Don't Thank me for my Service (please)

[DGS49]

When I got out of high school in 1967, I wanted to go into the military service, but my parents strenuously objected. I knew that I wasn’t ready for college and didn’t want to waste the time, money, and energy to do it at that time. But the Vietnam War was heating up and my parents were convinced that a high school kid going in at that time would surely be assigned to combat infantry, regardless of any “contract” the Army might sign with me in advance promising something else.

So I spent a school year at the University of Pittsburgh, generally screwing around and being academically expelled at the end of my second semester (I stopped going to class about halfway through that semester, so my grades were all F’s). In the meantime, my mother had died of a stroke at age 51 and my dad was in no shape to object to anything after that, so it was barely noticed when I enlisted in the Army in the Summer of 1968. I would have been drafted shortly anyway (and in fact I got my draft notice while I was in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, SC).

In a sense I “threw away” my three-year enlistment. I signed up for a course intended to make me a supply specialist, rather than something more substantive that might have given me a trade after the service. The course title included the word, “accounting,” which I assumed meant that the training would have some value after I got out of the service. I was 18 years old; what can I say? I was an idiot.

But as it turned out, when I got to Fort Lee (Virginia) for my ‘Stock Control & Accounting” course, I was pulled out of the processing line because my elevated “GT” score (sort of an IQ score) had brought me to the attention of the personnel sergeant who was running things there. He asked me if I would be interested in working for him in Personnel for “a while” before taking my course. The advantage to me would be that I would be stationed at Fort Lee for an indefinite period (easily drivable distance to home in Pittsburgh), I would have a relatively easy job working in Personnel, and I could delay my inevitable assignment to Vietnam for a while. Also, if I stayed in Personnel long enough I could forget about the Stock Control & Accounting course, and get a Military Operational Specialty (“MOS”) that would have me working in an office when I got to Vietnam, rather than out someplace dodging bullets. It made sense to me, and I still think it was the right move.

Eventually I learned that it was theoretically possible for me to remain at Fort Lee for my entire three-year enlistment, provided I was willing to remain a PFC for the entire period, and retain a “Trainee” MOS. I might have gone through with this, but fate intervened.

In the summer of 1969, there was a push to get Army enlisted men into West Point (that’s the United States Military Academy, or “USMA” for short), because they felt that having people who had previously been enlisted soldiers at the Academy would be a good addition. Again, my high “GT” score made me a target for this initiative, and I was escorted to Fort Belvoir for a day to observe the workings of the “United States Military Academy Preparatory School.” I was offered an appointment to USMAPS, after a year of which I would be automatically admitted to West Point.

By this point, I had been in the Army for about a year, and didn’t like it much (though in all honesty I found it more than tolerable). But I was still only 19 years old, and the idea of one year at USMAPS, followed by four years at West Point, and a five year commitment to remain in the Army after that was simply overwhelming. I would be an old man of 29 or 30 by the time this commitment expired, and I wanted no part of that. So I respectfully declined.

And the Army responded, “Bullshit.” I got my orders and travelled to Ft. Belvoir at the end of August, 1969. USMAPS was worse that I imagined it would be. It was primarily a prep school for would-be “Army” athletes (mainly football players) who were not strong enough academically to get into West Point. They came to USMAPS for a year, were indoctrinated into military bullshit (which is overwhelming in your first (“Plebe”) year at West Point), and were forced to study like monks to bolster their academic performance. The place was staffed by privates and PFC’s who outranked all of the students (our military rank was relinquished when we got there), and saw themselves as would-be drill sergeants with the mission of making life miserable for the trainees. I had been given a “going away” promotion to Spec 4 when I left Fort Lee, and dealing with these pukes as my superiors was insufferable – at least for me.

I immediately started the process of “resigning” my appointment to USMAPS. After several interviews with high-ranking officers, during which they each correctly told me that if I walked away from this opportunity I would never amount to anything in life, I was finally released into a “holding” company at Fort Belvoir, to await my next assignment – which would undoubtedly be to Vietnam.

But again, my high GT score and my experience in Personnel landed me a “temporary” position working in Personnel at Fort Belvoir. In fact, the position was as a mail clerk, but the Sergeant Major running Personnel wanted to have me around for when a real position opened up. (Parenthetically I will say that Ft. Belvoir is a beautiful place, and from a personal standpoint my time there was my best time in the Army).

In the back of my brain, however, was the thought that I didn’t really want to spend my entire enlistment mucking around Army bases in the U.S. The Vietnam War was, in my mind at least, the defining event of my generation and it was simply unimaginable that I would NOT go over there in one capacity or another, to serve my country in a more meaningful way. I had my Personnel MOS, so I was fairly certain not to be put in an overtly dangerous assignment, but one way or another I had to get my ass over to Vietnam. Also, in the back of my mind was the policy of the Army that if you returned from overseas with less than 150 days to go in your enlistment, they would send you home rather than reassigning you for that short period. So the goal was to go over to Vietnam with about 18 months left in your enlistment, and extend your time over there for the exact number of days necessary to get you back home with 149 days left. This would effectively shorten a 36 month enlistment to about 31 months. And I was approaching that ideal time window while I was at Fort Belvoir.

So I volunteered to go to Vietnam. The Sergeant Major was very unhappy with my action, because he had broken a few rules to get me into his department, and in his mind he was “saving me” from having to go to Vietnam. An ungrateful bastard was I.

But the Army happily accepted my request and I headed out for Vietnam the day after Christmas, 1969, arriving in country right around New Year’s Day (I don’t remember the exact day, particularly since I was traveling across the International Date Line). Assuming that everything went according to plan, I would have to extend my tour so that I would come back to the states in April of 1971. This part of my program worked out perfectly.

After working temporarily in Saigon for a couple weeks (worse than being in the Army stateside), I got my permanent assignment to Danang, as a personnel specialist. I was promoted to SP5 shortly after I arrived. My job was the administration of “Morning Reports,” promotions, and Awards & Decorations. Although Danang was the northernmost big city in the Republic of Vietnam (i.e., closest to The Enemy), Danang was quite a secure city, and I frankly never saw a weapon fired in anger during my 16 or so months in that city. I was housed in a “hotel,” worked in a secure office in a secure compound, and basically I only went outside the confines of my office and my “quarters” for recreational purposes.

We worked 12 hours per day, seven days a week, but got every other Sunday afternoon off. On a few occasions a group of us managed to get our hands on a couple of jeeps and had a picnic at “China Beach” (a location that became famous later because of a television program that was set in the military hospital in China Beach). The “Morning Report” was basically a daily attendance report that kept track of every soldier in every unit in the world. The Morning Reports were consolidated at every level and I gather they ended up at Department of the Army in the Pentagon. Not very glamorous stuff, but every single soldier was accounted for every day.

The work I did in promotions was regular and interesting. When someone was nominated for promotion I would gather up their records for review by a promotion board, arrange for promotion interviews in front of the board, keep minutes of the board meetings, and process the paperwork for the promotions. This was for enlisted people only. Since this was “wartime,” promotions were very quick, relatively speaking. Most enlisted men could count on being promoted to E-5 (Specialist 5 or Sergeant, depending on MOS) in a three year enlistment. If you were in any way outstanding, a promotion to Staff Sergeant was possible. (I was turned down for promotion to Staff Sergeant when I was too candid about having no interest in a military career).

The work in Awards & Decorations was somewhat disturbing. They gave away awards over there like candy. Every enlisted man and company-grade officer who was not a screw-up got an Army Commendation Medal after 6 months, and a Bronze Star medal at the end of their tour, just for showing up and not getting into any major trouble. Field grade officers (Majors, LT Colonels, and Colonels) got a Bronze Star after six months, and a Legion of Merit after a year. These are serious decorations, intended for outstanding achievements or acts of bravery, and they were given out for simply being in a war zone for a period of time. Part of my job was to write glowing citations for the officers to justify giving them the medals. (The citations for enlisted men were “canned”).

Also on the officer side, all of the ones who were considering a career in the military wanted to get a Combat Infantry Badge (“CIB”), which was indicative of being in active combat for a minimum of 181 days. But we were an advisory group (Military Advisory Command – Vietnam, also known as “MAC-V”), so none of us was actually in combat. Our officers – from the commanding general on down - had a gentlemens’ agreement that they would all be assigned as advisors to Vietnamese combat units for 6 months during their year-long tour. Often this was characterized by simply spending 6 months in a bunker and giving “advice” over the radio. The CIB looks great on your record and on your uniform, but in my unit at least, most of them were bullshit. I handled the paperwork for these medals and awards. It was very distasteful stuff to me.

For my final couple months in Vietnam, I was nominated to be the “Custodian” of the “General’s Mess,” which was a fancy dining room that the field-grade officers used as a “mess hall.” It was actually quite nice, and they were served supper every day by formally-dressed Vietnamese waiters, and ate outstanding food, using real China and silver. My job was to make sure every meal went smoothly, to administer the pay of the Vietnamese staff, and to tend bar before dinner. Wine and beer were 25c and mixed drinks 35c. War is (was) hell.

On the personal side, I devolved into a fairly pleasant monk-like existence in Vietnam. I didn’t drink, smoke dope, or patronize the local prostitutes, and the only money I spent was the occasional steak & eggs breakfast at the civilian “club” in town on a Sunday morning. Of course, I bought a good stereo system and a couple record albums a month, but that might have cost a total of a couple hundred bucks over the 16 months I was there. There was a gym for our use at a nearby base, and I’m not sure how it started but I began lifting weights 3 or 4 days a week with a lieutenant who worked in the office with me. In combination with a mild diet, I was in excellent physical condition by the time I got out of the Army.

With my exalted rank, combat pay, overseas pay, and no federal taxes to pay, I was able to save about five thousand dollars during the period when I was over there, and it took me about a year to blow that after I came back to the World (as we called it).

My departure time from Danang was very fortunate, as the incoming commander decided that we had it too soft, and began moving all of my buddies out of the Danang Hotel and out to more remote locations. So I was leaving for home at the same time as my unit was being moved out. Nice.

With all due grace, there is no need for anyone to thank me for my military service. I did it mainly for my own benefit. Between what I made and saved while in the service, the GI Bill, and my initial VA mortgage, I was more than compensated for my time and effort (which was minimal). I was able to “grow up” while in the Army, and going back to college was an absolute breeze as a 21 year old, freshly out of the Service. In fact, a few years later, when I felt I needed a government job, my Veterans’ preference along with an astronomical test score on the government’s aptitude test (the “PACE Exam”) put me in a position where the agency that interviewed me would have had to jump through hoops NOT to hire me after my name came up on their list. So I worked for DoD for five years between 1975 and 1980, with the considerable advantages that came with being a Vet.

The only real downside of my military service time was the time I lost away from the job market, and in all honesty that was as much the product of my fouling up college the first time around. When I finally hit the job market after college, the opportunities were dramatically less than they would have been if I had started my career in 1971, when I should have graduated. In 1971, corporations were hiring ANY college graduate, regardless of major, and most of them were placed in desirable management training programs that had them to fairly responsible positions by 1975. This advantageous job market was the result of the large number of GI’s who were OUT OF the job market, mucking around in green clothes in Vietnam and elsewhere. Graduates in 1975 were looking at a dramatically less-favorable job market where employers were insisting on specialized degrees for positions like sales, purchasing, personnel, and so forth. So my contemporaries who completed college on time had a huge jump on those who followed the same path except for military service. One could argue that this disadvantage to Vets lasted a lifetime. But as I say, in my case, it was partly my own fault for screwing up college the first time around. On the other hand, if I’d enlisted when I wanted to…

Nah, forget about it. Water over the dam.