Went through basic in 79, my DI's were:

Gunner mate Guns (GMG1) Stone
and
Senior Chief Keys

Hated them both until I "woke up" near the end. Then I developed the greatest respect for them.

I've seen all of them except the one that went nuts and his replacement. Thanked them all, and bought one of them a beer.

[ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: fix ]

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: Seventh Fleet ]

May SSG Corbitt rest in peace he was killed on Sept 11 at the Pentagon.

I can never forget those people , they made my life a living hell. SSG Corbitt was a real peace of work. Most of us hated him. Well one day it was freezing rain, blizzard conditions. Mess Hall was closed. All we had was MRE , and he stood in the freezing rain and sleet to man the heaters while the MREs were being heated , just to make sure we had a hot meal that day. He did not have to do this , they could have said sorry eat em cold. I gained a lot of respect for him that day.

hatoldyaso

My third day of boot. Fresh out of the reception station SSG Cob stands up and we are about 4 miles from the barracks. He has us Un A$$ the bus get into formation and stand at attention while he describes our family tree in detail. At that time the men in the service was still seperate from the woman. A platoon of woman marches by us and I as a normal 17 year old kid turns my head . The next thing I know my helmet is flying thru the air and I am looking up at the meanest blackest man taht is standing with one foot on my chest and he whispers Boy if you EVER move in my formation again I will gut you with YOUR mess kit! I believed him.

That man saved my life more than once with his training.

I still remember the first thing he said to us when we got off the buss at Ft Knox on May 14, 1966:

"My name is Staff Sergeant Hays. This is my first time as an U.S. Army Drill Instructor, though I did spend 16 years in the Marine Corps. Since I don't quite have the Army way down pat yet, we're gona do it the MARINE CORPS WAY! In the next 8 weeks, if I do my job right, you WILL HATE ME!"

He was right, we hated him by the end of the 2rd week. I will NEVER forget this man, for it was his hard-assed training that kept me alive in Viet Nam. In 1969 I rotated back threw Ft. Knox, and the first thing I did was find SSGT. Hays, bought him a beer and thanked him.

I had never really looked at his Class "A"s closely. On his chest was: Master Jump Wings, Viet Nam Service Ribbon with Star (2 tours), Purple Hart with 2 stars (3 awards), Silver Star with "V" device (for Vallor), Bronze Star with "V" device (for Vallor).

I asked him why he left the Corps and joined the Army as a DI. He replyed: "I just thought I could do some good here. On my last tour in Nam, I saw some of the Army guys get their asses handed to them. It seemed to me they just didn't have the training they needed. So when I came up for ETS in the Corps, I enlisted here as a DI."

Thank You SSGT. Hays

[ March 05, 2002: Message edited by: TreverSlyFox ]

First Name - Sir
Middle Name - SM Chief Petty Officer Crocker
Last Name - Sir

BTC, Fort Chaffee, Arkansas 1959.

Up until about four or five years ago, I still remembered my M1 Garand serial number, and to this day I can reel off my serial number. That was before your Social Security # was your military serial #.

J.B.

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Jay Baker ]

Sgt. Goodwin was a fine African-American
soldier with a 50" barrel chest of solid
muscle. Whenever he walked out in front
of the company formation, all the grab-@ssing
stopped and a hush spread thru the ranks.
At that time, the Drill Sergeants were banned
from openly striking privates. However, just
to have an understanding, the made sure everyone
knew that if they became a problem, they would
be invited in rear of our WW2 barracks, where
the Smokie hat would come off. And you can
guess what would come next since there would
be no witnesses Nobody, entertained the
idea of taking on Sgt. Goodwin.

Sgt. Brooks quite the contrast. White and
short. However, a very fine hard-core soldier
and a Vietnam veteran/Infantryman. I think
he liked me because i constantly volunteered
for gaurd duty when no other private would.
Especially after returning from exhausting
10, 15 mile road marches when everyone was
dropping from fatigue and it was just a few
hours away from sunrise. He liked motivated
troops. Didnt matter if you fell flat on
your face. Just so long as you were motivated
and picked yourself up and then "soldiered-on".

Once in a while I
could get him to talk about Vietnam. I
enjoyed his war stories. He was with the
1st Infantry Division in Vietnam. And he
was Damn proud of that "Big Red One" patch.
Plus the history of the Big Red One in WW2
,Normandy invasion, ect. I remember one
war story where they were on patrol in the
jungle looking for the Cong. The radio man
started screaming and doing a "dance" in
front of him. He said they nicknamed them
"Airborne ants" Because these fire ants
would fall from the tree tops and slide down
the back of the neck of soldiers. Then start
biting the hell out of you. The pain was so
bad, soldiers would tear their clothing off.

..after I left boot camp, take a wild guess
what my first unit of assignment was??? Yup!
The 1st Infantry Division
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