I came across my US Army boot camp photo book and scanned it so I could send it to my Army buddy and (at the time, future) brother-in-law Luis.
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| Official Army bootcamp photo. Sweating in the South Carolina summer wearing class As on top and fatigues and boots on bottom. Nobody smiled because they wanted to look badass.I hadn't learned yet how to shape my bus-driver hat. |
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| Out in piney woods somewhere in Ft. Jackson. Holding papers, maybe we're waiting to get another shot. So many shots, I'm surprised our arms didn't look like swiss cheese. |
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| My buddy Luis, from Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC and Hondouras. He took me home to NYC to meet his family. Later on my brother married his sister and my sister married him. And now we have LJ, Michael, David, Marie, Edward and Mark. |
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| Luis at attention in formation in front of our barracks, pistol belt with canteen on the ground. Must have been an inspection. Most of our company was from NYC, a few from Ohio. Normally they would have sent us to Ft Dix, NJ, but it was full. I guess they were still in-processing a lot of soldiers. This was August 1973 when Nixon was winding down the Vietnam war. The Yom Kippur war broke out in Middle East while we were in boot camp. I thought I'd be wearing desert camoflague soon. |
