Surely, The Best Of Times

I entered Basic Training in the Army on 09SEP87. I did not know it then, but that was about the best time ever to do so.

I signed up as a tank crewman (19K) for the M1 Abrams. But because of when I went in, we got trained with the M60A3, M1 and M1A1. The Army didn't know where we were going to end up so they wanted to cover all the bases. Some of us were going to be sent to units getting ready to transition to the Abrams, so we needed to know how to crew the M60 until then. There were a lot of 105mm M1's in the inventory so we needed to know how to operate and maintain them. And the M1A1 was just starting to hit service, so on the off chance we got sent to a premier unit we needed to know what was different on the 120mm gun and NBC system. We got to spend extra time in the motor pool, extra time at the range and less time on the marching quad. Win win.

This odd cross pollination applied to other things too. The M60's commander's gun was a .50 BMG, M85. The Abrams uses an M2HB. Totally different guns. Then we got to train with both the M1911A1 and M9 pistols. And since sixty units were equipped with M3A1 submachineguns and Abrams units were equipped with M16A2s we got to go shoot both.

Gun geek heaven!

To think, at the time I complained with everyone else that it was cold and I was hungry, but it really was one of the funnest times of my life. Only now that I have the mundane to compare it to do I realize how much I was enjoying myself.

Of course, hindsight also tells me how miserable I was in my line unit. I'll take the mundane life I have over SFC Hinkel any day!