Dear Mom and Dad,
Well I have just finished the first four weeks here! Yesterday we got back from the A.P. Hill trip, which I told you about in my last letter. We spent most of last week there, which also concluded the IMPT phase of this training. The A.P. Hill trip was the hardest part of the time that I will be here. We had to do things there that all officers must do as directed by CONARC. (Continental Army Command) Two of the most dangerous things that are required are the so-called infiltration course and the close combat course. The infiltration course is the most physically demanding of the two: you crawl about 300 yards, in the dark of night across a field covered with obstacles like barbed wire, logs, etc. To make it interesting they fire live machine gun fire above your head. If you lay on your back you can see the tracers whizzing above you. If that bores you, they set off TNT charges every so often, about 2 feet from your head. We had to go through it twice, once in the daytime, and once after dark. I said that all officers have to do this, and they do. At the same time as our class of Quartermaster Officers were going through it, they ran a group of Engineer Lieutenants from Ft. Euestus through, and about a dozen brand new Army Doctors, who of course are Captains, but have had absolutely no military training as we have. One of the doctors staggered to his feet at the end of it, and then promptly passed out, but he had plenty of help from his friends.
The Close Combat course was really much more dangerous than the infiltration course, because on the infiltration course about the only way you could really get hurt would be to stand up but there aren't too many people who would be that dumb. (Enlisted men don't go through it) On the close combat course, though a whole squad of men would walk down a field with about the same type of obstacles. Each man carried an M-16 with live ammo, which each man fires as he goes down the field. Your life is literally in the hands of the man next to you. You just hope that someone doesn't trip or point his rifle slightly in the wrong direction.
There were other things we had to last week which I won't go into here, but I did manage to get through each day without too much trouble. At least I really felt like I earned my money last week, which by the way I have plenty of now. I just now added it up and found that so far I've been paid $812.85. Only $316.27 of that was tax deductible. Of course I don't have that much on hand, because it costs quite a bit to eat at restaurants and cafes, and the FLOOM for every meal which I have to do. But I'm not hurting for money at all and we haven't even been paid any of our TDY money yet. While I'm living on the post the TDY pay is $8.00 per day but when they make us move off, it will jump to $25.00 per day, all non taxable. As far as I know now, we will have to move off on Sept. 4 which is about 2 weeks from now. A Lieutenant friend and myself have already found an apartment in Petersburg which will be open by then. It's $130 per month but we will share expenses which will make it fairly cheap. Apartments off base are really hard to find because of all the military personnel living off post and because the apartments have to be approved by Fort Lee before you can live in them. That is because a lot of the places discriminate against Negroes, so the army won't let their people live in them.
So, because the place that we've found doesn't discriminate, it is not the best place around, but it is air conditioned and has a swimming pool, both of which are an absolute necessity in this weather. Sometime around the end of Sept we are supposed to get a check for about 2 months of our TDY pay which will come to about $1000.. At that time, I think I will buy a car. It has been very difficult so far getting around without one, because Ft. Lee is a lot bigger than it looks on the map, and it will be worse when I have to move off post. As far as what kind of car I will get, I am really not too sure right now. I still think the Lotus is great, but so far I haven't found anyplace around here that sells them. I might have to go as far as Wash DC to get one and when you come right down to it, it's a lot easier to talk about spending that much money than it is to really spend it. So I might settle for a TR or something like that, but like I said, I'm not sure yet. Last weekend I saw a little more of Virginia. I went with a friend and saw Fredericksburg. It wasn't quite as interesting as Williamsburg, and it was more commercialized, but it was a strange feeling to stand in the area where the biggest battles of the civil war were fought. We also saw James Monroe's law office in Fredericksburg, which has been restored and is fairly interesting.
The biggest news around here lately has been the new Army policy of cut-back on active duty tours. I will try to explain it briefly. About half of all ROTC graduates who graduated last year will get what is called active duty for training (ADT). We were given a letter that explained all this and two forms with it. One form was a request for ADT, which means 3-6 months of active duty and 8 years of active reserve. The other form was a request to continue with the regular two year active duty program. Now there has been a lot of rumors connected with this thing. It has been said that the 50% for ADT applies to the Army as a whole and that only about 5% of Quarter Master officers will get it, because there will still be a big need for supply officers in Asia, even if all Infantry troops are pulled out. Even so, about 60% of my class, which is about 75 strong with only 5 who are not ROTC graduates, requested ADT. I did not request the ADT program. I want to give it more of a chance than 3 months and 8 years of active Reserve is quite a long time. I haven't made a decision yet as to if I will stay in another year though for the Voluntary Indefinite program. So far, I really like the life of an officer, even though we've done a lot of things, I'm not crazy about. I'm looking forward to going to my first duty assignment and actually doing the work of an officer. I've had all the privileges but none of the responsibility yet.
Well that's all I have for now. right now I have to go to work on a 10 minute briefing I have to give Monday morning for a class called "Effective Speaking" (just like college again.....so long for now
Love
Marty
Interesting read. Glad you are posting them.
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