Pt. 5 - Marine Diesel Mechanic School

Shortly after graduation from Basic Training in August, I boarded a Lockheed Electra airliner in Seattle for my next trip to Richmond, VA, the closest commercial airport to the US Army's Ft. Eustis. Ft. Eustis, located in Newport News, VA was the headquarters of the Army Transportation Corps at the time. After a long flight that included brief periods of very impressive turbulence, we landed in Richmond at about 3:00 am. I walked out of the aircraft into a sweltering, pitch-black Virginia morning. Whew, welcome to the South!

I was stuck in Ft. Eustis for a few days until I received my orders for my next training assignment at Ft. Story, VA, the Army's amphibian vehicle base at the time. Ft. Story (now known as the Joint Expeditionary Base East) was located within the city of Virginia Beach at historic Cape Henry, the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. The Atlantic Ocean winds moderated the steamy summer heat and the miles of beaches made Virginia Beach quite the tourist attraction. I was told that even GI's could get laid there, at least in the summer!

Things at Ft. Story were quite different from basic training at Ft. Lewis. The base was established in 1914  so the same ancient barracks were still in use, but there were no drill sergeants, no daily PT, no fireguard watches, no marching (except for the occasional parade for visiting big shots) and no more weapons handling. I was in the Transportation Corps now, and there to learn how to maintain and repair the diesel engines used in the LARC-V, LARC-XV, and the LARC-60 amphibious vehicles used to transport supplies from ship to shore.

Here's a photo of a LARC-60 unloading a LARC-V.

I had enlisted for the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 61E20, which was an Amphibian vehicle mechanic, but I ended up graduating with a 61E30 MOS, which was supposed to be a depot level mechanic. The engines I learned to work on were the Detroit Diesel 6-71 (an inline 6 cylinder engine used on the LARC-60 - one engine for each wheel!) and the Cummins V8-300 which powered the smaller LARC vehicles. I enjoyed learning about these machines a lot.

Our training company had a regular routine:

• Get up at about 6:00 am, shit, shower and shave, make your bed, and then go to breakfast in the mess hall.
• Attend formation outside of the barracks, salute the flag, and hear any announcements.
• Drive to the motor pool to attend classes.
• Drive back to the mess hall for lunch.
• Drive back to the motor pool for classes.
• Dive back to the barracks for the evening formation, salute the flag, eat dinner and then go hang out at the bowling alley for the evening.

There were several black students in our class, the first people of color I had ever met. Being 1968, race relations were a little strained at Ft. Story; blacks and whites pretty much kept to themselves, even in the barracks. I did get invited to play basketball with these guys a few times until they realized that even though I was tall, I didn't have a clue how to play the game. Just another clumsy white guy, what can I say?

The first time I ever got stoned on pot was at Ft. Story. My girlfriend, who was still speaking to me at the time, mailed two joints to me. A couple of pals joined me in the woods behind the barracks to smoke, and in the words of the great bluesman J.B. Lenoir, we got "high as a Georgia pine." After a while, we returned to the barracks and I laid on my bunk to meditate. One of the black guys had the local R&B radio station playing. Guess what the first tune I heard while stoned was? "It's A Man's Man's World" by James Brown. 

It was The.Best.Song.Ever.

We continued with this routine until November when I graduated. In the meantime, Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States. I remember listening to the radio broadcasting his election then listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival's version of Dale Hawkin's "Susie Q" on a friend's headphones. I still didn't know much of anything about politics, but this Nixon guy made me feel uneasy for some reason, just like Creedence's faux psychedelic version of "Susie Q" did.

We graduated on a cold winter afternoon late in November 1968. The class stood in a formation outside of the Company HQ and waited for the First Sergeant to give us our graduation certificate and our orders for our next post. As the students received these documents, they were relieved and free to take off for their 30-day leave. After a while, there were only three of us left: me, this black cat named Johnson, and one other guy whose name escapes me. The First Sergeant gave us our graduation certificates, but no orders. He grinned at us and said, "Well whaddya know, I'll bet anything that you fellers are all going to the 'Nam, and your orders just aren't here yet."

WTF?! 

Sure enough, the word came through that all three of us were going to participate in the war. We were put on temporary duty and worked in the mess hall, peeling potatoes, washing dishes, and mopping floors until our orders made their appearance. I was assigned to the 1099th Medium Boat Company in a place called Cat Lai, South Vietnam. I left Ft. Story for a 30 day leave back in Seattle. I was now a Specialist 3rd class and making $137 a month. I was 18 years old and would be in South Vietnam by January.

Pt. 4 - Basic Training

The trip to Ft. Lewis was a quiet one. We new recruits didn't know each other, and I guess we were all pretty nervous about our first day in the Army.

The bus entered the base and proceeded to the basic training area which was located at North Ft. Lewis if I remember correctly. After a short drive, we arrived at our home away from home for the next couple of months.  We stopped on a street with white and green two-story wood barracks on both sides. The bus driver opened the door.

That's when the yelling started.

A Drill Sergeant entered the bus, glared at all of us for a couple of moments, then started yelling at us to get the hell off of "his" bus. Another couple of drill sergeants were waiting for us as we hustled off the bus. Their job was to get us organized into some sort of lineup so that we could be marched to our next destination, which was the barbershop. You wouldn't think that getting lined up would be that hard, but it seemed to take forever. For some reason, it can be hard to remember which foot is your left foot with a sergeant in your face screaming "you're other left, YOUR OTHER LEFT!"

At the barbershop, all of us were given buzz cuts, which had the wanted effect of making us all look the same. A couple of the hippies were pretty forlorn after the barbershop visit. Then we went to Supply, where we were issued our military fatigues, boots, socks, underwear, caps, helmets, and a duffel bag to carry it all in. The next stop was our barracks, one of the green and white buildings that I heard were built during WWI.

Each floor of the barracks was exactly the same. There were two rows of double bunk beds separated by a wide aisle. Each new recruit had a locking wood footlocker for storing underwear, and toiletries and a wall locker for storing fatigues and jackets. There was a communal bath/shower room at one end of the building. The barracks were to be kept spotless at all times, or else! Each floor of the barracks had one platoon (about 50 men) assigned to it. An Army company is made up of four platoons.

The first week at basic training was consumed with learning how to do things the Army way: how to march, how to address Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs, aka Sergeants) and Commissioned Officers (Second Lieutenants and up), how and when to salute, how to fold up your clothes for the inevitable barracks inspections, how to polish your boots, and the hated daily Physical Training (PT) drills. We learned quickly that calling drill sergeants "Sir" would incite said drill sergeants to get in your face and scream, "Don't call me Sir, I WORK FOR A LIVING, DAMMIT!" It was during this week that I learned that I had a beard. It was invisible to me, but our eagle-eyed drill sergeant could see it, so I started shaving every day. Someone had to stay up all night in shifts on fire watch to sound the alarm if the old barracks somehow managed to catch on fire. When I was on fire watch,I was always impressed with the number of guys that were talking in their sleep - it was a regular mumble fest at night.

When I joined the Army I was 6'3" tall and weighed 185 pounds. I wouldn't say I was fit, but it didn't take me long to get fit. However, many of the new recruits were way out of shape and PT was brutal for them. We did jumping jacks, crunches, and push-ups twice a day, and when not doing marching drills we jogged just about everywhere. Some of the men couldn't keep up; some simply collapsed on the ground and wouldn't or couldn't get back up. We heard that if a person kept this up, they might be considered unacceptable for the Army and be given a discharge. I can't say if this was true, but the rumor helped a couple of other people seriously consider failing at PT in order to escape the rest of basic training.

I suppose that the most enjoyable part of basic for me was the marksmanship training. The Army's standard service rifle in 1968 was still the M-14 rifle. This was a semi-automatic rifle that fired the NATO 7.62 mm round. It utilized a 20-round magazine. We had to become proficient at hitting human-sized targets with this weapon at a distance of 100 meters. Even with the basic iron sights, and a pretty decent recoil every time it was fired, I was a very good shot with this weapon and enjoyed shooting it.  This was the only weapon that we were trained to use at Ft. Lewis. The US military would soon switch to the M-16 assault rifle as the primary service weapon. 

After the first couple of weeks basic training became easier, and the platoon I was assigned to began to gel as a team. The food wasn't too bad, and the drill sergeants quit busting your ass once they got the impression that you were getting with the program. In the later weeks, we ran more, did more M-14 training, stabbed straw men with bayonets attached to our rifles, learned how to use a gas mask, and took long 20-mile strolls in the woods while carrying all of our gear (web gear, backpacks, and rifles). I recall attending a one-hour class on the Communist Menace in Southeast Asia, including a brief presentation about the Domino Theory. To graduate from basic training you had to pass a final PT test. I hated running, so I tried to do extra well on the other requirements so that I could take ten minutes to run the mile. It was a breeze.

This is the platoon that I was attached to in Basic Training at Ft.Lewis. I'm the sixth guy from the left in the top row.  Our motto was "A-4-2, Every Man a Tiger!" This was the 1st Platoon of A Company, 4th Battalion, 2nd Training Brigade. Our drill sergeant is the grumpy looking guy at the right of the fourth row from the top. I never saw any of these guys again.

My family came to Ft.Lewis for our graduation ceremony in August 1968. I was terribly homesick, so I really enjoyed seeing them. I was assigned to the Transportation Corps so I never attended the Advanced Infantry Training that was required for all future infantrymen. I was now a Private in the US Army, making $102 a month.

Next stop - Marine Diesel Mechanic school.