Becoming a Journalist - Defense Information School - DINFOS

The Watergate hearings took place the summer of 1973, I was ten going on eleven-years-old.

While the whole fiasco was pay-back for something called "The Pentagon Papers" the actual break-in was initially reported in October '72 by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.

Sometimes art imitates life, at least that is the way television writers get ideas about integrating the newsroom as a workplace and beginning with where Mary Tyler More worked which morphed into Lou Grant (1977) which was my favorite show all through high school.

I loved the idea that journalists could hold powerful people to account for their actions.

So in my sophomore year of high school I took the journalism class and worked on The Norse Notes, our school newspaper, until I graduated in '81.

 

Half way through my senior year (Nov '80) is when I decided I would join the army. I only did so because they promised me I could go to Journalism School.   It was hard to get the school, you had to qualify by submitting writing samples, taking a couple of additional tests and pass an interview.   But when all was said and done I knew what I was going to be doing after I graduated, I was going to be an Army Journalist.

Basic training was an 'excellent adventure'; I would do it again today if I could.  

I got my first taste of being a leader as I was made squad leader right out of the gate and held the position all through the course.

3rd Platoon

Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 3rd Training Brigade

Fort Leonard Wood, MO

I turned 18 in basic training, had my first 'legal' beers, got to shoot the M16 (a lot), acted like the gas chamber was nothing, and when Drill Sergeant Barber said "smoke 'em if you got 'em" I did just that. For the record, I fired the M203 Grenade Launcher two years before Al Pacino introduced it as his 'little friend', I still don't know how that shot I the movie didn't blow him on his ass too.

Fort Leonard Wood is where the army trains engineers. Some are big machinery operators, some engineers blow stuff up, some are carpenters, plumbers, you get the idea; they are either building something up or knocking it down.

About half-way through basic training my drill sergeant found out I was going to be a Journalist and he was taken a little aback. Ninety-nine percent of the soldiers in his platoon had enlisted with blue-collar type jobs but here I was a lonely standout going to be a writer and photographer. When he heard that he called all the other drill sergeants over who took turns laughing and kidding about this anomaly they found in their ranks. Even the all-female first platoon was made up of mostly those who were going to be backhoe operators, mechanics and alike.

While they kidded and teased me I got a sense that they actually respected it as they knew I had to jump through more-than-normal hoops to enlist. Army Journalists are rare, most who server never meets one.

When I graduated basic training my travel orders to where my journalism training would take place hadn't been issued yet because the next class wasn't going to start for six weeks. So, I was held-over at Fort Leonard Wood and temporarily promoted to the position of "Drill Corporal". It wasn't a big deal, I lead P.T., marched troops to the chow hall, cleared weapons on the firing line, etc. While the job as something to give me something to do while I waited for my school date to start it did give me my first Letter of Commendation for doing the job so well.

 

Anyway, time passed and soon I was off, on my way to Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN. Home of the Army Support Center and the second largest building the US Government owned, the Army Pay Center.

There was a new-found freedom attending the Defense Information School. While we still have the military rituals of morning P.T. and making sure the barracks were clean the atmosphere was more academic than militant. We were issued books, we didn't march to school and as long as we kept up with our school work we were on our own.

When I hear Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen", the number one song on the radio while I was there, a lot of memories rush back.

We didn't wear the OD Green uniform the rest of the army wore. We were expected to be in what was called "Class B" which was the dress uniform without the coat. We were also issued special name tags to wear which I thought was awesome.

 

OK - I'm eighteen years old, I had gone from a necessarily strict household with eight kids, directly into basic training only to find myself now a comparatively loosely structured environment with money in my pocket and girls everywhere.

Being a "Department of Defense" there were individuals from all branches. My instructor was a Navy Master Chief and my two roommates were Air Force.

The schools is what you think, we learned the proper structure for a newspaper article, how to write radio and television scripts that would fill specific time slots, the basics of photography and running a television camera, all that stuff. But those were just the basics, most of the course was "Public Affairs". 

We learned how to write press releases and how to put a positive spin on information intended for public consumption, to always find the silver lining.

I also learned the job wasn't really that of a journalist. Most of the people who write for Stars and Strips or work at the Pentagon Public Affairs Office were civilian. As a low-ranking army soldier my job would most likely be taking Girl Scouts on a tour of whatever base I would be stationed at or writing press releases to be sent to civilian newspapers.

The idea of being a "crack journalist" reporting on government waste or writing about solving crime is not what a military journalist was going to be doing.

As we were in the middle of the 'television' portion of our training I was called into the school commander's office and nicely told that I would not make a good Public Affairs Specialists. In all honestly, I was still eighteen years old and still had a lot of growing-up to do. They handed me orders to report to Fort Gordon, GA and being training to be a Multi-Channel Communications Equipment Operator.

I had failed the course.
 

In hind sight it was a good thing for me, I went into a field that I found challenging and exciting and learned some skills that I would use later in life.

It was early December 1981. Lou Grant was just a TV show.

 

 

 

Drill Corporate Promotion:

 

 

 

Drill Corporal Letter of Commendation: