Basic Training September 1960 Weeks Two, Three and Four
Church
The second Wednesday evening we were told that we could go to a nondenominational church service. We were told that it was our choice, but that if we didn’t go there was a work detail that we would be assigned to. Amazing, there was 100% attendance. The chaplain gave a great talk. He told us that about now we were wonder what in heck we had gotten into. He went over promises that recruiters had made about how good the food was, etc. He then said something strange, “Not now but later you will remember this as one of the best experiences of your life.” He was right.
KP
Kitchen Police is no longer a part of the military life. That is a good thing. The cooks make use of others to do the more menial tasks in the mess hall. Our squadron pulled KP duty twice during basic training once at our mess hall and once at the hospital. Both were interesting. The first KP was at our old mess hall. I was assigned to help unload trucks. How hard could that be I thought. A truck pulled up and a older GI (he looked older than dirt) with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, started handing me 90 pound cases of steaks. Now remember I only weighed 133 pounds and had been losing weight because of the fine food and exercise. Also, he delighted in dropping the boxes into my arms. I collapsed under the first one and was ridiculed by the cook and the delivery guy. Somehow I managed to stand up and lift the case and carry it into the mess hall. The other trucks were much more manageable. The steaks were tough but delicious.
The second time I was on KP was at the hospital. This time my job was to assembly trays, put them on a cart and deliver them to various floors. The idea was to get the food to the patients while it was still hot/cold. The nurses took the trays to patients and I returned the trays to the kitchen. Even though we were on KP for 12 hours, the second time, I was able to get several short naps on the loading dock. The military taught me how to sleep anywhere anytime for any length of time.
Just after we got our uniforms we were allowed out from time to time to visit a common break area. You could buy sodas and candy bars. My first visit there I encountered a sergeant from another barracks who did not like the way I wore my hat—too far back on my head. He reached up grabbed it and pulled it down nearly over my nose and sent me back to my barracks. I learned how to wear my hat properly and to keep my eyes open for sergeants.
Marching
Our barracks did not take to marching very well. We just didn’t seem to get it. Now maybe the lack of uniforms and proper shoes (called brogans in the military) may have contributed to the problem. In our second week our older DI’s wife became seriously ill and could not be with us. The younger DI trying to fill in managed to shout himself horse in the third week and could not yell at us. This is an important ability when you are trying to get 120 men to move in unison. And it is even more important when you are trying to get people to learn. He began letting us sing. This not singing like on the radio, but it is cadence enhancing short sentences. Even though basic training groups were not supposed to do this, it helped us learn how to march as a unit. At the end of the fourth week were the best marchers in our group. The DI marched us to a different mess hall one day. This mess hall was in the WAC’s section of the base. The food was much better. The DI’s girlfriend happened to be a DI WAC. It was fun seeing all of the young women in uniform. He let his girlfriend march us around a bit, but we were used to his voice and not hers so we disappointed him. So much for being the best. He marched us into a dead end alley and left us there for about 20 minutes.
Obstacle Course
Now in the real military they pack up their gear, which includes 20 to 30 pounds of stuff you don’t need. Then they march you 20 to 50 miles depending on how the sergeant feels. You set up camp, dig holes in the ground, take apart your rifle and put it back together just to show that you can. Then you sleep in the tent with other smelly soldiers. You get up early, eat some packaged food from a war you read about in history class. Then run through a tough obstacle course and crawl under live machine gun fire. It is hard work with some danger of being shot in your own butt or being cut by a bayonet.
The Air Force has a better idea. They get you up at oh dark-thirty and march you to a holding area where you wait for sunrise so you can see the obstacle course you are going to run. You don’t carry a pack or a weapon or even a canteen. You run and jump over walls, grab a rope and swing over a 3 foot deep puddle, run through some tires, over and under more walls, climb rope ladders, monkey bars over a small stream. We did get to crawl under some barbed wire with simulated machine guns played over a loud speaker. Now if you stopped too long at one spot or your butt got too high in the air one of the observers would set off a small explosive (about equal to a cherry bomb) near you. This might startle you and it did through dirt on people. The total exposure to simulated gunfire was less than 15 minutes. Also, if you had been unfortunate enough to fall into any of the water hazards along the way, crawling face down in the dirt got you very, very muddy. The total obstacle course was less than three hours. At lunch time we were given mess kits and the cooks from the mess halls were there and had prepared their normal gourmet lunch for us. I had bread and milk. After lunch, we marched back to the barracks.
One unfortunate young man from another barracks, had gotten wet and dirty and he had put on another set of fatigues but did not change his tee shirt. His DI had him put on clean underwear then put him out on the road where he held up the dirty tee shirt to any passer by and said in a loud voice I had this tee shirt on today.
After three weeks, things got a bit easier. We were allowed outside of the barracks after the evening meal. We couldn’t go far but it was an improvement over the confines of the barracks. On the weekends we could go anywhere on the base. The first Saturday I went to a movie and saw, Elmer Gantry.
Another bit of training that was out of place was the use of gas masks. We were taken to a facility and given instructions in the importance and use of gas masks. We were also warned that we could get a surprise drill at any moment. After rehashing a short lecture a number of times, we were led to a small building. About one third of our barracks were told to put on our gas masks and to go inside. The building, the size of a large garage, had no windows and only one small door. Shortly after we were all inside our DI set off a canister of tear gas. None of us felt the effects of the gas. To help us better appreciate our masks we were ordered to remove them. Having talked to some of the other GIs who had been around longer, I had learned not to rub my eyes. The gas will not really hurt you. It is just painful to your mucus membranes. The sarge continued to lecture us while he wore his mask. From time to time he would ask if we were enjoying ourselves. We finally convinced him to let us put our masks back on. Most of the others had rubbed their eyes repeatedly and were still crying when we removed our masks out of doors. He then took the rest of the guys into the building where he repeated his lecture and demo. After that we were taken to a grassy knoll for additional lectures. Since all of our other classes that day had been indoors, I was suspicious. I kept my mask folded so I could put it on in one easy motion. About five minutes into the lecture, someone lobbed tear gas into the group. I put my mask on quickly, but I need not have bothered. Almost at the same instance of the gas arriving so did a strong breeze that blew the gas away. The DI then marched us to the green monster for more processing.
The Air Force does not expect their personnel to be involved up close and personal in combat, but they do want you to know which end of the rifle the bullets come out. So we were taken to the rifle range, given a strong safety lecture and taken to a range area and given ancient weapons but no ammunition. We practiced for about 30 minutes just squeezing the trigger while aiming at targets 27 yards away—actually they were 1000 inches away. We were lying down in a concrete gully, very uncomfortable. Then we were given five rounds to put into our clips. Then with a sergeant watching us closely we fired at our targets. Then our targets were examined to see how well we did. All of mine were grouped nicely just below the bull’s eye. Since they couldn’t change the sight on my rifle, they put a black square above the bull’s eye. We were given another five rounds and fired away. This time I put all five shots through the black square. My sergeant looked at this and said hmm and told me to just aim at the bull’s eye. They gave us new targets and ten rounds of ammo. From now on our scores would count. Prior to this, I had only fired a weapon one time when I was 14 and that was a shotgun. However, the restaurant near my paper route had replaced their pinball machine with an electronic rifle range. If you got a perfect score you got to play again. One time I got 27 perfect scores in a row. With a real rifle and live ammunition, I scored 177 out of 200 and got a marksman certification. The Air Force expected that all airmen would visit the rifle range every year. That was the only time I ever did. I didn’t much care for it then and don’t now. I don't dislike guns and own a shotgun (story coming much later as to how I acquired it.)
I am neither pro-gun or anti-gun. I believe that everyone should have the right to protect themselves, but there is too much violence in our society. I don't have the answer but most other countries have reduced the violence. (send me a message if you really want to discuss).
The airman to my right was thoroughly enjoying himself. When I was given ammo, I would fire about once every 15 seconds or so. He fired one round per second. The sergeant kept scolding him telling him he wouldn’t hit anything. Called him Machine Gun Kelly. When his targets came back all rounds were through the bull’s eye. He got a perfect score—seems he had been a rifle champion in Kansas. The sergeant never asked him or figured out why he could do so well. Many of the others never hit their targets—I don’t know if they had to make this up somewhere else or not. The person to my left had some vision problems but he got a nearly perfect score. I think the person to his left was shooting at his target.
