US Army Basic Training

I was drafted into the army on May 6, 1968 and sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for basic training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT). Both assignments trained me for an 11B MOS as an infantryman and service in Vietnam. I got to basic training about a week after arriving at Fort Jackson. The first week at Fort Jackson was spent at the Reception Center.

The first week of basic was spent mostly being harassed while waiting for the rest of the troops to arrive. I have a lot of stories about my time in basic, but I'm not ready to tell them all in this short HNT post. I promise that someday I'll write another chapter about basic training for my Vietnam Story blog.

So as to give this post a reason for me making it, here are some of the pictures I scanned from my yearbook.

The is SSG Temple, the lead drill sargeant assigned to our platoon. What a prick! He was a real redneck from the back woods of Tennessee and hated yankees. Since most of us were from the northern states, he gave us shit for almost the entire time we were in basic. He was the most despised drill sargeant we had.

To give you an idea what a prick he was, one Sunday him and the corporal got drunk and thought it would be funny to "really" harass the troops. Sundays was always our day to rest, so that especially made the harassment suck even more than usual.

The battalion commander just happened to come to our company area and saw what was going on. Both NCOs were court marshaled and busted down a rank. Luckily, I was assigned to the motor pool that day as a truck driver, so I missed it, but I was told all about it when I got back.

This is SGT Krietz and the most liked of all the NCOs commanding us. Just look at him, can you blame us for liking the guy?

Who does he remind you of? You'll know if you ever watched the Andy Griffith Show or Mayberry RFD. Yep, the spitting image of Deputy Barney Fife the bumbling dope of a deputy of Sheriff Taylor.

But Sgt Kreitz was far from a bumbling dope. Like almost all drill instructors, he had served at least one tour in Vietnam and was an excellent trainer.

Here are some pics of all of the troops in Company A, Sixth Battalion, Second Brigade and a few other guys I hung out with from other platoons. I'm in there somewhere. See if you can find me. Click on the pic to make it larger if you have trouble.

Couldn't find me? No biggie. Here's a close up of Private BTExpress. Look at those fucking elephant ears!

Happy HNT Soldier!

Ya know what I was just thinking? I wonder how many of the young men you see above, never made it back alive from Vietnam, I wonder?