Gunny,
I have to admit this was better than my first trip to Louisiana. I spent about fourteen weeks in a place some call Tigerland many moons ago. The food was Army, the nights were Army and the accomidations were Army. I did Advanced Infantry training at Ft. Polk and then as a hold over awaiting orders for six weeks of "White Hat" Non Drill Baby Instructor duty. Made me feel "Special" that the rest of the company Training Staff wore Smoky the Bear Hats and I wore a polished white helmet liner with a broad Infantry blue strip and PFC stripes ( that's Lance E3 to you Jar Heads) on the front and Infantry school decals on the sides. Oh course the troopies never considered that the guy that woke them up, tortured them before breakfast and sent them on their morning classes had to be up even earlier to break starch every freaking day and have mirror polished boots and stupid Helmet Liner. WHile they were off before lunch I was morning report clerk, supply clerk, Company runner, and arms room slave. I git the boys back at lunch. Gosh I loved seventeen hour days........in August in Louisiana..... not. The post town Leesville was disgusting and called Fleasville and Diseaseville by the troops and you could not have paid me to eat there. Did get one (1) weekend off while there and took a cab to Alexandria where I delighted in not being around OD green for a few hours and still remember a meal of red beans and rice. Neat old hotel, movie house and hardware/gunstore as well. Still regret passing up a good deal on an Excellent SAFN 49 with Belgian marks in .30-06 with a hard case. Lots of nice pistols but GCA 68 was in effect and I was only semi human being les than 21 at the time. Did not know how easy it would have been to have a Privately Owned Weapon on post in those days.
I did think that movie "Tigerland" did a good job of showing what the place was like, even though it was filmed an hour's drive away here in Florida at Camp Blanding. Banding was built at the same time as Polk and with the same type of wooden barracks and such. Early '90s trained some Reserve and NG Special Forces troops at Blanding on full auto nonissue stuff. They actually had a Jump school there during WWII ( and who knew that!) and a regiment of Airborne called it home before deploying to the war as a unit.
Oh well, youth is wasted on the young.
-kBob
