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86th ARCOM U.S Army Reserves

                                                            

In  early 1969,  my last year of college,, I had a tough decision to make. My draft status was 2-S,but that would end if I wanted go on to grad school. My choices were limited to being drafted or enlisting for three years. My father, bless him, had a friend who was a sergeant in the Army Reserves, and through him, I was able to join his medical unit on the southeast side of Chicago. I took a physical and traded in my draft card for a uniform. I was assigned to the 374th Convalescent Center, 86th ARCOM, U.S. Army Reserves.

My commitment to the Reserves was four months of basic and advanced training, six years of monthly drills, and two weeks every summer of active duty. The trade off was that it didn't appear likely that Reservists would serve in Viet Nam.

From February until June of that year, I traveled in from DeKalb one weekend a month. I was classified as a new recruit  and given informal training on a number of boring subjects. Most of the time, I sat and listened to an older guy tell war stories about Viet Nam and Korea. Nothing was really relevant to me. I thought that if basic training was going to be anything like this, I would easily survive.

And of course , I was so, so wrong. In May, right before I was to graduate college, I received orders to report to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for the next four months. There was the little matter of final exams I had to figure out. My professors were really great. I took my exams early, in some cases a few were waived. Without a chance to attend graduation, I took my first plane ride ever from Midway Airport to St. Louis. My brother-in law, Al, met me and we spent a few hours together before I boarded a bus to Fort Leonard Wood.

     When the chartered bus pulled into the stark military compound, I had the sick feeling that I wasn't going to be happy until this whole thing was over. We were
marched into the Replacement Depot and the next few days was a blur of haircuts, fatigue uniforms, stiff new combat boots, and close to 20 pounds of equipment, including a steel helmet, shelter half and a heavy winter field jacket.
We were housed in old wooden barracks and awoke every day at 6:00 to a loudspeaker somewhere in the compound. For the next week, called "Zero Week", we essentially did nothing but busy work. We pulled weeds, cleaned toilets, raked gravel paths and wondered endlessly what the next week would bring. Instead of drill sergeants, there were corporals in charge of our groups. They were fairly benign, and we began to believe that maybe things weren't going to be so bad.

Bright and early the following week, we packed up our gear into duffel bags stencilled with our name and serial number. Our civilian clothing had been stored. Even our underwear was Army issue baggy boxers. We formed up under a merciless Missouri summer sun and waited for the buses that would take us to Basic Training. Three hours later, we were still waiting. Thirsty, hungry and badly sunburned.

Finally, we were herded aboard  buses and a short ten minutes later, arrived at our new home for the next 8 weeks. As soon as  we shouldered our duffel bags and climbed down, we were told to line up in front of what looked like a large loading dock. For a few minutes nothing happened, and then a door opened and out strode a larger than life drill sergeant. He wore a Smokey Bear hat, stripes on his sleeves, a Combat Infantry patch over one pocket  and a gleaming metal drill instructor badge over the other that marked him as a man to be reckoned with. Covering his eyes were the darkest sunglasses I had ever seen.
    After telling us in no uncertain terms that we were the lowest of the low, he started singling out recruits for individual attention. Some were asked questions for which there no possible right answers. When the wrong answer was given, the inevitable penalty was a large number of push-ups. If they weren't done correctly, then they were done all over again.

One recruit who was sweating heavily was asked if he was thirsty. When he said, "Yes, Drill Sergeant," he was told to run across the street and buy a Coke from the vending machine. When he returned, he was given a swallow and the rest was poured on his head.  Eventually, this nonsense ended and we began the mile long trip to our barracks.