John Delach

When we arrived at Fort Dix in early February of 1967, we began basic training  by living in transient barracks under the supervision of sergeants who would become our drill instructors (DIs) once we transferred to the permanent home of our new basic training outfit, Sierra Company.

Their job for now was to make sure we accomplished every task needed to begin this journey. First up, haircuts with electric razers set at zero. Fortunately, my cousin, Bill, had alerted me so I arrived with a short crew cut.

We were issued duffle bags. It didn’t take long to understand why as we began to fill them with:

Uniforms, underwear and socks of different types. Two or three fatigue pants and shirts, a Class A uniform, hats, boots and even glasses. Field jackets, Class A overcoats, gloves and anything else deemed appropriate.

Visits to doctors and dentists filled in a good deal of our time as transients. Finally, we boarded buses loaded down with all our stuff and were driven to the home of Sierra’s barracks. After we piled out from the buses, stacked our stuff where told, we lined up in formation so we could meet the newest prick who would control our lives for the next eight weeks, our First Sergeant, Gutman. Sergeant Gutman announced his presence like a major tornado wrecking a town in Kansas. Gutman guaranteed that he now had ultimate control over our very beings.

Hyperbole, of course, but nobody was stupid enough to challenge him. Actually, I found my own escape from his control by silently mimicking his Hitleresque pronouncements. We went to breakfast as a unit and as we entered the mess hall, each of us had to sound off with their Service Number. If a soldier mumbled his number, a sergeant would demand that he repeat it louder. One morning, soon thereafter, when my turn came, I inwardly grabbed a breath deep in my gut. I used the same voice that I used to torment officials at Giants games and let fly, “Sergeant, Private 3-3-1-9-0-7-0 reporting.”

Back in the day, I had trained my voice so that my taunts filled Section 12 at Yankee Stadium. Now my voice filled a mess hall.

Gutman loved it and I became his celebrity that made my life that much easier under his reign of terror.

Our basic training schedule was a winter cycle. The Army restricted what we could do outdoors. Despite this restriction, Gutman announced that we should prepare for a three-day bivouac where we would live outside, eat outside and maneuver outside. I will never know who dropped the dime on him, but the Army’s Inspector General came down on our First Sargent with fire and brimstone forcing him to back off.

His revenge came swiftly. We were too early in our training cycle to be eligible for weekend passes, but being close to Long Island, many of us had visitors on Sunday, our day off. Mary Ann, my fiancé and my mom would visit on Sundays.

About 9 am, Gutman announced that we would be in lock down that Sunday.

Before we knew about his edict, several trainees had left with their buddies or girlfriends. My buddy, Bill, from the 242 was one of them. Gutman arrived after Bill had left, but he was there when Mary Ann and my mom, arrived. I explained my dilemma  to our First Sargent knowing full well that he had exceeded his authority.

He relented so long as we stayed in a parking lot close to the barracks.

When Bill returned, I told him the shit-kickers were coming down on him and so they did. They made the next week the longest of his life with KP in the morning, all kinds of shit during the day and KP at night. I did everything I could to lessen his load, but it was Bill’s strong spirit that got him through it. F***k Gutman, Bill beat you.

The rifle assigned to us was the M-14, the successor to the M-1 Garand rifle that had been in service since World War II. The M-14 entered service in 1958, but by the time we received it, the M-16 assault rifle was already being used by our troops in Viet Nam.

I liked the feel of the M-14 and got high marks demonstrating how to maneuver with it. Unfortunately, my score at the qualifying line fell a few points short of expert that cost me my first weekend pass.

My worst experience came on the grenade range. The supervisors quickly moved us along from station to station. This caused me to lose focus, a weakness I live with. All of a sudden, I was called into the pit to throw a live grenade. The instructor placed a grenade into my right hand, pointed me in the direction where he wanted me to throw it and ordered me to pull the pin. I put my hand back into a throwing position and looked at the target area. In my state of confusion, I saw nothing to zero in on. I threw it, nut not very far.

Next thing I heard was a loud speaker announce, “Short round.”

The instructor ordered me to hit the dirt and mumbled, “Son of a bitch”

He stood looking at it for a few seconds, then hit the dirt too.

It went off with a loud bang, but without doing any harm.

I looked at the instructor. I thought of apologizing, but I realized he was in no mood to hear anything from me.

The rest of basic training melted away, but before we graduated Bill and I and a couple of other guys had dinner with Sergeant Campell. He said, “I love you reservists. Admittedly, you can be pains in the ass, ask too many questions and don’t like the Army way of doing things.”

“But, you guys are a summer breeze when compared to raw draftees. None of you ever go AWOL have run-ins with MPs or the New Jersey Police, or turn on each other including with knives. I’d pick you reservists any time.”

On the Outside Looking In will not publish on August 21, but will return on August 28.