Half Way Down the Trail to Hell
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Half Way Down The Trail To Hell A Wartime Remembrance in Three Parts By Stephen E. Kirkland i Prologue “The danger, being around veterans, the memories are so selective and so heroic that you’ve got to be careful talking to a guy like me.” George Herbert Walker Bush A while back I discovered the Library of Congress is conducting a program called The Veterans History Project. The mission of the project is the collection and preservation of veteran’s wartime recollections and documents before they are lost forever. Like many wartime veterans, I concentrated on getting on with my life. I needed a job that would allow me to marry, buy a house and raise a family. I didn’t feel anything I had experienced in Vietnam would contribute to these goals, and I felt that, for the most part, people who hadn’t served didn’t know or even care what I had seen or done. The country’s attitude was different than with the Gulf War veterans and I deflected the few inquires that were made, especially the ones that contained the words “Did ya’ kill anybody?” I was too busy dealing with the present to spend a lot of time staring into the past. Now, almost four decades after returning home, the time has come to look back and try to recreate a piece of personal history, albeit history filtered though my water colored memories. I’ve relied on a number of sources for this remembrance, not the least of which were letters that I wrote home. Although they were by necessity self censored, I was able to retrieve dates, names and places that would otherwise be lost. Although I’ve attempted to be as complete and accurate as possible in telling a story that occurred ii several decades past, there are some memories as clear as a picture while others are murky. I’ve written about several individuals whom I felt influenced the experience. Some of these people were highly regarded, while others were not, and I’ve portrayed them in the roles they cast for themselves. There are, of course, many people and events I’ve left out of this remembrance, mostly because I can’t recall enough about them to recreate our interactions. Upon occasion this remembrance contains the verbatim interchanges I was able to retrieve from letters, although most of the time I’ve merely narrated events. In either case, I’ve attempted to capture the spirit of what was said or done, be it mundane, exciting, tragic or comedic. Ultimately this is a story of everyday people caught up in war unlike any other. This remembrance is dedicated to my brother and sister, Jim and Glenda, my wife Ann, my daughters Heather and Teresa and all of the troopers camped at Fiddler’s Green. 1 Part One Basic Combat Training __________________________________________ 2 Background _________________________________________________________ 2 Draft Day ___________________________________________________________ 4 Reception Station ____________________________________________________ 8 In-Processing ________________________________________________________ 9 BCT Begins ________________________________________________________ 13 Learning The Ropes _________________________________________________ 18 Basic Marksmanship ________________________________________________ 21 Dismounted Drill/Manual of Arms and Spirit Of The Bayonet ______________ 29 Pugil Stick Training _________________________________________________ 32 Cold Weather Training ______________________________________________ 33 Hand to Hand Combat _______________________________________________ 36 Hand Grenade Training______________________________________________ 37 Chemical, Biological, Radiological Training _____________________________ 39 Bivouac____________________________________________________________ 40 The Obstacle Course/Individual Tactical Training________________________ 42 The Close Combat Course ____________________________________________ 43 Commanding Officer’s Review ________________________________________ 44 The Infiltration Course_______________________________________________ 46 The Confidence Course ______________________________________________ 48 Physical Combat Proficiency Test______________________________________ 48 A Three Day Pass/ Glenda Visits_______________________________________ 51 The Proficiency Test _________________________________________________ 54 Characters _________________________________________________________ 57 Graduation Day_____________________________________________________ 70 Out Processing______________________________________________________ 71 2 Part One Basic Combat Training Background I was born at home on April 8, 1948 in a little place located in McMinn County Tennessee called The Rocky Mount Community. Situated about seventy miles south east of Knoxville, the community had no post office, so my birth certificate states that I was born in Athens, Tennessee, the County Seat and the largest city near my birthplace. I am the youngest of three children born to Buster Madison and Joy Chloey (nee Moss) Kirkland; my brother James Madison was twelve years of age when I was born while my sister Glenda Mardell was not quite two years old. My father worked in the airplane tire division of one of the major rubber companies in Akron, Ohio during WWII. Mom worked as a maid and took care of my brother, Jim. Following the war, dad was unable to get meaningful employment in Tennessee, and was unwilling to scratch out a living on a dirt poor farm so he traveled to Michigan to seek his fortune, leaving Mom and Jim behind until he could get established and buy a home. Dad moved the family to Detroit, Michigan in 1953, where I attended school from kindergarten through seventh grade at Nichols Elementary in Indian Village. The family moved farther to Detroit’s East side in 1961 and settled on Guilford Street, off of Chandler Park Drive. While living there I finished elementary school at Marquette Elementary then Junior High and High School at Finney Junior/Senior High, located at the end of the street where I lived, graduating in 1966. I was an average student and didn’t have much hope of getting accepted into college, nor did I have any real desire. I was eighteen in April of that year and registered 3 for the draft. Following high school I attended Macomb Community College part time and worked for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Corporation in downtown Detroit. In those days computers were huge machines, too expensive for most businesses, and much of the record keeping was done by hand or on punch cards. This labor intensive work was largely done by women; thus Blue Cross/ Blue Shield was a bachelor’s paradise, with seven floors chock full of women of all ages, shapes, sizes, creeds and colors. My job as a stock boy included making deliveries, and soon I met Ann Teresa Williams, who, as fate would have it, lived not far from my parent’s home. We began to date and soon fell in love. Ann would write to me faithfully all during my active service, something that’s very important to lonely young soldiers, and we would marry a year after I was discharged from active duty. In 1967 I took the standard military physical and aptitude testing at Fort Wayne on Detroit’s West side. I went early, since I didn’t know the area around that part of town and didn’t want to be late. I found a spot to park on a nearby street, but when I came out several hours later there was a parking ticket on my car’s windshield. I had unwittingly found a parking spot reserved for the buses used to haul recruits to basic training. Talk about adding insult to injury. I wasn’t attending school full time, and The United States was sending troops overseas in large numbers; I knew it would be only a matter of time until I was inducted. I checked into joining an Enlisted Reserve or National Guard unit, but they were at capacity since in those days they were not deployed outside of the United States. In the fall of 1967 I received “Greetings from the President” with instructions to report to Fort Wayne for induction into the U.S. Army on February 2, 4 1968. I was two months short of my twentieth birthday, stood six feet tall and weighed one hundred and forty pounds. Draft Day On the morning of February 2, 1968 I went in to my father’s bedroom to tell him I was leaving. Dad worked the afternoon shift as a diemaker at GM and he was lying on his side facing away from me when I sat down on the bed. Without turning around he told me to “Keep a stiff upper lip.” In quiet moments over the next couple of years I would think back on that piece of advice and wonder just what he meant. When I returned home from Vietnam I had occasion to ask him. He looked at the floor a long time as if he thought the answer might be written there. He finally looked at me and said, “Well son I couldn’t think of any thing else to say.” Many years later dad’s younger brother, Bob, told me that dad has used the first half of a saying meaning stay strong under stress. Where dad was raised children’s parents would tell them stories to keep them from wandering too far from home while at play. One of the tales involved a snake indigenous to the region called a Blue Racer. If an unfortunate child encountered a Blue Racer they were to stand motionless, “With a stiff upper lip and a tight asshole”, to prevent the snake from chasing them down and running up their rear end. Bob said he didn’t know the correlation between the two, but dad had only given me one half of this sage advice. It was a cold, clear day when my sister, Glenda and my future spouse, Ann, dropped me off at Fort Wayne. I entered the gate and made the long walk to the main building entrance without looking back, lest I change my mind and retreat. I had several 5 conflicting emotions churning through my mind at that moment. I knew my parents were heartsick at my being inducted during time of war, I didn’t want to leave Ann behind, and I was terribly afraid of the vast unknown lying in front of me.