The College Years, cont'd

My Freshman year at Auburn I was in College ROTC. All through High School, I wanted to be an Army Officer. I was in Junior ROTC, so that's not surprising. What was surprising was the amount of running, push-ups and sit-ups involved, especially the running.

I was great at hiking. I could walk all day long. The previous summer I backpacked 300 miles in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, so it never occurred to me that I would ever have to run anywhere. All of the books I read talked about sitting in a foxhole, standing guard duty, or sleeping in the mud. My father, who was drafted into the army in 1956, apparently spent his time in Basic Training painting Santa Claus and his eight reindeer for the base commander. He never mentioned having to run once, although he did talk a lot about the wonderful food in Vicenza, Italy where he was stationed. So it was a big surprise that early one morning a crusty sergeant told me to run two miles.

You see, a healthy soldier will recover from injuries faster. A soldier that is at the optimum weight for his height is easier to carry off the battlefield. And - this one took me years to figure out - somethings you need to run away from.

Three mornings a week we gathered at 5:30 am on the drill field for pushups, situps, squat thrusts, stretching and finally, a run around campus. Sometimes we would run in formation at a nice, leisurely pace; sometimes we would run inside the coliseum at our own pace. On the weeks that the Dallas Cowboys won (a lot that season), we got to take the next Monday morning off. We were still expected to pass the PT test that everyone else in the army took, and we were expected to pass it.

To pass, we were required to score at least 60% in each of the three events: push-ups, sit-ups and a two mile run. I sucked at push-ups (I've always lacked upper body strength) and could squeeze out twenty or thirty on a good day. Luckily, I needed 22 to pass. After a while I got really good at sit-ups, so I could bang out 60 or so in two minutes. For the run we had to do two miles in 15:54 for 60%. I Don't think I ever got close to that - in fact I think I got worse as the year went by. My best score was probably in the 17:00 range.

Late in the year one of the senior instructors called me into his office and broke the news that I had lost my scholarship due to grades, or lack thereof. He explained to me that if I really wanted to be an officer, that I should change majors to something a little easier (I was an Engineering major), and suggested Forestry. We also had a nice little chat about my PT scores and how they needed to improve with a quickness.

I wound up changing majors to Forestry, which was the biggest mistake I think I've ever made. I gave up ROTC and dreams of becoming an officer, but I got stuck in that godforsaken major. After a year of classes and a summer of working for Georgia Pacific as an intern, I decided I wasn't cut out for the job (too many snakes, yellow jackets, briars, brambles, thorns and beaver ponds for my taste) and that what I needed was to get out as quickly as possible.