Q: What were your first reactions when you arrived at your basic training post?

A: I left for basic training from the county airport on my first plane ride in an overcrowded and noisy DC-7 4-engine propeller plane. It was quite an adventure, both scary and exciting. I was at a distribution center on Paris Island, Georgia and luckily, I was sent to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky because Paris Island was a Marine training camp. However, when I got there at first it felt as if I was entering Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Q: What was basic training like in the army?

A: As I feared, the people in charge were very angry, mean, and forceful when dealing with the new recruits. It was their job to make you fear them as they forced you to do hard work, exercise, learn aggressive skills and develop a mindset that you are not an individual. You were now a solider who could survive combat becaus

A: I signed up for a drafting school, that they had to send me to so when I broke my foot in basic training. When I was healing, I missed my orders to go to Vietnam. My school was in Ft Behioir, Virginia, south of Washington D.C. By now, I was very unhappy with the military and discipline aspects of the Army so I applied for a job at the training facility; where the drafting school was located. They wanted me to work there and after 4 weeks of processing papers, I was accepted. I worked there for a bout six months until I received orders to go to Europe to replace someone who was leaving. So I got to go Europe by a lucky chance.

Q: Did the Vietnam War have an effect on you and your ‘squad’ even though it was happening in a different section of the world?

Some topics in this essay:
Vietnam War, James Vietnam, Washington DC, Concentration Camp, Europe Europe, , Europe USA, Peters Venice, Island Marine, basic training, Island Georgia, learned drive, paris island, vietnam war, army life, army learned, life europe, drafting school,