Chapter One

1
Preserve, Protect and Defend February 1968

The highway to Fort Lewis from the Sea-Tac Airport was covered with a thin film of water that reflected the lights from the oncoming cars. I leaned my head against the cold window. The air smelled clean, like fresh-cut wood. The bus ride was long, and I sat in silence.

Once we arrived at the base, we were greeted in the parking lot with friendly words from a well-starched drill instructor.

“Now get your sorry butts off my bus. Get down and give me push-ups until I get tired!”

George Ellis, my high-school buddy, muttered something obscene my way.

The fort was quiet except for the echo of the fifty of us counting out push-ups in the rain.

The next morning we shed our civilian clothes for olive-drab fatigues. The pants were too big, and the shirts were too stiff—and then to the barbershop, where zip zip, off came the hair.

The next few weeks of basic training were pretty rough. After the first week, our DI finally started to lighten up, even joked around a bit, although he never smiled. We had a theory that the drill instructors never slept. They had a nasty habit of pulling surprise inspections in the middle of the night.

We were all sitting in the corner of the large open bay of the 1st Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Brigade, building. Dave Smith had just punched Dumpy Drivold in the arm as our drill instructor, Sergeant Koffman, began his instructions on night watch.

Koffman said, “One of these nights you’re going to be walking on fire watch, you’ll walk into the latrine, and you might find someone masturbating.”

Everyone