A GREEN LIEUTENANT A memoir of a Vietnam veteran
		“You're wrong Crowley. Sergeant Meyers had a list from the tailor and the PX. If you weren't on the list he opened your locker. He got two guys in our barracks. Lucky asshole, Daddy Sobes got away with one. He borrowed a uniform from someone in TOBC - 8 (The class in front of ours) and hung that in his wall locker. They threw his wall locker open expecting to catch him, but he had blues hanging there. Wish I could have seen Meyer's face then” The session ended when Swann's high-pitched voice rang out in the quad. “You TC douche bags need to knock off the bitching and get your young asses out here for PT.” “Up yours, Swann!” Bystrick shouted as the rest of us pulled off our wet khakis and pulled on fresh fatigues. He was, after all, just another second lieutenant and in fact all of us had date of rank on him. Another voice was more to the point, “God damn it. It's Saturday and here we are, inspections, PT, bullshit. This is definitely fucked, totally fucked. We should be getting ready for a football game.” We fell out, got our proper spacing and waited for Swann to mount the instructor’s stand. “Tennnn Huttt! The first exercise is the side-straddle-hop. The side-straddle-hop is a two count exercise beginning with…” He droned on, “We'll do forty, you count the repetitions while I call the cadence. Ready! Exercise! One...” We raised our arms over our heads while our feet hopped out...the old civilian “jumping jack” all gussied up in army green and ready for our enjoyment and benefit. The sun beat down on us, sores and blisters reacted to tight fitting boots causing many of us to wince. The sweat rolled off of me in steady flowing rivulets. Salty drops rolled over the edge of my upper lip. My arms and legs ached from the first two weeks of work. I thought I was in good shape before coming on active duty having played hours of basketball and softball throughout the long summer. But those games deceived me. The daily five-mile runs in boots, your lungs screaming, arms tingling, legs burning, had proven just how far the army's concept of “in shape” was from mine. I held my own, convincing myself to, "hang in there." On our first run two weeks earlier one of us dropped out before the second mile. Next