|  Artillery is indirect fire. A rifleman points at what he wants to hit, but the big guns fire in an arc,
like shooting a basketball. The coordinates came in over the radio from
a forward observer on the ground actually looking at the target. The
fire direction control center used a table of formulas (or sometimes a slide
rule) to turn that information into deflection and elevation settings. Also,
depending on the gun, they calculated how many powder bags to place into each
round. Those numbers then went to the gun crews who applied the settings
to the artillery piece and fired the round. The lieutenant’s job
was make sure all this happened properly. There’s a lot at stake
when you give an order to fire, and you’d better make sure you’ve
done it right.
We drilled with 105s, 155s, 175s, and 8 inch guns. As
an officer, I showed up for work in the morning and went home in the afternoon. We’d
rented an apartment in Lawton, Joan taught school, we had a large circle
of friends, and we were happy.
After training, my first regular duty assignment was with a newly formed battalion
at Fort Sill equipped with M-107s, the latest, self-propelled 175mm guns. Originally
designed to move around the battlefield and provide a long-range umbrella of
protection and destruction, M-107s looked like tanks but were fast and fired
a 120-pound projectile thirty-three kilometers. Our unit consisted of three
firing batteries, a headquarters battery and a logistics and supply battery. Each
firing battery consisted of four platoons of twenty-five men and one 175mm
gun. I commanded four guns and one hundred men.
After several months training,
the entire battalion deployed to a huge Army installation in Bamberg, Germany. Joan
and I welcomed this change of scenery, and we quickly started enjoying life
in another culture.
Thirty miles north of Nuremberg, Bamberg had been
a troop garrison for a thousand years. In 1964, its function was to stop
a Russian invasion of Germany through Czechoslovakia. Our daily routine
consisted of endless battle simulations and maneuver operations. Weekends,
Joan and I toured the countryside, hung out at the officers club and enjoyed
the company of friends.
 Change being the only constant in military service,
in just over two years, I received orders back to the U.S. to join a newly
formed air defense unit at Fort Bliss, Texas. Nicknamed “Dusters,” our
weapons were 1940s era 40mm guns mounted on open tanks. Originally designed
to shoot strafing airplanes in WWII and Korea, the Duster’s new role
in Vietnam would be perimeter defense, convoy support and sometimes, if absolutely
necessary, direct-fire cannons on the skirmish line. Highly mobile and
with a crew of six, Dusters were equipped with twin 40mm cannons that fired
120 self-detonating rounds per minute to a range of 10,000 meters. This
was a real close-infantry support weapon, and we trained not in conventional,
European theater tactics, but for guerilla warfare in jungle terrain, and for
the first time, I saw myself eventually assigned to fight in Vietnam. Our
Duster unit was formed, equipped and ready, and then, don’t ask me why,
but in its infinite wisdom, the army decommissioned the battalion two months
before deployment.
Joan and I knew I would have to serve a tour in Vietnam
before I left the army, so we talked about it and decided then was a good time
to get it over with. I
wasn’t getting any younger and didn’t care to put off the inevitable
any longer, so we talked the whole thing out, and I requested a transfer.
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