The making of a veteran

The last day of basic training, we were milling around the company area, waiting for the arrival of someone from Rumor Control, someone who never did arrive, so before we returned to the barracks to pack up our scant belongings, we were all at least somewhat scared. We all knew where we were heading for advanced individual training: those orders had already been handed out. But what then? The story had sprung up some time during the last week and grew stronger, if no more accurate, with every telling. The gist of it: a percentage of each BCT company had been allocated to the actual war zone in order to meet replacement levels, and the contribution from Delta company would be determined by running down the list alphabetically, starting with the As, until the quota was reached. The fact that this made no sense until we'd finished AIT, at which time we'd all be scattered across the country anyway, never occurred to us: we just wanted to know where the cutoff was, and Gonzales, perhaps understandably, was more concerned than Rupkiewicz.

I don't know how this all turned out: after AIT and a Stateside tour, I was packed off to the Middle East, which was a bit more peaceful in those days, if surprisingly chilly at times. Still, I think about those guys now and then, and we did achieve a distinction of sorts during our stint in basic: we'd apparently had nobody "recycled" — sent through the course a second time after failing the first — a highly uncommon occurrence in the spring of '72. (This belief was reinforced when I saw the steps they were willing to take to get us all through.)

We were eighteen then. I can't tell you the exact day we quit being boys and started being men, but I'm pretty sure the uniform had something to do with it.