every time we stopped for food. I was 2 hours late for my 6pm return deadline ... and I was one of the first in my company to get back on post.

Immediately after graduation from Basic Training, and I mean five minutes after, I was notified that I was "11-Bravo" (assigned to Infantry) and trucked 300 yards to my Advanced Infantry Training company. After 13 weeks in the army, training, I was assigned to another 13 weeks of training in 'advanced tactics'. The good news: I wasn't selected to be Platoon Guide; instead, some other dweeb was. I spent the next 13 weeks making his life a living hell. Nothing against him, it's just that I was spoiling for a fight the whole time.

During my induction, because of my test scores, I was offered the opportunity to volunteer for Officer's Candidate School. After long and serious consideration (as long as it took me to recover from an uncontrollable fit of laughter), I rejected the offer. It required a 4-year term of enlistment (instead of the two-year term to which I was already obligated by the draft) and I was unlikely to survive the experience. I may have been a college graduate, but I wasn't THAT stupid!

More tests, and they offered me a slot in Helicopter Flight School, from which a successful candidate would graduate as a Warrant Officer qualified to fly helicopters in combat. They carried me out laughing hysterically. I knew people who had fallen for that trick; they were readily identifiable by their snappy uniforms and their crutches and/or canes. I did not take kindly to the idea of having my ass literally shot off.

Besides, this was another four-year deal, and if you flunked out ... you still had your 4-year obligation, but as a Private Soldier. I had no qualms about my ability to pass the course-work but they wouldn't give you the physical until after you signed the paperwork.

However, late in the Advanced Infantry Training course, a few of us were quietly told to report to the captain. At that meeting, we were individually informed that we had been selected for the Non-Commissioned Officer Candidate Course (NCOCC). It was another 13-week course of training, very much like Officer Candidate School, taught at Fort Benning, Ga. by the same instructors and officers and cadre who taught OCS. Following that, there would be a 13-week period of On the Job training (OJT) in-country as Cadre in a Basic Training Company. Then we would be assigned to our Permanent Unit (we already knew we were going to Viet Nam). This option did NOT require re-enlisting for a four-year term.

I figured, this was my best chance to grab as much training as possible before going to The Nam. Also, I would be an NCO ... a Sergeant ... which gave me much more control over the way my war would be fought. I would be making the decisions which determined my assignments. Not a bad deal.

First, I had to pass an oral exam. I stood before the Company Commander and his two Tactical NCO's and was given this conundrum:

"Suppose you are in charge of a squad, and your entire company was pinned down by a machine gun nest in the jungle. There is no way to get around it, the only possible approach is a frontal assault. You know that most of your men will be killed; it's very possible that you will be killed, since you will lead the assault. What do you do?"

I spent five minutes suggesting one alternate solution after another, only to have them shot down in turn by the C.O. who seemed incapable of saying anything other than: "No, that won't work."

Finally, frustrated and exasperated, I blurted out: "It's not going to do anybody any good for a whole squad to die in a failed attempt. I would find another way, even if my commander had given me a direct order to charge the bunker. That's just stupid!"

The interview was over, I left the captain's office feeling that I had just blown the only chance I had at grasping some control over my own fate.

That afternoon a runner called me back to the captain's office. I had been recommended for NCOCC school.

That was my second indication that the army had its head up its ass.

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More on Shake 'n Bake Sergeant later.

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