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Memoirs of 1st Wolfhounds Bravo's Third Platoon 66-67
von: Fred Roark
BookBaby, 2020
ISBN: 9781098324810 , 170 Seiten
Format: ePUB
Kopierschutz: frei
Preis: 11,89 EUR
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CHAPTER 2
I MUST ENLIST AND WAIT TO GO TO OCS
The Good Conduct Medal Presented to Enlisted Men Only
IN JANUARY OF 1964 I went to the Army recruiting office in Logansport and signed up. I was scheduled to begin basic training May 12th of that year. I worked at the spring factory until it was time to report. I boarded a bus to Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was there I was inducted, received a medical check-up, provided uniforms, and given a battery of written tests. I was assigned a building a foot-locker a bed and, on the bed, were sheets, a blanket, pillow and a pillowcase. After being shown how to make up a bed the Army way we were set to make up our own. The work was inspected by the drill sergeant who tore up most of the beds and told the privates to start over. When he came to mine it passed and he told everyone if you need help ask Roark here. I had paid attention during ROTC and most of the classes we attended were easy for me. After the first week, I was made an acting NCO. I did not get a pay raise only wrath of the Drill Sergeant when someone did something wrong. We had several slow recruits and I spent more time with them to get them through.
Graduation came and I received orders to attend leadership and intelligence training. I had done very well on the tests given when I entered the Army at Fort Knox and was allowed and encouraged to apply for admission to the Fort Benning Officers Training School. I did apply and the school I was sent to was preliminary to my acceptance. It was at Fort Gordon, Georgia and when I finished the school, I was made part of the training cadre until my OCS assignment came through. I was assigned to enter the OCS program the end of April a little less than a year after I had joined the Army. The school would last for six months.
My Tac Officer was Lieutenant Brown a large man. I would say about six foot three inches tall husky build, and strong as an ox. I left High School weighing 213 pounds, I left basic training weighing 195 pounds but when I left OCS, I weighed 185 pounds. I would be in the best shape of my life. We ran everywhere. When we stopped, we did calisthenics until we started running again.
We had many classroom courses and with each we were tested and my scores were always in the top ten. We had courses on the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Rank and Insignia of every branch of service of every NATO country, The Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) is a book that prescribes the wartime mission, capabilities, organizational structure, and mission essential personnel and equipment requirements for military units, Map reading, Escape and evasion tactics, Weapons qualification, Physical Training, Leadership Training, Small unit tactics, and etc.
We had an escape and evasion course that was run at night. We were driven to an initial start point. Each of us had been given a map to a safe house on the far end of the wooded area we had to travel through to get to the safe house. We were told the boundaries of the course. On the west side of the forest was a ten-foot tall fence. To the east was the road we had come to the site on. We were told we could not cross beyond either of these boundaries. When we were told to get out of the trucks and start running. A large group of Rangers that operated the course came charging out of the woods and began rounding up cadets. I immediately ran in the opposite direction around the trucks and turned toward the road we had been told was the eastern boundary. I was soon joined by one of my platoon buddies by the name of Jim Holliday. Together we made our way to the boundary road. I started across the road and Jim said, “Fred we can’t do this.”
I said, “This is one route the Rangers will not be looking for us to take. If you want to complete the course without being captured you might want to follow me. I told him the Rangers will not be treating us kindly if they catch us.” Jim followed me across the road and we ran most of the way to the far end of the course. Just before we got to the road the safe house was on, we crossed back over to the other side. From there it was a short walk to the safe house. Jim and I were the first ones to arrive and successfully complete the course. For the next week, we listened to the stories of guys that had been captured. It was sad and Jim and I just commiserated with them.
We had a final Physical Training test that consisted of five events: The Run Dodge and Jump, The Overhead Ladder Bars, The Low Crawl, The Grenade Throw, and The Mile Run. Each event had a possible score of up to 100 points. The company I was in only had two candidates that made perfect 500 points. I was one of those and my friend Jim Holliday was the other.
We had a final Leadership Training Course. The Training Company I was in consisted of five platoons each with forty men. We were taken to an elaborately constructed area with ten military scenario pits. The company was divided into ten men teams and each man was put in charge of solving and leading his team so as to solve his assigned scenario. My scenario was to get all of my unit across a ten-foot contaminated field up a ten-foot concrete wall and over it to safety. Oh yes, and they added a dummy weighing 140 pounds who was wounded and lying on a stretcher who had to be taken with the team. There were items lying around but none that would provide enough length to get all of us to and over the wall. I had notice that every pit had a light pole with a light for night runs of the course. I gave the light pole a push and it moved in the soft sand of the pit. I called the two biggest men in the team to rock it back and forth until it could be lifted out. I always carried the Swiss Army knife my grandfather had given me. I wrapped my Army issued belt made of nylon around the knife and cut the electrical wire leading to the pole. I stepped off the pole and had two others do the same. We concluded the light pole was twelve-foot long. Since the field was ten feet and the wall was ten feet the hypotenuse was a little over fourteen feet. The pole was short by two feet. I told everyone to remove their belts and hooked them together making about twenty feet of rope. We secured one end near the top of the pole, then picked up the other end of the pole and set it down a little over two feet into the contaminated field and we lowered the top of the pole onto the wall close to the top. We bridged the two feet with the materials lying around. Then two of the biggest men shinnied up the pole to the top of the wall. They released the belt rope and held on to it. I then had the team secure the stretcher with the belt rope and the next biggest man followed the stretcher with the patient secured to it. The man following the stretcher was to keep the stretcher centered on the pole. When the stretcher, patient, and three men were on top of the wall I sent the remainder of the team up the pole to the top of the wall. On the other side of the wall the ground was only two feet down. The Airborne Ranger that stood there grading us was very upset that I tore down the light pole and cut the electrical wire. I thought I had failed the test.
Not one of the other nine candidates on my team had been able to complete their scenario in the allotted time. I later learned that out of our company of two hundred men only one person had successfully solved the scenario in the allotted time. That person had cheated and used unauthorized objects to succeed. The test was designed to be impossible to succeed and your leadership skills were the test. Skills in motivation, encouragement, delegation, decision making. Yes, I was the only one to ever, I think, successfully solve his scenario.
I was not a perfect candidate. For the first five months, everyone wore a black helmet liner. During their final month, the candidates wore blue helmet liners. Candidates wearing black helmet liners had to salute those wearing blue helmet liners. Blue helmeted candidates would stop black helmeted candidates, hassle them and have them do push-ups.
When our company was given the blue helmet liners my platoon wanted to celebrate on the following Sunday. I had a car and agreed to go to a pizza place just off post and buy ten pizzas. I knew I would be off post in fatigues and candidates were not allowed off post that way. When I got to the pizza place the order had already been called in and was likely ready for pickup. I got out of my car and looked to see if there was anyone inside. There was only one civilian sitting at a table by himself, so in I went in and pickup our ten pizzas, paid for them and left. When I got back to the barracks with the pizzas, I was told to report to the duty officer. He told me that I was seen off post in fatigues by the Company Commander of the 51st Company. That charge could have washed me out of the OCS program. After I was informed that I was to be in the Battalion Commander’s office at zero seven hundred Monday morning, I went to the phone and called my old Company Commander at Fort Gordon. I knew he was a personal friend of the Colonel. In fact, when the Colonel earned his Medal of Honor, he was the one who saved his life.
I told him about my transgression and he said, “stay by this phone and I will call you back.” Twenty minutes later he called me back and told me the Colonel would be chewing me out but not washing you out. He said you will be going back to wearing a black helmet liner. You will stay in your company while your fellow...