by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
I remember well where I was fifty years ago, the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two human beings to step onto the moon. I was suffering through ROTC Summer Camp at Ft. Riley, Kansas - on an older portion of the base called Camp Funston. By that summer Ft. Riley itself had advanced to the point where it was a very modern base, the home of the 1st Infantry Division - the Big Red One - with nice red brick buildings and well manicured yards and parade fields. I remember large motor pools and acres and acres of big military trucks - deuce-and-a-halfs and five-tons.
Camp Funston was not that modern. It was a collection of old wooden barracks dating back through the two World Wars. Funston had been used to train Army recruits prior to its service with ROTC.
Curiously, as I have mentioned in this space previously, Camp Funston was also thought to be ground-zero of the worldwide flu pandemic that ran from from January of 1918 until December of 2020, a health catastrophe also called "the Spanish Flu" which is thought to have infected more than half a billion people around the globe and killed between twenty and fifty million.
And while the pandemic had been over for nearly half a century by the time I arrived at Camp Funston, I still remember my summer there as a singularly horrible experience. Yes, I did learn things of value while I was there - how to crawl beneath live fire, breath in a gas chamber long enough to blurt out my name, rank, and service (social security) number, read a topographical map, throw a grenade, and clean a grease trap - but most of what I remember about the experience is not so glamorous.
I remember constantly rushing to get things done. There was never enough time to get one thing finished before another deadline was charging forward. And sleep? Well, forget about that. Some of the best sleep I had that summer was in one-and-two-hour spurts as we rode in the back of deuce-and-a-halfs in full battle rattle to remote training spots - usually well before daylight. Even those "naps" were laced with drama and trauma. One morning a friend on mine who was sitting in the back of the truck nodded off. His helmet was not strapped on and bounced from his head out onto the road where it was run over and flattened by the next truck in our training convoy! For the next week or so he thought that he had died and gone to Nam!
There were no televisions in our old wooden barracks. There was one somewhere close, perhaps at one of the clubs, and on the day that the astronauts climbed out of their capsule and walked on the moon many of my friends were able to get away from the barracks - it was a Sunday - and view the big event on television. I don't remember the circumstances, but for some reason I stayed back in the barracks and heard the details later on. (I'm sure that I was struggling to catch up on shining or polishing something.)
I regret not finding the strength and making the effort to view that important piece of American history - as much of the world did - but if I had the chance to repeat that summer so that I could watch Neil Armstrong take his small step for a man and big leap for mankind, I would pass. I had enough of Camp Funston that summer to last more than a lifetime!
"Funston" was anything BUT "fun"!
Citizen Journalist
I remember well where I was fifty years ago, the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two human beings to step onto the moon. I was suffering through ROTC Summer Camp at Ft. Riley, Kansas - on an older portion of the base called Camp Funston. By that summer Ft. Riley itself had advanced to the point where it was a very modern base, the home of the 1st Infantry Division - the Big Red One - with nice red brick buildings and well manicured yards and parade fields. I remember large motor pools and acres and acres of big military trucks - deuce-and-a-halfs and five-tons.
Camp Funston was not that modern. It was a collection of old wooden barracks dating back through the two World Wars. Funston had been used to train Army recruits prior to its service with ROTC.
Curiously, as I have mentioned in this space previously, Camp Funston was also thought to be ground-zero of the worldwide flu pandemic that ran from from January of 1918 until December of 2020, a health catastrophe also called "the Spanish Flu" which is thought to have infected more than half a billion people around the globe and killed between twenty and fifty million.
And while the pandemic had been over for nearly half a century by the time I arrived at Camp Funston, I still remember my summer there as a singularly horrible experience. Yes, I did learn things of value while I was there - how to crawl beneath live fire, breath in a gas chamber long enough to blurt out my name, rank, and service (social security) number, read a topographical map, throw a grenade, and clean a grease trap - but most of what I remember about the experience is not so glamorous.
I remember constantly rushing to get things done. There was never enough time to get one thing finished before another deadline was charging forward. And sleep? Well, forget about that. Some of the best sleep I had that summer was in one-and-two-hour spurts as we rode in the back of deuce-and-a-halfs in full battle rattle to remote training spots - usually well before daylight. Even those "naps" were laced with drama and trauma. One morning a friend on mine who was sitting in the back of the truck nodded off. His helmet was not strapped on and bounced from his head out onto the road where it was run over and flattened by the next truck in our training convoy! For the next week or so he thought that he had died and gone to Nam!
There were no televisions in our old wooden barracks. There was one somewhere close, perhaps at one of the clubs, and on the day that the astronauts climbed out of their capsule and walked on the moon many of my friends were able to get away from the barracks - it was a Sunday - and view the big event on television. I don't remember the circumstances, but for some reason I stayed back in the barracks and heard the details later on. (I'm sure that I was struggling to catch up on shining or polishing something.)
I regret not finding the strength and making the effort to view that important piece of American history - as much of the world did - but if I had the chance to repeat that summer so that I could watch Neil Armstrong take his small step for a man and big leap for mankind, I would pass. I had enough of Camp Funston that summer to last more than a lifetime!
"Funston" was anything BUT "fun"!
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