What The Hell Were You Thinking?

There are some times, in fact probably many times, when it's best to just STFU and don't get caught up in the emotion of what's going on around you since you probably aren't going to change a damn thing by spouting off and will probably feel really bad about it afterwards. And your big mouth could literally get you killed. Mine damn near did, really. You'd think that I would have learned from this, but in the years since it happened, old motormouth still has had a few shining moments of stupidity. But none like what happened on that Tuesday morning on May 5, 1970. Even now as I think back, my inner voice is saying, "what the hell were you thinking?" I wasn't.

I attended the Infantry Officers Basic Class (IOBC) at Fort Benning, Georgia, from September 1969 to December 1969. Most of us were then immediately assigned to stateside duty at a Basic Training Army base for around 6 months and then were shipped off to Vietnam. Stateside duty involved either being a training officer or an instructor. If you were a training officer you were with a company of trainees going through the 8 weeks of basic training with them, everything they did, you did. Long days. The trainees were made up of draftees, guys who enlisted, reservist weekend warriors and National Guardsmen. But basically if you were a training officer, your main job was to stay out of the way of the Drill Instructors and let them do their thing. The only thing the DIs hated more than a trainee was a 2nd Lt. straight out of Benning who they had to address as "Sir".

A much better job was being a rifle range instructor. A lot more fun and you got to fire up all of the unused ammo at the end of the day rather than account for it and fill out all the return paperwork. Put the old M-16 on rock n' roll and hang on. Especially fun when you did the night fire exercises and you could light up the range, and maybe the adjoining town, with tracers. As the range OIC (Officer in Charge), you really didn't like to see the tracers going down range at a 45 degree angle. But I digress.

So of course I was assigned to Fort Lewis, WA, as a training officer where I humped around the wet and cold of Washington state with the trainess, I mean, maggots, as the DIs called them. Hated it. Didn't like the job or the weather. I really wanted to be at Fort Ord just outside of Monterey, CA. This is where my home was, San Jose about 30 miles away.  However with almost obsessive determination, I managed to finagle a transfer to Ft. Ord. Very unusual for the Army grant it, but when I told a Major at HQ in DC that I'd pay for all my relocation expenses, leave Ft.Lewis on a Friday after work and show up for duty at Ft. Ord the following Monday morning, he said OK, cut my orders and gave me the name of the unit at Ft. Ord to report to at 0730hrs on Monday.

I'd done the impossible, California here I come. Loaded up the MGB and headed down Route 5 right after work on Friday, January 31, 1970. Next stop, Ft. Ord and Monterey Bay.

I've found that for the most part, when you do something out of the ordinary in any big bureaucracy, it usually throws the proverbial wrench into the works. Here's an example. I had an ex who would always order at McDonald's what they refered to as "special grills". Instead of ordering from the set menu, you tell the usually unintelligible voice in the box what you'd like instead. Much healthier that way, right? Anyway, instead of a regular old quarter pounder, she'd order a quarter pounder with just mustard and pickle. Guaranteed to really fuck up the old system. Guaranteed to get us a little red numbered cone to put on the roof of the car while we were banished to the outer regions of the parking lot to await the special delivery of our culinary creation.You could count on a 10 minute wait, and it usually wasn't right even when it did show up.

Same with the Army.

When I showed up at Ft. Ord at 0730 on Monday morning, February 2, 1970, they of course weren't expecting me. I did have a copy of my orders so they knew it was official. I sat and waited most of the morning. Only thing missing was a small red numbered cone on my head. Finally a Captain motions me to come over to his desk.

Well Lt. Wise, we weren't expecting you.

Really? How odd.

He continued . . . .

But since you're here, do you want to be a basic training officer or do you want to join the Committee Group and be an instructor.

Wow


So I became the OIC of Range 18. Oh yes, Range 18 was one of the beach ranges. Job on the beach teaching kids how to shoot an M-16. Like I said, sweet duty. Later I arranged to trade ranges with another lieutenant. I was now the OIC at range 37. This was the fun range where we blasted of all the tracers at the end of the day which was usually around midnight. We also conducted daylight training, so a typical day lasted 18 hours. Since these were long days even by Army standards, there were two OICs who worked this range every other day. Oh yes, weekends were off as well. So one week I worked 2 days and the next week 3 days. Always had a 3 day weekend. Good stateside duty.

Range 18

It was now May and a lot of my buddies who were with me in IOBC in October had already gotten their orders for Vietnam and were over there now. Even some in the class behind me were also now starting to get their orders. But nothing for me, which was just fine. Any day I expected to get the call. Then I finally figured it out what might have happened. By forcing the transfer to Ft. Ord,  I was out of synch with the system and flying under the radar. I was the Special Grill.

I had been an instructor at the rifle range for about three months when there was a little incident at Kent State.

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent-State massacre, occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.

There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of four million students, and the event further divided the country, at an already socially contentious time, about the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.

Monday after work, May 4th. Watching the 6 o'clock news with Walter Cronkite. Four students were shot and killed at Kent State by members of the Ohio National Guard. Lots of anger. What the hell is going on in this country. Rage against the machine.

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Tuesday morning May 5th driving to work to teach National Guardsmen how to shoot and kill, still really pissed off. Not good. Warning signs.

Now I'm standing on the platform in front of a new company of trainees who had just marched in. I usually started my class with some crude jokes or just read the sports page to them. The trainees and the DIs all liked this. Today I didn't. Today I heard myself say the following, unable to stop, an observor.

Good Morning Soldiers

GOOD MORNING SIR !

So how many of you out there are in the National Guard? Raise your hands.

OK, that's good. Now all of you who just raised your hand I want you to listen closely today because when you're called upon to shoot unarmed students, I want to make sure you hit them.

Silence. DIs staring at me.

My mouth totally disengaged from my brain. Fuck.

Taught the rest of the class without further comment. Damage done.

An hour later I was odered to report to the Colonel to explain what the hell I was doing. Reality of my stupidity sinking in. Colonel was pissed, I was contrite. Again, damage done.

Two months later my orders for Vietnam showed up. I was to report to Jungle School in Panama in October and in early November would deploy to Vietnam. This would also mean that they were sending me there with less than 12 months to go on active duty. A standard tour in Vietnam was 12 months. War was winding down and they're sending me with less than 12 months to go. Someone  really wanted me there.

Did my ill advised comment get me sent to Vietnam? Maybe, maybe not, but there's a good chance it did.

To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of
a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying,

when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true

and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is

discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life.

Henry The Fourth, Part 1 Act 5, scene 4, 115–121