Army Transportation OCS Vietnam Era 1966-1968

  I remember Colonel Coffey for allowing me to remain in my class (15-67) after spending a week in the hospital. He told me I should be recycled to 16-67 however, if I kept up the academic and physical grades of 70% or higher I could continue. The last thing I wanted to be was an intermediate candidate subordinate to the senior class I should be in! After graduating I thanked him for the opportunity.

  I was in the 1st Platoon and our TAC Officer was 2nd Lt Davis. He was an excellent officer who made our experience more interesting and tolerable as we all acclimated to the harassment he and others dished out. He went through our living quarters every morning and circled spots on the mirrors in our bathroom and circled them with lipstick and the bold word (Sloopy). From that time on we all referred to him as Lt Sloopy and it somehow gave all of us in the 1st Platoon a rallying point that eased all the tensions we had to endure. I’m sure everyone in our platoon will have a big laugh over this, Somehow this was a pivotal moment tickled our motivation to take everything in stride.

  I was in TOCS class 20-67, Echo One. During the first 15 weeks or so, I had several assignments in the candidate chain of command but nothing that made me stand out or come under special scrutiny. On Sunday afternoon we had a new candidate chain of command installed, and I thought, oh man, I can “skate” because I had no assignment that coming week.   The following day, Monday, we were in formation after lunch about to march back to class. I heard a familiar voice, with a Georgia twang that I recognized as that of Captain Shelton Wood. He said, “Candidate Cousins, report!” He had never done that before, to anyone, so I thought I was being dropped from the program, where I would revert to being an Infantry PFC and shipped to Viet Nam.   I reported to CPT Wood, and the rest of the company marched off down the street toward the classroom. CPT Wood said, “Follow me candidate.” He led me into the day room and asked, “What do you see Candidate?” I was pretty nervous but po...

 Here is a link to Chucks experience with the 595th TC Company and 28th TC Battalion. Hope you enjoy the reading. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fsvNXYt7OeOSIQ9eLWvwgtnGX_zUiw8V/view?usp=sharing

  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.

  It was about the 4th week of OCS. After supper in the Mess Hall, the TACs had us “fall in” on the company street. Uniform was fatigue trousers, white t-shirt, boots without laces or socks, web belt, steel pot without helmet liner, and poncho. We then double timed to the PT field and set up a perimeter defense. After about 30 minutes of various drills and pushups, we returned to the barracks to find it had been “nuked”; in other words, mattresses were toppled, wall lockers emptied, and books were dumped in a pile. Our cubicles were completely tossed. Our mission was to restore everything into “Strac” condition; which, we accomplished via extreme teamwork. We learned in week #1 that we had to “cooperate to graduate. The joy of the evening was retaliating by soaking the TACs during a “latrine party”.