Army Transportation OCS Vietnam Era 1966-1968

  Hazing.   If I remember correctly we hadn't turned TC Red on our helmets but we were close. Colonel Coffee had just ordered all of his company commanders to have their TAC Officers stand down from hazing cadets during their meals. However, All candidate Belentoni had to do was smile and he'd get sent out of the mess hall to do a set of pushups. (They knew he could knock out 20, one handed, in a minute or so.) So that night in our regular latrine afterhours group meeting, we as a company agreed that the next time Belentoni got sent out of the mess hall, we would all shout and follow him out for pushups. Our TACs were furious that our entire company spilled out of the mess hall into the street and did pushups. We never knew of COL. Coffee found out about it, but we paid for our collective outburst, as we always did, by formation running.

  St Staying Awake.   It was difficult to stay awake in class because we all worked with limited sleep hours.  There were little tricks we used like Vicks inhalers or running to the rest room during breaks to wash your face with cold water.  You could see students beginning to fall asleep because their heads would bobble back and forth until they fell forward and hit the table.  We actually had an event on the Regimental parade field when a cadet fainted. Upon the command “March”, we marched around him and left him in the grass.  I actually fell asleep at parade rest during a drill and ceremonies talk at the field not far from where we parked our POVs.