Another Military Reminiscence by Fender Tucker
I was only in the army for three years but more weird things happened to me during those three years than in any ten years since. When you’re in a rough situation with a bunch of strangers, you make friends fast and ferociously. Wartime is full of ironies, and when your life is on the line, the ironies can become hilarious— and at times, tragic.
In 1967 I was 19 and about to get drafted so, upon the advice of a friend’s father, I enlisted for three years, hoping that being an enlistee rather than a draftee, I would have a better chance of staying out of Viet Nam. I was sent to Fort Bliss TX for Basic Training in March of 1967.
I hated it, of course, but found that with the help of the terrific buddies I made, it was doable. We drilled, worked out, crawled through the dirt, stabbed dummies with bayonets shouting “Kill!”, and about a month into the 6 week long program we hiked out to the rifle range to learn how to shoot. I had never shot anything more powerful than a Daisy BB Rifle, but I figured it was time I learned.
So we spent a week or so shooting at targets with our M-1 rifles. The M-1 was an obsolete weapon from a war long past, but the word was that there weren’t enough M-16 rifles to allow us to train with them. We’d get an M-16 when we went to Viet Nam, they said. Yippee.
I wasn’t getting any better at shooting as the time came for us to “qualify” for marksmanship badges, but I figured that if I wasn’t good enough I’d get more training. There were three “ranks” of marksmanship: Marksman - the lowest; Sharpshooter - the next best; and Expert - the best shooters. If you couldn’t shoot at at least Marksman level, you were “washed out” of Basic Training and either mustered out of the army or had to go through Basic again. Or so they said. I seriously doubt if anyone were mustered out of the army unless they had some powerful relative or friend behind them.
So it came the big day of the Rifle Qualifications. The company, which consisted of around 200 privates, was called to order in formation and a sergeant said, “All right, you people, how many of you pansies have been to college?” I wasn’t in the habit of volunteering anything, but I raised my hand. I had had two semesters of college. “Okay,” he bleated, “all you college babies, go over there.”
So about twenty of us congregated away from the rest of the troops. The lieutenant comes over and says, “Listen up. We figure you college guys are smart enough to follow instructions. Here they are: No one, repeat, no one in this company shoots less than Marksman. Got that? No one gets less than a Marksman. And since you guys are the judges, all of you will be Experts. Repeat, all of you will be Experts because you will be judging each other.”
We figured what the hell, the food is bad, the sergeants are sadists and the war is a travesty; the rifle qualifications might as well be rigged.
So I was a judge and made sure that everybody I judged was at least a Marksman. Some of those poor guys never even hit a target all day. When it came time for me to judge a fellow judge, he scored Expert. However, the guy who judged me must not have been as brilliant in college as I since he gave me a Sharpshooter’s score, rather than an Expert’s score. You know what, I didn’t give a damn. I was an atrocious shooter (still am) but after six weeks in Basic Hell I was ready to get gunned down by whomever Congress said the enemy was.
The story ended happily for me—I studied the Nike Hercules Guidance System for a few months, got investigated for drug use, then went to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama where I became a colonel’s chauffeur. I got orders for Viet Nam (as an infantryman!) but with the help of some NCOs I had become friends with, I was able to have the orders rescinded—that’s another war story in itself—and spent my last year as a company clerk back at Fort Bliss. No Viet Nam for the college boy.
I wonder if the story ended so well for the guys I made into Experts and Sharpshooters, though. Whenever I’d read about Lee Harvey Oswald and his Marine training, I’d wonder if his “Expert” medal was as phony as my “Sharpshooter” medal.
I don’t know if this story was repeated at the other Basic Training camps around the country in those days, but I have a feeling that it was. In 1967 it was practically impossible to get out of the army once you were in. I had buddies who tried and they were severely punished—then forced to stay longer than their three years. The generals needed fodder; without major losses among the enlisted men, how can the generals claim to have “suffered”?
Oh well. Now that the draft has ended, maybe there’s no need for cheating in the new US Army. Maybe everybody actually is a Marksman, Sharpshooter or Expert. I just hope that if I’m accused of shooting somebody someday, the prosecution doesn’t bring up the fact that, according to my military records, I’m a Sharpshooter.
Could be worse, though. I coulda been an Expert.