At the end of our training cycle they took those of us who were on orders to Vietnam out to Camp Bullis for two days to complete the "Counter-Insurgency/Ambush and Evasion Course". While out there, they told us we had to qualify "Marksman" with the M-16 rifle (we had fired M-14s in Basic Training) or we couldn't go to Vietnam. They told the scorers on the firing range, all of whom were on casual status - waiting for orders, that if any of us failed to qualify, the scorer would get our orders instead. I'm proud to say that not one of us failed to qualify that day, despite shooting at trees, birds, airplanes and who knows what. Even though I fired "Expert" that day, I was such a lousy shot that they probably should have taken my ammunition and just given me a bayonet to defend myself.
One incident of our Vietnam "training" that didn't bode well for the future came in the "Ambush and Evasion" part of the agenda. Although COs, or Conscientious Objectors (of which there were a number in our class), did not carry weapons, the rest of us were carrying M-14s with blanks. One of the COs, a really entitled and immature kid from Southern California (Beverley Hills, he said), decided to play John Wayne that day and talked them into issuing him a weapon, with which he had zero familiarity or training. They loaded us into trucks and told us that at some place along the road we would be mock-ambushed, at which time we were to jump off the trucks and attack the enemy force. After we had gone down the road a bit, the CO with a weapon was fiddling with it and accidentally fired a round. Thinking that was the signal for the ambush, the truck drivers stopped and we all jumped off the trucks, moving up a hillside and firing like crazy at . . . nobody. It took them a bit of time to sort it out, stop the firing, and get us loaded back on the trucks. About a quarter of a mile up the road we ran into the actual mock-ambush, whereupon we jumped off the trucks, most of us already out of ammunition, and were mock-slaughtered. I remember wondering if that was some sort of a sign.
*John Fogerty - "Centerfield"
