We’ve clearly come a long way. As we neared the end of eight weeks of Basic Training loomed so did a 3-day Labor Day weekend pass. Essentially our Drill Sergeant told us, “get caught” so we could all hit the road. Being a curious college grad and National Guard trainee, I asked “what is the actual training objective of the exercise?” Our Drill Sergeant looked at me and replied, “I can spell watermelon.” We were all duly caught and trucked to the POW compound where some trainees were interrogated, I’m told, but I only heard about that later because within 10 minutes I’d summoned up all my WW2 POW stories and blitzed the wire and was gone.
We’ve clearly come a long way. As we neared the end of eight weeks of Basic Training loomed so did a 3-day Labor Day weekend pass. Essentially our Drill Sergeant told us, “get caught” so we could all hit the road. Being a curious college grad and National Guard trainee, I asked “what is the actual training objective of the exercise?” Our Drill Sergeant looked at me and replied, “I can spell watermelon.” We were all duly caught and trucked to the POW compound where some trainees were interrogated, I’m told, but I only heard about that later because within 10 minutes I’d summoned up all my WW2 POW stories and blitzed the wire and was gone.