And One Last Blast from the Past: The Drill Sergeant

The summer of 1969 was an eventful time:
Life magazine published the photos of all American soldiers killed in Vietnam during one week in June - 242 of them. That really hit home to many Americans. We landed a man on the moon in July, and Woodstock happened in August. I remember reading about Woodstock in a newspaper while in basic training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

In the second week of training we were told that we were to get a new drill sergeant, a veteran of two years duty in Vietnam who had been wounded three times. We thought, God, this guy will be hard core. This photo of him shows a wirey soldier who looked like Lee Van Cleef (left), the pipe-smoking villain of the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," which had come out a couple of years before. If you look closely at the photo, our drill sergeant has in his belt a silver pipe. Lee Van Cleef with glasses! That's what he looked like, with slanted beady eyes and a steel glare. But getting to know him, he was no ordinary drill sergeant. He was not the egotistical clown that some were, not the sadistic joker that dominated our lives. This guy was tough, and all business, but fair. If you did what you were told and kept quiet, he respected you, and in turn we respected him. Even Clint Eastwood would have liked him.