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Chapter 13: Gen Con
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Thirteen Gen Con \.Vtzr sucks. -message on helmet. I didn't have much time [0 think about the new class, concentrating on the map reading classes inside and the exercises outside. We all knew that map reading was one of the most important skiHs an Infantry officer needed. ~If you don't know where you are, you're not lost, man; you're dead," olle of the sergeants liked to say. Even the day of the new class, I didn't know what it was about. I asked a couple ofother people in my platoon if they knew, and nobody had any idea. Like Bednarn, many of them just let things happen. Bur it was important [0 know the day's training schedule beforehand, because it made a difference what we wore and what equipment we took. If all our classes were in Infantry Hall for the day, we could get by with wearing new boots and we could keep our canteens empty (and make the weight we car~ ried less). But if we were going on a map-reading exercise, we needed [0 have broken-in boots, a full canteen, and an extra pair of socks. Since the class on "Gen Con~ was in Infantry Hall, as were all of the classes that day, it didn't make much ofan impact. We jogged over as usual and spent the morning listening [0 some final lectures about map reading and orienteering, pretty standard stuff that we had spent days on already both in OCS and basic training. As I sat in that last lecture, I kept remembering an old joke that Granddad liked to tell after one of the many times he got lost wandering the countryside. H e had the habit of coming in late and telling how he'd been driving some back roads and lost his way. Then he'd tell the joke about the Yankee driving over the back roads of West Texas until he's hopelessly lost. Finally, he sees a house set back off the road, and he drives up to find an old man sitting on the porch. He leans out the window of his car and yells at the old man, "Say, old man, which way is north?~ The old man spits tobacco, looks out, and says, "Can't say." T he easterner then calls back, "Well, which way is south?" "Don't know," the old man says. "What about east?" the traveler yells. "You got me," the old man says. "Well, what about west?" the now-frustrated easterner yells. The old mall gives his usual reply of "Don'r know," at which the Yankee explodes, "Old man, you don't know nothing." And the old man says, "Yup, but I ain't lost." After lunch we jogged back to Infantry Hall for the new class. As I got to the classroom, J could read the sign for the class: "Geneva Convention" taught by "Captain Fosse." We did our usual march-in roU[ine and took our seats. The instructor, Cpt. Fosse, stood toward the back of the podium leaning against the wall. Fosse looked young for a captain or maybe just inexperienced wearing his officer green uniform with no ribbons except for a marksman badge-the lowest level of qualification. He was rail and round-shouldered and had a sly grin on his face. It puzzled me that he had no medals. Most of the captains who taught our classes had spent a tour in Vietnam and had several ribbons they displayed proudly. The officers with none were usually second lieutenants who hadn't yet gotten their orders to go over. Military classes had a recognizable sameness. All the instructors at Fort Benning had to take a three-week instructor training course, and they had to keep a written lesson plan in a plastic folder at the back of the room. Classes almost always began with a joke and then a two-pronged statement of purpose. The joke was to get the audience's attention, and the purpose statement told them first what they would learn and second what they would be able to do with what they learned at the end of the class. Some teachers were better joke-tellers than others, and it soon became d ear that Captain Fosse was one of the better ones. In faa, he didn't tell one joke but a series of jokes. He took a minme before he sauntered up to the...