Moments In Time At Fort Gordon, GA

In the early 1970s I was sent to the U. S. Army garrison at Fort Gordon, GA to attend Military Police (MP) Advanced Individual Training (AIT) so I could move from my Basic Combat Training (BCT) status as an Infantryman to being an MP.

This change of status was a calculated move that cost me an extra year in the U.S. Army since being trained as an MP added the extra time to my drafted status as U.S. where I only had to give two years of my life to the Army.

My flight from Fort Lewis, WA to Atlanta, GA on a civilian airline was uneventful but my flight from Atlanta to Augusta, GA was full of excitement since the plane was a twenty seat crop duster of sorts and the weather was rough. It seemed like we took off from the airport headed straight up into the sky leveled off for five minutes and dove straight down and landed at the very small Augusta, GA airport.

The crop duster we were in dove straight down towards the runway, we touched down bounced, skidded, coasted sideways, and broken with the smell of burning rubber filling the cabin. Once at the terminal we deplaned and got our luggage and boarded an old bus that would take us to Fort Gordon, GA.

An old bus picked us up at dark and drove down a very lonely and dark two lane road headed for Fort Gordon, GA and it seemed like any minute the bus was going to break down and leave us stranded in the middle of what looked like something from a southern hill Billy movie.

The buildings we were driving by, when there were buildings, look like they were abandoned and had abandoned trucks and cars in front of them, but there were lights on in the houses. I was from Texas and had not been outside Texas that much, and my trips to Fort Lewis and Fort Gordon were my first real travel outside of Texas.

The answer of why I was feeling weird and thought the area looked strange came to me as we passed under a street light at an intersection on the back road we were traveling on; the road was named Tobacco Road. My imagination was starting to run wild with visions of all sorts of problems with the bus, the road, the folks who lived in the area, and then we reached Fort Gordon, GA and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The bus stopped at the Military Gate and two MPs boarded the bus and told us to show them our military identification cards, we did, they left, the bus drove onto what looked like a scene from a John Wayne World War II movie, the barracks were old wooden two story left over’s from a long time ago. We drove through hundreds of these sorts of buildings until we got to one that was apparently my new home for the next several months.

As I glanced out the bus window I saw what appeared to be Mr. Clean from the TV commercials in a Drill Sergeant uniform yelling for everyone on the bust to get off, get our gear and stand in formation. Now it all made since, this was an Army thing, the Drill Sergeants at Fort Gordon acted just like the Drill Sergeants at Fort Lewis, WA – Crazy.

Another bus pulled up and unloaded another bunch of folks who joined our formation as they were also being yelled at to move it move it move it.

Once everyone was in formation Drill Sergeant Clean called out the name BUSBY, that could not be a good thing, but as I looked around there was not another BUSBY stepping forward or answering the Drill Sergeant. I answered but was not fast enough for the Drill Sergeant so I got yelled at and managed twenty push-ups before the Drill Sergeant told me to recover and yelled out to everyone I was the AIT Acting Platoon Sergeant till I screwed it up.

Being the acting platoon sergeant may sound like fun, but I had done that at BCT at Fort Lewis, WA and it was exhausting but apparently I did a good job previously and was task with the job once again here at Fort Gordon, GA.

I selected my acting squad sergeants and we all got into the WWII wooden barracks and got settled in, got the duty rosters set, and everyone in bed by 10:00 PM since we would be up at 5:00 AM sharp for the first day of MP AIT.

Remember this is my memory, if you were there and remember the memory differently write it down and post if so we can all see how you remembered it. There are more stories about this on the net now and more to follow as soon as I can remember them – smiles.