Military Experience?

My rather odd military experience came as a result of having lost my draft deferment upon graduating from college. To avoid the draft the USAF was my only option. I’d spend six months on active duty then five and a half years in the reserves. Here’s a highly edited version of the beginning of that tale from my first book of memoirs Three Stages.

Lackland Air Force Base, Texas Thursday 4 June 1959

The training was to start on the following Monday and guys from all over the country were arriving every day. We had been told to bring no personal items and no changes of clothing. We were assigned to a barracks and issued a towel, a footlocker, a flashlight, sheets and pillowcase, a toothbrush and a cake of soap.

By Saturday there were sixty-five of us and by then most of us stank. We had showers but no clean clothes. The more creative among us, including me, learned to shower at night in our underwear and sox which would be dry by the next morning. We were incarcerated in this rickety old building except for being marched to the mess hall for meals. Some of us, also including me, had smuggled in a book or two and they were guarded like cigarettes in prison.

We were almost all in our early twenties, college graduates and draft dodgers. There was not one warrior among us (though there were several lawyers).

Monday morning after breakfast we were marched, along with similar groups from three other barracks, to the parade ground and seated on bleachers. Four Training Instructors (“T. I.s” aka drill Sergeants), stood before us and called names dividing us into four “Flights”, like Companies in the Army. Each Flight was then marched to a barracks.

Our T. I. introduced himself as Staff Sergeant Daniel and told us to enter the barracks, line up in alphabetical order and report to him in the Flight office according to the instructions on the door. All the bunk beds had been stripped and collapsed. A stack of mattresses was piled at one end of the room. These were the instructions:

KNOCK ONCE LOUDLY
WHEN TOLD TO ENTER STAND AT ATTENTION
STATE YOUR NAME, RANK AND SERIAL NUMBER LOUDLY
“REPORTING AS ORDERED”

Seemed easy enough for college graduates but it turned out not to be. None of the ten or eleven guys preceding me knocked or spoke loudly enough the first time and we learned a lot about the correct posture for “attention”. The walls were paper thin so we could hear the entire drama being played out one recruit at a time. Sergeant Daniel possessed a voice rivaling mine in power and used it fulsomely. He asked each guy three or four of a rotating list of about ten questions almost none of which were answered to his satisfaction. I listened carefully and learned.

When my turn came I was well prepared.

I hit the center panel of the door with all my strength and my fist went right through it. Instead of the previous roaring command from him I got a subdued “Come in”. Pulling my bleeding hand out of the door, I entered, braced myself at a proper attention and bellowed, full voice, “Sir, Airman Basic Bryant, serial number (whatever it was) reporting as ordered!”

Daniel held up a hand and said, “No need to shout, Son.”

What he saw before him was a 190 pound football player with plenty of muscle and blood dripping from his right hand. What he did not see was an actor playing the role of a tough guy. Quietly he asked me several of his questions to which I barked concise, correct answers. He tried to trip me up on one of them asking if I hadn’t been given a towel. I replied, “Sir, the third item I mentioned was a towel.”

He asked me how long it would take me to organize the troops and set up all the bunks. I said “Sir, fifteen minutes, Sir.” He said, “Do it.”

The guys had all heard most of this and the story of my busting the door had traveled, no doubt with enhancements, to the back of the line so gaining cooperation was not a problem. They thought I was a monster. In ten minutes the bunks were mattressed and lined up perfectly and I reported this to Sergeant Daniel. After approving of the job he shouted, “Fall in on the road!” When we were lined up he said, “Airman Bryant front and center.” He had me face the group and announced, “This here is Airman Bryant and he’s your Barracks Chief”, turning to put his mouth six inches from my ear he yelled, “until he fucks up one time!”

Sgt. Wyatt, Airman Chief Bryant

Near the end of the eleven week training I learned from the Senior T. I., Master Sergeant T. S. (for tough shit, we joked) Wyatt, that I was his first “Student Commander” to survive the entire period. The others had either been fired by their T. I.s or beaten up by their fellow trainees. This experience was seminal for me in learning how to be a leader who was both respected and liked and would be valuable in later life as I evolved into a producer, 1st AD and director.

There’s a lot more to my USAF story and many others you’ll find when you click here and get Three Stages.

   

Tags: ,

Comments & Responses

Comments are closed.

2024 © InkThemes. All rights reserved.