Military Police (MP) Advanced Individual Training (AIT) - Fort Gordon, Georgia - 1970

Military Police (MP) Advanced Individual Training (AIT) - Fort Gordon, Georgia - 1970

After what seemed like a very long time learning to be an Infantry Soldier at Fort Lewis, Washington the U.S. Army transported me too MP AIT at Fort Gordon, Georgia. You would think eight or nine weeks of Basic and eight or nine more weeks of MP AIT training would have been fun and exciting for a twenty something yearly old.

Previous stories of my Basic Infantry Training can be found some where here in the stories section. Not sure if any of the stories meld together since my memory may not always remember the exact content of my previous story about the same time and same place! Sad when our memories tend to fade in and out of all of our good old and not so good old days
.
When I arrived at Basic it was early in the morning, just after midnight, when I left basic it was just after midnight, guess the Army was making sure the general public did not see all of us Infantry and MP types flying around the country so they flew us about between midnight and seven in the morning. For this clandestine movement we flew direct from Tacoma Washington to Atlanta, Georgia where we split up for other modes of transportation depending on what Army Post we were going to.

I was taken to a very small twin engine prop that had seats for twenty where we waited till the plane was full. The aircraft took off and flew very low over Atlanta, it was still dark, when we took off we flew straight up, when we landed we dove straight down, all we could see were mountains and trees, we landed with a squeal, taxied a few feet, stopped quickly, left the plane and walked into the very small terminal near Augusta, George.

As we walked into the terminal a very large Sergeant First Class (SFC) yelled for us to go out the front doors and board the bus. Not sure what kind of bus it was, green with uncomfortable seats . It was still dark, we drove down some very dark roads through a forest passing by a sign that read Tobacco Road. It was official, we were in the back woods of Georgia, what was going to happen next was anyone's guess.

We arrived at Fort Gordon, Georgia just as the sun was coming up over the trees, we drove by all sorts of troops running and marching, family housing areas, new signal troop housing areas, then we arrived at our WWII two story buildings where we would live for the next month or so.

As in Basic as we excited the bus another large SFC wearing a Drill Sergeant (DS) Hat (Smoky Bear Hat) had us line up, there were about thirty of us half a sleep. The DS looked at us, pointed at me and said you are the Platoon (PLT) sergeant(SGT), get these folks into the barracks, unpacked, and out side in formation in an hour.

We all headed for the building, based on what I saw of the folks around me, bearing, speech, uniform, and size, selected Assistant PLT Sgt (APS) and four squad leaders. As everyone was unpacked told the APS to get everyone out side. At 8:00 AM we were all in formation when the DS arrived, smiles, looked happy, then went nuts yelling at us, he was not happy with our formation, our uniforms, the way we looked, and took us on a five mile run.

On return to the barracks area, we formed up again, processed in to AIT, got our assignments, and after half a day of getting settled in started training. Our MP training for the next few months started at 5:00 AM and lasted till 6:00 PM with some extra duty until 9:00 PM. After a month we got some time off on weekends and that was to let the DS's have time off, not us.

While at MP School we learned procedures in law enforcement as it applied to the U.S. Army, how to write reports of various types, how to use various types of pistols, the main pistol being the 45 Cal pistol. How to investigate traffic accidents, direct traffic, how to detain (arrest) soldiers, how to drive emergency vehicles, and many many other law enforcement topics.

MP AIT was physical tough, and mentally challenging but very few of us failed and the majority of us completed AIT ready to move on to our Army MP assignments and start a new phase of our lives.
The day after we finished training an MP Officer talked to us about our new assignments indicating all but a few would be assigned to line MP companies in Vietnam. Once that sunk in the mood was not exciting but we were dealing with the idea we were going to War. After all it was 1970 and the U.S. was still at war with Vietnam and we were in the U.S. Army.

As the meeting was closing the MP Officer called out nine names, my name was one of those called, we were told to stay. After everyone else left the room, the MP Officer advised us we did better than anyone else on our many test during AIT and we had the most education of our group. We were told there was a unit that needed MP's, but not just any MP's. MP's assigned to this special unit had to be the best of the best and even then may not get selected or even retained once selected.

It was mentioned the unit had such an important mission it was not deployed nor would it be deployed to Viet Nam and MP's assigned to the unit would not be pulling combat duty. The MP officer then ask anyone who wanted to be assigned to the mentioned special unit to stay and anyone who did not want to be a member of the special unit to leave. Five of the nine MPs stayed, the door was closed, we were given documents to sign, once signed we were told we were now members of the Army Security Agency (ASA) with duty as MP's and were not to talk about our unit to anyone not in the unit. We could tell folks we were MP's but to avoid talking about our real unit ASA.

Talk about feeling like we were now in a spy or shadow unit which was confirmed later when our orders were for various MP units around the U.S. so we were not going to Vietnam like many others at the time. Once all our paper work was completed and we each received Top Secret Clearances (TSC) we all received thirty days of leave in route to our new ASA units.

We all headed off to our homes for thirty days of fun in the sun knowing we were not going to the war. In my case at about fifteen days into the leave I received a telegram instructing me to report to Oakland Army Terminal, California instead of my original ASA assignment. I was now going to a unit called the 509th Radio Research (RR) Saigon, Vietnam but would tell anyone who pressed me that I was part of the 716th MP's.

More to follow on my time in the Army ASA, there are other stories on my ASA days in the Your Story section.