Soldier Stuff

I'm not sure to what extent Air Force basic training has changed since 1973, but back then they didn't teach us a whole lot about actual "soldiering". Yes, there was marching, and physical training, and more marching, and classes on military history and regulations, and more marching - but anything directly related to combat? Not so much... I guess that makes sense given that there are no infantry positions in the Air Force, although later in my career I did serve with a guy who had been at Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the Tet Offensive, so yes - even radar technicians have to pick up a rifle sometimes.... The point being that during my 6 weeks at Lackland we spent very little time on combat related training.

As it turned out, the Air Force did want us to be able to fire a weapon, so one morning we attended a course on the "theory and operation" of the M16... The only thing I specifically remember were some discussions between the specialists and the "good ole boys" about the merits of hunting with assault rifles... As I recall, the conclusion was that if you shoot a rabbit with an M16 on full auto don't expect there to be very much left :-)

And the next morning they marched us off to the rifle range where we were given a lengthy safety briefing before being handed an actual M16... We were kind of bummed when we found out that we weren't allowed to set it to "full auto" (that would have been fun)... Of course, some bozo did it anyway... Yeah - that sudden burst scared the crap out of me - it was really freaking loud! (I have no idea what happened to the culprit after they escorted him off the range. He wasn't in our squadron.)
The only other rule I remember (except for the obvious ones) was that if you needed to get the attention of one of the instructors (e.g. you were having a problem with your weapon) you had to stick your thumb in your ear and wiggle your fingers. (I swear I'm not making that up.) The idea was to keep your weapon (and your attention) focused down range, which makes perfect sense - but it sure looked silly :-)

OK... Telling them I was left-handed turned out to be a huge mistake for two reasons:
The first was that they gave me a rifle with a deflector plate that was supposed to direct the ejected shells downward (instead of onto my right arm), but sometimes they ricocheted right back into the chamber and jammed the bolt... So, I spent a lot of time with my thumb in my ear :-)
And the second problem was that (unbeknownst to me at the time) I am heavily right eye dominant. As a matter of fact, I'm such a bad shot with my left eye that the instructor who was trying to help me adjust the sights finally gave up and walked away...

Aside: I didn't find out about the eye problem until almost 20 years later when my son was a scout and I thumbed through the Rifle Shooting merit badge booklet. It explained how to determine eye dominance and I discovered I should have been shooting right handed all along... I later tried it out at a Scout camp rifle range and almost every shot was dead center... And all that time I thought was just a lousy shot - who would have guessed???

Back to basic training:

We spent the rest of the morning working through the shooting positions - standing, kneeling, sitting (which totally sucks) and prone, and although I'm really not into guns I have to admit the M16 was fun to shoot... At the end of the day I scored high enough to meet the minimum standards (which weren't very high), partly because "Mabel" (the guy who marched in front of me) kept putting rounds in my target by mistake (he was easily confused)... And (all in all) it was probably the only day of basic training I can say didn't totally suck :-)

And while I'm on the topic of "soldiering" I should probably say a few words about the "Confidence Course". That's what the Air Force called their obstacle course. It's another one of those "rites of passage" you face during the training process, and no matter what they call it it's a real pain in the ass...

First off: When the sun is just coming up and you find yourself crawling under a layer of barbed wire on your belly holding a dummy rifle and there are explosions going off all around you? That is a surreal experience :-)  ... And it is way harder than you might think. (You have no idea unless you've tried it.)
Also, climbing straight up a cargo net is surprisingly difficult. It's like trying to run up a sand hill - lots of motion and almost no progress... But the obstacle that gave me the most trouble was called "The Weaver". It's a series of evenly spaced horizontal beams, each one a bit higher than the previous one, and you have to alternate going under and over them without touching the ground... The transition from under to over is incredibly exhausting. There is just no easy way to do it.

By the time I got to the final obstacle - a set of monkey bars over a water hazard - I was really hot and tired. That's when "The Grinch" (I'll say more about him later) and I decided it would be a good idea to cool down a bit before marching back to the dorm so we bailed off near the end of the bars...
The water wasn't particularly clean, but it was cold and amazingly refreshing. We took our sweet time getting out and the TIs didn't even make us repeat the obstacle (I think they knew what we were up to)... The funny part is while we were waiting for the rest of the flight to finish some of the guys were giving us a hard time about falling off the bars. And we were like "What do mean 'falling'???"

It was already pretty warm out by the time we started the 2 mile march back to the dorm, and the "evaporative cooling" felt wonderful... I couldn't help but be amused when I thought about how hot and miserable the rest of the guys must be and how dumb they felt when they realized they could've cooled off too...

So yeah... It was definitely an experience worth having but I sure as heck wouldn't ever want to do it again :-)