Last Man Out
Page 3
The next week Cassius Clay was to fight Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of the world, and Tate and I decided that Liston would break Clay’s smart-ass face. Liston was a three-to-one favorite, and it was hard to get a bet on Clay in our company. I offered five-to-one. Ten dollars on Clay would get fifty if he won, and I had some takers. No money passed hands before the fight, but Van Pelt kept the books. I had almost five hundred dollars of my money at risk, having taken in one hundred dollars in committed bets on Clay. I was slightly overextended; we were making only eighty-four dollars a month as army privates. I would be about three hundred dollars short if Liston lost, but I saw no problem. Liston was absolutely a sure bet. Tate promised to help me collect.
We listened to the fight on the radio. Liston did not answer the bell for the seventh round—despite my desperate yells—and I was suddenly surrounded by people who wanted to collect on their bets. I had to scurry around that night and borrow money from McDiarmid, Tate, and Van Pelt to cover my losses. Van Pelt said it was a typical lowlife maneuver to lay long odds on a loser. He reckoned it did not bode well for my life as a risk taker, as in being a soldier or fighting a war. To do any soldiering, one needed to be lucky. He wasn’t sure this line of work was up my alley—“You lost five hundred dollars—that’s more than you make in six months, you dumb Molly-Wolly.”
Tate became something of a shadow, sitting beside me in class and in the mess hall. He simply had no social skills, and I often acted as his spokesman. In turn, he provided security and an intimidating presence to others when we were together, an enhanced status not lost on Sergeant McGee. I was awarded “Outstanding Trainee” at graduation from basic training. As we were packing up to go to separate advanced infantry training (AIT) companies, I went down to Tate’s bunk. He was reading a comic book. I wished him well in life. “Yeah,” he said, but he did not smile, as if our brief friendship was over and he was going back to his more hostile, antisocial nature, the only way he knew to meet the challenges ahead.
Along with many other recruits, Van Pelt and I put in for Officer Candidate School (OCS) during the last week of basic training. We were together in AIT and, during a slow training session, began exchanging notes. In one convoluted, pseudointellectual analogy, I took the position of a weed in life, ugly by urban standards but durable and adaptive. Van Pelt claimed that if I was a weed, he was a flower, cultured and beautiful—a more attractive standard. Our notes were crazy, surreal flights of fantasy, and we worried occasionally what our drill sergeants might think if they read them, especially when I found out my friend’s entire given name and began addressing him as “Miss Elmer Lee Van Pelt the Third, the Flower Child.”
Within weeks of starting AIT, people in our company began to get rejection notices on their OCS applications. The notices were form letters sent regular mail. This made mail call after retreat at night very tense. I looked forward to letters from home, but hated to hear my name called for fear it would be the rejection notice. It was like Russian roulette.
One night after supper I went over to Van Pelt’s barracks. He was sitting on his bed writing a letter. As usual, he smiled broadly as we talked about our planned weekend together in Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters and blue-eyed southern belles who “luved” skinhead GIs from Fort Gordon. I was leaving when he said, “Hey, weed, this came in the mail to me tonight.” He tossed his OCS rejection notice on the bunk. He went back to writing as I read the form letter. He looked up after a while and shrugged his shoulders. I left without a word.
When AIT training was completed, Van Pelt received his orders to an infantry unit. I did not see him when he came to my barracks to say good-bye; I had been sent on detail across post. When I returned the following note was on my bunk:
Jim, You weed, you low, scummy, slimy, slob of a worthless infectious grub. Despair ingrate, the beauty and inspiration which you leaned on like a crutch has left you, leaving you to wallow in the crud of your mind, like a snake in the mud. Crawl weed, wither and die. Love, beauty, fun, happiness is gone. The flower has triumphed, herd your miasmic children, change their pants, and tell them their stories, you pimp, weed. Ugh! Leave the world and all its charms to men, not nursemaids, scouts. Ha! I despise you, fool. Wilt weed, there is nothing left, don’t try to retaliate, it’s too late. I tried to show you the light, now you must burn. Weed, burn bright, and perhaps, for once in your inglorious, dark, misery laden life a bright spot might shine. Burn Weed. Burn.
After AIT almost eighty of us were still awaiting disposition of our OCS applications. We were assigned to two barracks near my AIT training company. I was given temporary corporal rank, which I wore on a band around my upper-right sleeve, and assigned to a basic training company as an assistant DI (drill instructor) or “gofer,” as in commands from the regular DIs, “Hey, shithead! Go for this, or go for that.”
Almost every day, someone in our group received a rejection notice from OCS. When we came in at night another mattress would be folded back and the bed coverings gone—like tombstones of the departed.
Five weeks after I graduated from AIT we heard that someone across post in another holding company had been accepted to OCS for the November 1964 class. Following that first acceptance, we all had new hope, but then came a spate of rejection notices. Our eighty-man group was reduced to twenty. One barracks was closed, and we finally moved down to a single floor. Every night another mattress was turned down. We continued to hear of other candidates being accepted, but no one in our group had been selected.
I came in one night from a long march with the basic training company and found a notice to see the first sergeant at our holding-company headquarters. He and I had had a run-in during the previous week over the weekend duty roster, and he had threatened to put a reprimand in my OCS application folder. He was an unlikable, crass individual and I knew the message to see him was related to extra duty that weekend. He was in the company commander’s office when I entered the orderly room. The door was open and the commander caught my eye and motioned me into his office. I was sweaty and dirty from the road march and regretted not cleaning up before answering the first sergeant’s summons, but I walked in and saluted. The commander stuck out his hand and said, “Congratulations.” I had been accepted for the November OCS class.
TWO
Command Training
On November 15, 1964, after home leave, I drove my uncle’s maroon 1949 Ford from Southern Pines to the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Parked across the street from the three-story barracks of the OCS company I was to join, I sat silently smoking as I watched new OCS candidates arrive. Immediately, they were set upon and summarily hazed by both the senior candidates in blue helmet liners and the more lethal commissioned officers assigned to the school as instructors. The officers, referred to as “Tac officers,” were cool predators, hanging back in the shadows until they decided on a new candidate to attack. They walked up to a new man, called him to attention over some slight, got close to him and talked angrily—sometimes fast but sometimes, for effect, very slowly. Even from where I sat it was apparent that the comments of the Tac officers were hard-hitting, as they evoked painful grimaces from the candidates.
I resolved to ignore them—that had been Cottonpicker’s advice. Show no emotion, take nothing personal, find out what you are expected to do, and do it. “It’s not a personality contest,” he had said. “OCS is a six-month test to find the fuckups. That’s it. Don’t fuck up. You got it more’n half licked getting to the school. That’s the hard part. Don’t fuck up. Don’t try too hard. They’ll try to break you down, you’re going to get tired and sometimes you’re going to want to quit, just keep on. Don’t show emotion. Keep on. Don’t fuck up.”
I put out my cigarette, got my duffel bag out of the trunk, and walked across the street. As I expected, I was immediately attacked by blue-helmeted upperclassmen. I stood at attention and responded to their loud orders to get my chin in, suck in my gut, straighten u
p my back, get my gig line straight.
“I saw you sitting in the car across the street, candidate.”
Someone had come up to my right side and was talking into my ear. His voice was lower but clearer than those of the upperclassmen yelling in my face about my shave and haircut. I could feel the man’s breath.
“I do not know why you were sitting in your car for so long, but I do not like it.”
The man moved in front of me, his nose a couple of inches from mine. The blue-helmeted upperclassmen moved aside, as if getting out of the way so the big dog could eat.
“I do not like sneaky people. The Army wants its officers to be upright. Men of character.” He continued to speak in a low, soft voice. “You, I am going to watch very closely. This is no joke, candidate. I don’t like you. I am going to get you out of here. You are finished before you start because you’re a sneak. You’re finished, I guarantee it. I’m going to kick your sniveling little young ass out. I’m gonna do it. I promise.”
I looked straight ahead into the distance and did not focus on the Tac officer in front of me. I tried to show no emotion. He stepped back.
“Look at me. Look at my face. Look at my name. I am Tactical Officer Lieutenant Taylor. Every time you see me for the next week—every time you see me—drop down and give me twenty push-ups. You understand? It’s going to be my way of telling you to get out.”
“Yes, sir,” I shouted.
“Drop now, and count them out loud.”
I did the push-ups. When I got back to my feet beside my duffel bag, Taylor was gone.
Eventually I made my way into the orderly room and was assigned to the fourth platoon on the third floor. As I tried to go up the stairs I was constantly assaulted by blue-helmeted upperclassmen yelling, “Up against the wall, candidate,” or “Give me ten, candidate.”
Later that first day we were called out to formation, and the ever-yelling upperclassmen arranged us alphabetically, by platoon. Standing as still as possible to avoid harassment, I could see from their name tags that a Nesse was on my right and a Particelli on my left. I did not know or care to know the names of anyone else in the platoon.
After a time, the blue-helmeted men moved behind us and a slight, serious-looking young officer moved in front of the platoon.
“My name is Lieutenant Joseph C. Hailey,” he said in a conversational tone. “I am the 4th Platoon tactical officer. The U.S. Army has asked me to find out who among you isn’t qualified to be an officer. And you know what, most of you aren’t. Not,” he said, with emphasis, “because you aren’t smart. You are all smart. Not,” he said, again with emphasis, “because you don’t want to be officers. You all do. No, most of you are not qualified because of,” he paused for emphasis, “need. The U.S. Army just doesn’t have much room in the officer corps right now. It doesn’t matter if you are all relatives of MacArthur or Eisenhower, the Army doesn’t need us to manufacture many second lieutenants. They’re going to take the West Pointers and the ROTC grads first, and this year there’re plenty. So there are not many openings. Sorry,” he said. “It’s just the way it is. Most of you are going to be weeded out.”
At the end of the first week we were introduced to the most insidious aspect of the weeding-out process—the infamous “bayonet” sheets, in which everyone ranked everyone else in the platoon. Every Friday each member of the platoon submitted, on a single sheet of notebook paper, names of all the other men in the platoon listed in order, according to the way we judged their individual officer potential. The man we thought would make the best officer was number one, the man we thought was least qualified was last. The “bayonet” sheet got its name because of the knife job that one could do on his contemporaries. With thirty-five people in the platoon submitting a bayonet sheet every week for eleven weeks, a lot of evaluation was developed. The total process, called peer or student rating, counted for much in assessing the overall officer potential of each candidate.
There were exacting, almost impossible, housekeeping standards in OCS, certainly more demanding than anything I had known in military school, basic training, or AIT. We lived in two-man rooms. My roommate, an older, former noncommissioned officer, and I spent our first weekend shining every square of our linoleum tile floor with hard wax and spit. We cut cardboard within a fraction of an inch to fit inside our clothes on display in our wall locker and chest of drawers. We used a ruler to get our boots lined up properly under our beds and to get the right distance between items of clothing in the closet. We Brassoed the door hinges, washed the windows, polished our desks, and cleaned every piece of our equipment.
On Monday morning, Tac Officer Taylor came in and dumped our stuff in the middle of the floor. Despite myself, I pursed my lips and said “Shit” under my breath. Taylor whipped around.
“What did you say, candidate? Did I hear you say something? This candidate cursed me, I do believe. I will see you in formation.”
There, he called me out of ranks and ordered me to run around the company as it marched toward Building No. 4, where we had most of our classes. This was not easy, especially when I had to cut across the front of the marching company. Taylor called me back into the rear ranks of the fourth platoon before we reached the building. When we stopped, one of the candidates near me said, “I think that man out there likes you.”
“You want an introduction?” I responded.
“Nope,” he half-whispered back, “I don’t want him to know my name.”
When we received the order to fall out to class, I looked at the candidate who had spoken. His name was Larry (Pete) Peterson, and I learned later that he was from Lincoln, Nebraska. Before coming to OCS he had been the PFC driver for the commander of a medical battalion at the Fort Benning hospital. Of medium build, he was wholesome looking, straightforward, and he cackled when he laughed.
Tac Officer Taylor’s attentions continued. Pete thought it was because Taylor sensed—right or wrong—that I had a cocky attitude. Pete worked with me on appearing humble, but finally gave up. “You’re just an asshole, I reckon, and Taylor seems to know that.”
When I was assigned as platoon leader and had to march the platoon to an assembly area on the athletic field, Lieutenant Taylor walked briskly at my side. During most of the march he yelled obscenities, particularly as I prepared to give commands to the platoon.
Early the following week we had our first written test on leadership. Although it required reading during our study period at night, I had used my time to surreptitiously clean my equipment, that being Lieutenant Taylor’s focus of the week with me. Just before lights out the night before the test, I told Pete I wasn’t ready; I was just going to have to wing it. Ten minutes after lights out I heard a “psssss” by the door to my room. It was Pete. He told me to get the blanket from the foot of my bed and follow him into the latrine. As we huddled under the blanket in the showers, Pete shared his notes.
Because of Pete, I passed the test the next day.
Sometime later that week we made a pledge to help each other get through OCS. There was strength in numbers, we said. Thereafter I made him number one on my bayonet sheet. Pete ran interference for me whenever Lieutenant Taylor was around and tried to distract him. This often cost him push-up punishment. When Pete’s roommate dropped out, I moved in with him.
We worked well together, Pete and I, though we both had a sense of fun and irreverence that was a liability. As the weeks progressed we became more accepting of the traditional OCS hazing and no longer took the constant harassment personally, except with Taylor.
Classroom instruction was interspersed with field exercises, with emphasis on leadership training. According to our instructors, our effectiveness as future infantry officers depended on our ability to motivate and lead men. Respect, fairness, humor, poise, determination, confidence, and empathy were characteristics of good leaders. Vanity, laziness, and sarcasm were not. Smart-asses don’t make good leaders, we were told. Peterson looked at me and shook his head.
“South what?” someone asked.
“South Vietnam,” the veteran said, “is a small jungle country in the Orient and American soldiers are fighting and dying there.”
I had heard Vietnam mentioned occasionally during basic and AIT training, but it was never discussed outside the classrooms that I remember. However, it seemed more relevant now, and we talked about it among ourselves during the next break. Everyone pronounced it differently.
“What are we doing in Vieeet-nammmm, really?” someone asked.
“Killing Commies,” someone else said.
“Okay, that’s legal.”
At the end of the eleventh week at OCS, all candidates faced an evaluation. Those who fell below a certain rating had to go before a panel, ostensibly to defend their records. In fact, candidates who were paneled were usually kicked out of the program or recycled to another company, regardless of what they said. It was the weeding-out process at work.
The panel was scheduled for Friday morning, 29 January 1965.
On Wednesday morning before the panel we fell out for a Physical Training run, although the rumor circulated that it was to test endurance and would have a bearing on those selected for the panel.
Wearing T-shirts, fatigue pants, and boots, we left the company area and shuffled along in formation. A candidate at the side led us in marching songs. It was a warm morning and Pete and I were shuffling along side by side, singing. Occasionally we would windmill our arms. Ah, it was good to be young and in shape. We could take the run.