OBSTACLE COURSE
I was one of many draftees in the early days of World War II who was assigned to a basic training program which was planned to create Medics specifically for infantry units. We were sent a former WWI camp where barracks from that training period were still in use.
A new obstacle course was built by Quartermaster Corp workmen who had a strange sense of humor, in the construction thereof. It was booby-trapped to make life even more rigorous for the incoming infantry medics who were supposed to be transformed into a new bred of tough, endurance-oriented corpmen to support fast-moving infantry units.
Existing obstacle courses to be used in their training were considered too easy. On the overhead series of ladders above a deep swampy creek the pipes which firmed the rungs were not only spaced at varied distances instead of at rhythmic distances. That was innovation enough, but the real trick was to leave at least two of them loose in their sockets so they would roll instead of hold firm. I discovered them the hard way and waded ashore after the second one.
Once I knew the were there, I changed my grip and had no more trouble.
We did our thirteen weeks of hikes and swamp camping routines. We were put though what I found out later was more rigorous than usual training. There was an entire battalion of us, too - not a small company. At the end of the full thirteen weeks of intensive training, someone discovered there was no need - much less demand - for such medics. The entire battalion was transferred summarily into the United States Army Air Corps.
Even today, people cannot understand how or why I entered the army as “Infantry” and came out as “Air Force.”
Why would I bring all this up today? I do so because in life and living today we come across some situations which make us wonder if anyone knows, for sure, what might be going on about us.
Do you every wonder why our schools continue to teach young people to fill jobs which no longer exist? Why do we build cars designed to do hundreds of miles per hour with no highways on which they could might be run? Or, why do we judge movies by the amount of dollars spent to see them rather than the number of people who do so? Oh, there are hosts of things we do every day which (Quote) “do not make good sense.”(Unquote)
We build and maintain some very tough obstacle courses for each other in things we do or fail to do.
A.L.M. January 14, 2004 [c-451wds]
