Oral History Interview with Uell M. Carter and George Killian, September 19, 1970 Page: 6
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Carter/Killian
6
were supposed to be 105 men, and so many "non-corns," and so
many officers, and so on. Well, they gave us thirteen weeks at
that time of basic physical conditioning. To start off with
we'd march a mile one day, and a mile and a half the next, and
get to the point where you can put in 20 miles. Although
people in the field artillery, we couldn't understand the damn
road marches. (Laughter) It didn't enter our minds that we
could be marching following these guns. We thoughtwe was
going to ride, you know. But anyway, they did let us do this
walking for physical conditioning. And, of course, you went
through all the basics of Army training--rife drill,
calisthenics, which was an extension to the physical training,
and then the various schools. They had the mechanics schools
and gun schools. And since we were in the field artillery, we
had an intense amount of drill with the field pieces. You'd
go through dry runs of simulated fire, and you'd practice
cleaning the guns, and taking them apart, and putting them back
together. What they were trying to do was to familiarize you
with what you were going to do if there was an actual combat
condition. And basically that's the goal of any branch of the
armed service. The soldiers are trained to do a particular job,
do that job in combat. They don't worry too much about what's
going on, they don't have . . . in other words, they just
mechanically do the job that they were trained to do. And
there's lots of discipline.
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Marcello, Ronald E.; Carter, Uell M. & Killian, George. Oral History Interview with Uell M. Carter and George Killian, September 19, 1970, book, September 19, 1970; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth223601/m1/7/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Oral History Program.