U.S. Army Basic Training Infuriatingly Incomplete

I entered Basic at Ft. Dix, N.J. on Nov. 17, 1969. The Army graduated my fellow trainees and I from Basic after we had only received a disturbingly trimmed portion of the prescribed military training. Ever since that terrible way to train troops, I have wondered if that lack of normal training ever got anyone killed in the Vietnam War. At that time, a main concern & focus of most young American men of military draft and entrance age was avoiding Vietnam. My knowledge of the ways, lengths, breadths, depths, heights and distances some of them went - in their quests to stay away from Vietnam - is like a boulder balanced on my brain. It hurts because most of us would have willingly joined the military to fight in a war that was worth it.

Due to those men's efforts, failures and successes in avoiding Vietnam, sometimes the Army went way too far in trying to make us troops happy to be in the Vietnam Era United States Army.

A month or two before I was to report for active duty, I had learned that my date of entrance into the Army meant I will be experiencing my first Christmas away from home. I was mentally & emotionally preparing myself for spending Christmas and New Years in a basic training barracks with the other guys there away from home. I had grown up having great family Christmas times - middle class blue collar style - with both pairs of grandparents along with most of my aunts & uncles & cousins, mother, father and sisters. 

Enlisted American men and women had to be in the military on active duty during all Christmases, and 1969 was to be my first year to share that duty. It would be a tough one emotionally, but I am able to live in a free country partly because others had toughed it out before me. Many other GIs would be away from home during that holiday, too, and again in the future. I thought about the GIs who had done it while in war zones, some GIs would be doing it in Vietnam that year, so I was determined to 'ruck it up' and carry my share of the load.

Basic training was 8 weeks long. My fellow trainees and I had been in the Army for a little more than 3 weeks when we were told that Basic will be shut down for the Christmas and New Years holiday, and we trainees had to go home on leave for 2 weeks. That was 4 weeks in training, 2 weeks of leave time visiting family and friends, having fun/eating a lot/drinking a lot/dating girls/sleeping when you want and so forth, then 4 weeks back to training. Back to where you can only eat the 3 (near tasteless) meals a day served. Back to not being allowed TV, radio, record players, phones, magazines, newspapers, books, your personal style of dressing & hairstyle. No visiting with family and friends. No going anywhere but where the Army says you can. Those restrictions are necessary for becoming an effective soldier. I will never get over the unacceptable military craziness of Christmas time 1969. Suspending the training regimen for two weeks then going back to it was a ridiculous thing the Army did.

Ft. Dix was significantly cold during the winter of '69-'70, with substantial snow storms and lots of freezing air. During previous winters at Ft. Dix, some soldiers in Basic had purposely exposed their fingers and/or toes to freezing air long enough to cause themselves frostbite. Bad enough that some troops had to have frostbit parts of their bodies amputated, which then resulted in the new soldiers being medically discharged from service. It was a hell-of-a gamble, betting their fingers and/or toes against potentially worse wounds or/and death in the Nam.

Our drill sergeants told us that during certain parts of training they could not keep a watch on us trainees good enough to prevent each and every one of us new soldiers from causing ourselves frostbite. Training had to follow a prescribed schedule, so there was no switching around and rescheduling any training activities. Consequently, at Ft. Dix in 1969, the Army cancelled some of the most important training a soldier needs:

1. Obstacle Course cancelled. My only serious fear about going into Basic came from my natural born fear of heights. The obstacle course has some high climbs in it. But I had figured that having the drill sergeants along with my fellow trainees inspiring, encouraging and helping me I'd get over the high-up features of the obstacle course (known today as the confidence course).

2. Bivouac was cancelled. Bivouac in Basic Training was a 5-day campout in pup tents. This is the training loss that hurt and bothered me the most. I am an outdoorsman who was looking forward to experiencing winter camping, with my buddies, while we were learning cold weather soldiering, camping, comfort plus survival techniques and skills. We trainees knew that we'd be moving on in the Army and there may be times when our fellow soldiers would become angry at and/or disgusted with us for not knowing what we were supposed to have been trained at, and they had been trained at.

A drill sergeant said that during previous bivouac nights a few soldiers had each taken off a boot and sock then stuck that bare foot partway out of their sleeping bags and had kept it there all night till a toe or two was frostbitten enough to require amputation.

3. Twenty Mile Forced March cancelled. That was hiking whilst toting full packs, various combat gear, and carrying rifles (my beloved heavy steel and wood M14). That march is four times longer than any other we made. It was snowing heavily on the day our 20-mile forced march was scheduled for, so we were only marched out about a mile-and-a-half. Drill sergeants told us that because they could not see very far through the falling snow a trainee might simply hang a finger out of their mitten or glove and that finger will become frost bitten then have to be amputated. When they did that to their index finger, it was because they believed the Army could not send them into combat without their trigger finger.

With most of the outdoors training exercises, cooks from our company drove out with several large containers of hot coffee and one of hot chocolate for us; but that frigid day, when powdery snow was already about a foot deep, they only brought coffee. I can't stand the taste of coffee. But I needed the heat from it that day in the forest of Ft. Dix, so I drank the only cup of coffee I ever have or expect to. Fortunately (for me), the coffee was watery thin.

On the numerous days when our scheduled training was cancelled due to weather, we stayed in our barracks practicing hand to hand combat (no actual striking allowed), knife fighting techniques (rubber knives), over and over for hours. Drill sergeants often walked off and did whatever they wanted to for a few hours at a time.

To the best of my memory, I believe my platoon never ran much more than 10 miles total in Basic. Our drill sergeants' max on ordering us to do pushups was 25 at a time per day. Same for situps. 

I had expected my military training to push me to the edge of - and at times further than - my personal limitations. I desired knowledge of what - militarily - knocks me down for the count. How far can I push it or be pushed? I wanted the strengths, abilities, skills, and self assurances of a well trained soldier.

I wanted to know some of what my brothers-in-arms' limits were. What can I trust them to get done?

The incomplete military basic training we received did not go anywhere near answering those extremely important questions.

I'll never be able to recall it all, and there certainly is more to this. But for most people, I doubt that I have to say more in order to explain how infuriatingly disappointing, then deeply depressing, certain aspects of my United States Army Basic Training are.

Ever since I learned to use computers, I have been trying to produce this piece. Ever since living it, I have wanted to tell of this history. The healing effects of time have lessened the deep, emotional pain of it, and my work at photography, writing and Internet publishing has given me the strength & power to deal with it publicly. 

It is my country, it is the Army I was part of, that committed those idiotic acts told of above. Those historical experiences lay heavy feelings upon my shoulders. At the U.S. Army I feel some: disappointment; disgust; disrespect; anger; fear that troops today may not be trained properly. I am severely embarrassed that my government's military - the Army I was a member of - mishandled military training in those ways.