Do You Remember Your Drill Sergeants/Instructors Names From Basic Training? Recount Any Specific Memories of Your Drill Sergeants/Instructors and How They Shaped You as a New Recruit:

It was an early spring morning at US Army Headquarters Training Center Infantry, Fort Ord, California. A couple hundred new inductees (around 95% draftees – including myself) were gathered together by a handful of seasoned Drill Instructors with the objective of assembling Headquarters Company into Platoons and Squads. First job; select trainee Platoon and Squad leaders. It was Drill Sergeant Diamond who started the process by ordering all men who graduated college to fall out and line up on the side of the parking lot. I was classified II-S until I graduated in early 1969. I was 22 years old – one of the older men in this group. With Vietnam going crazy, Uncle Sam was calling up even us old guys.