My recent blog about wanting things to be normal again brought questions. I think I can combine many of them into a single question, “How and when did it happen?” After basic training in the Army, I was sent to an electronic school and then further schooling in a communications method called Tropospheric Scatter Communications. I was then sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma. The unit existed in name only as it was just forming. It was supposed to be a Pershing Missile unit. The Pershing Missile was an intermediate-range ballistic missile with nuclear warheads. We had nothing! Our barracks were relics of World War II. They had nothing for us to do since we had no equipment. I remember our entire unit – not that many – walking along the roadsides in the base picking up cigarette butts. We did KP for ROTC students. The only thing that was sort of interesting was Fort Sill is an artillery training base. They held some demonstrations for various dignitaries. Somehow I got assigned to the stands where the dignitaries were to watch the firepower demonstrations. All in all, I was going crazy. I wanted out of Fort Sill and all the BS we were doing. I met some people who had already been to Vietnam. I decided that’s what I wanted to go, but there was a hold put on all personnel and we could not request to transfer. I wrote to my Senator asking if he could help me get a transfer to Vietnam. The year was 1964. While I was waiting for a reply from my Senator, our company commander not knowing what to do with us decided we needed to run the obstacle course. It was a pretty standard thing. I don’t remember if I heard it directly or heard it later from someone else, but our company commander said to keep running us through the obstacle course until we could walk anymore. It was the third time through for me. The next thing I knew I woke up in the base hospital. I had fallen off an obstacle we called “The Backbreaker.” I temporarily couldn’t feel anything below the waist or move my legs. It was scary! After a relatively short time, I returned to normal. It was labeled as a “bad spinal bruise.” I’m repeating what you may have read in other blogs. When you hit your back that hard, the spine responds by growing new bone and pinching off nerves. It is technically called stenosis. I was doing required physical therapy when my orders came through for Vietnam. I never finished my physical therapy sessions. I think that Fort Sill was and probably still is a very good base but the Pershing Missile outfit was !#!# – I try to keep this blog free of the language I learned in the Army – grin.
