False Start Quickly Corrected

     Basic Training had been like a game.  Buncha guys doin' stuff in the outdoors, learnin' to shoot and march, and takin' showers together.  I was good at it.  Not quite gung-ho good, more on the line of runnin' a foot race good.  Got promoted at the end of the cycle from dead bottom of the ranks to next to dead bottom.  I recall the promotion as an extra five bucks a month.  Nothin' more.
      I hadn't give a thought as to where any of us were gonna finally end up till orders came down for advanced training.  Seemed nearly all of us draftees were off to winter in Washington State so as to get us ready for the sweltering tropics of Southeast Asia.  'Bout the only similarity I could see between the two places was the Pacific Ocean in-between.  You'd think an ocean was a big enough separation to keep us on our own side of the water but we were livin' in a world that was too small for that.  And gettin' smaller every day.

     Even on the plane to Fort Lewis not a one of us woulda said he was goin' to Vietnam.  We knew deep down combat was our destiny but wouldn't have admitted it out loud to anyone, much less ourselves.  Except maybe Metcalfe whose idea of fun was readin' books on the history of the war.  Lotta good it did him.  He was killed in January 1970 up north with the 101st Airborne.  Bye-bye Rich.

     But there was a part of me that was startin' to see the light shortly after I walked into the barracks of B-4-1 at Fort Lewis.  Right off the bat an acting corporal sought me out to let me know I was chosen by the powers that be as a Trainee Squad Leader.  My ego was all aflutter.  Little ol' me, in charge of men on their way to combat.  A little logic woulda found that to be proof positive the Army had its head up its south side.
     Long story short,  my tenure as a leader of men didn't last long.  After two weeks me and the Army decided we didn't see eye-to-eye.  Their eye trumped my eye and I was back in the ranks where I belonged.  A grunt among grunts.  Maybe not the best place to be but at least an honorable one.