The Fourth of July will mark the 40th anniversary of my first day in the Army.
I had signed up for the delayed-entry program before my junior year in high school, so I had a whole year to prepare for this monumental step at age 17.
This was 11 years after U.S. combat operations ended in Vietnam. President Ronald Reagan oversaw the largest military spending increase in our country’s history. Patriotism was on the rise again and people started honoring instead of rejecting the many Vietnam veterans. Enlistment across the branches of the military began to swell.
I got caught up in that on a field trip to Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Airborne Division, whose World War II exploits were made famous decades later by the HBO TV series “Band of Brothers.” Soon after I joined.
With a Mizzou duffle bag in my hand containing a few clothes and a shaving kit, my mom dropped me off at the Greyhound bus station in Cape Girardeau. We knew this day had been coming for a year, so we were prepared to say goodbye. My parents divorced when I was 11. My mom’s family was from the Sikeston area, so we moved there until I graduated from high school. Neither of us had any idea of what I was about to go through.
The bus dropped me off in downtown St. Louis in the middle of the day. Streams of people were pulling carts filled with adult beverages and pushing wagons full of kids to the Arch grounds for the VP Fair/Independence Day festivities on the riverfront. I walked several blocks and checked into the Gateway Hotel, an aging brick structure that’s been gone for years.
I had officially reported for duty on this country’s birthday. The next few days were a blur as I and hundreds of other young men, mostly teenagers like me, were processed from civilian to soldier. By the time I reached Fort Benning, Ga. (recently renamed Fort Moore) a week later, the transformation was complete: shaved head, more shots than I could count, and dressed head to toe in Army camouflage. During this time, the Army was transitioning away from Vietnam-era equipment such as uniforms, helmets and weapons.
At Benning my group of new soldiers was divided. One portion went to the newer barracks, called Sand Hill, that I found out later had air-conditioning. My section was going to Harmony Church, built during World War II to train the “Greatest Generation” to protect the freedom we all enjoy today. The church had no AC. That summer we became highly familiar with the terrain features and steamy climate of southern Georgia in July.
Take all the movies you’ve seen that portray harsh drill sergeants and you can distill them into the ones I encountered in boot camp. The control they took over 150 young men was completed as they walked through us, row by row, picking apart any weakness. It was unlike anything I had experienced playing football in school. I thought I would be unfazed by the yelling and threats, but this was a whole new level.
The first and most important thing we all had to master was keeping our mouths shut. For hours at a time during exercises, all you heard was the voice of the drill sergeant. A lot of that time you’re standing at rigid attention. Anyone who thinks the Army hands you a weapon and says, ‘Let’s go to the range’ the day you start is grossly mistaken. Until you learn to march in formation, you don’t move on to anything else.
We all learned to function as a platoon within the company. Platoon life was everything. These were the people you trained with, sweated through PT with every morning before the sun came up, ate and slept with in two-level wooden barracks with screen doors at each end and screens in all the windows. There were no stalls in the latrine; privacy is a distant memory in infantry school. It was as spartan as it gets.
A few months later when my mom, brother and grandmother came to my graduation, they were astonished anyone could live in those conditions. By that time I was used to it. We had spent every waking hour outside in the woods. Every week we were trained in a new skill. The weapons became more deadly. We started with blank ammunition, but then it all became real. Sit. Listen. Learn. Execute. Thankfully, we didn’t have any serious training incidents.
Eventually as that part of our training ended, the calendar said October and the cool nights were a joy after so many days sweltering away. All that remained was to pass a series of tests of all the skills I’d learned, from wiring a claymore mine to first aid to all of the physical requirements like running, sit-ups and pushups. To me this was the most stressful day of all. Failure of any test could have meant repeating a portion of training, or being called the dreaded "recycle." I was reporting for airborne school the day after I graduated.
Thankfully, I passed and by the time we marched for graduation I had become a squad leader, which meant I got to lead a column in my platoon during the ceremony. We all received the blue cord denoting the infantry. It was a proud day.
I made my five parachute jumps and had silver wings pinned on a month later before taking a week of leave, after which I headed to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. That fort has since been renamed Fort Liberty. Forts Benning and Bragg were named after Confederate generals from the Civil War. When I served, I had no knowledge about the history of either place. I was among a melting pot of people and got along with all of them.
My Army training was a small chapter of my life, but one I remain proud of 40 years later. Challenges were met, I served and eventually was honorably discharged. I moved on to a career that’s given me an equal if different sense of accomplishment.
A relic of a bygone era, Harmony Church was bulldozed decades ago. There’s a small shrine to it at Fort Moore. I’m part of a Facebook group that shares memories of our time there. It makes me happy to know that I’m not alone in remembering our time.
Thanks for reading. Have a great summer.
