Basic at Ft. Jackson, Jun-July-Aug 1964. Our battalion was a test bed for a new BCT methodology. As such, there were as many as eight Drill Sgts per platoon, more than half of them had CIBs, they all wore tan pith helmets, which I guess was a blessing compared to OD helmets in the blazing South Carolina sun, and we were the first to get pugil stick training ala the USMC. There was no physical abuse, such as striking or tripping, but there was intense physical training: a pre-dawn run, mass PT every day, sometimes twice a day, double time everywhere, in formation and on your own. After dinner, hand to hand workouts and pugil fights in the sandpits behind the barracks, low crawl workouts (right on the belly, scrape up your belt buckle, move like an alligator) that made you feel like your guts will spill out when you stood up.
Cleaning out the foul smelling, slimy grease pit off the end of the mess hall was a regular assignment for slackers, but only three incidents stood out for me.
1. - standing in formation, early in the cycle, Drill Sgt says "Anybody wanna smoke?" and some fool said "Yes Drill Sgt!"
Drill Sgt lit him up, and promptly put a galvanized bucket over the fool's head, and started yelling "Smoke, c'mon, you wanna smoke you ***, now ^&**^#@ smoke, I wanna see smoke!!!" and he puffed until he puked.
Nobody ever wanted a smoke after that.
2. - Sunday was supposedly a day off, but if you stayed around the barracks and tried for a nap, you'd for sure be on a work detail by 0900. With slick sleeves and a knob haircut, you'd be ID'ed as a trainee anywhere on post, and no matter where you went, you dare not lie down or immediate work detail would ensue.
Well, one fine Sunday morning, I go caught in barracks with a few other guys, Sgt says report to the mess hall with your entrenching tool. ????
We arrive, Sgt says we're going to erect another set of overhead horizontal ladders to get us all to chow faster. We all had to go thru the ladders before every meal, so a lengthy queue always happened. One thing I'll give the ladders; it really, really hardened your hands. I had rows of callouses mid finger, on my palm at base of fingers, and mid palm through the thumb web all the way across the palm to the outer edge.
Any how, we figger dig six holes 2-3 feet deep, set 8x8 posts, pour some concrete, piece of cake. Well, then the posts arrive. They were 16 feet long, the holes had to be 8 feet deep!! By dinner, we had them dug, but I was terrified of a cave-in in the sandy soil, way over my head with no shoring. Being so deep, the holes were huge, actually just two 16' long trenches.
3. - Our platoon leader's pet address to us was "You [guano]birds are this that and the other..." , nothing nice. He told us if "You gaunobirds" keep screwing up, you will get 'hurricane drill.'"
Recall that your footlocker at the base of the iron bunk was not for actual use, but for inspection display only purposes, with underwear rolled around toilet paper tubes precisely 6" long filling in the bottom, a never used razor, blades, tooth powder, soap bar, and a tooth brush neatly arranged, all same brands throughout the platoon, precisely measured and square on top of the precisely folded, white GI towel in the top tray.
It was a dark and stormy night, pouring down rain, when at 0100, the barrack lights came on, Drill Sgts banging night sticks on galvanized buckets, yelling "Fall out on the company street for Hurricane Drill, uniform of the day is skivvy shorts, combat boots and footlockers!"
Stumble around, fall out, don't know what to do with footlocker, more yelling...Ten hut... poart...footlocker... Rah shoulda.. footlocker... layef ...sholda... footlocka...Rah...shoulda...footlocka... prayasen... footlocka...port... footlocka...layeft faaa.. fard harch... double taiyem...harch ...pouring down rain... surprising how many lights are on around Fort Jackson at O-dark-thirty...after about twenty minutes, occasional crash of footlocker and cursing, back to barracks, another little manual of arms with footlockers, "Barracks inspectcheun - 0430... Fawl out!" There we were, exhausted, muddy, dripping wet, wondering how we're going to sort out this mess without trashing our immaculate barracks floor and latrine, readied for daily inspection the night before.
Answer - you don't sleep, and you hope yours is not the footlocker the Drill Sgt chooses in the morning inspection to lift the tray to find the wet display underwear underneath.
That was the same platoon leader who called us around him, in the middle of the afternoon in August in some sunburned field at Ft. Jackson, to tell us guanobirds that American ships had been fired on in the Gulf of Tonkin, that we were at war, and you guanobirds are gonna be the first to go to combat in Vietnam, maybe next month.
Sobering thought, but as hot and dirty as we were, we just wanted to get through the next day, one more day closer to getting out of Ft. Jackson and being a nobody, a knob-headed cipher of a trainee.
