An Officer and a Gentleman

Fifty-four years ago today, the Congress of the United States of America declared Edward B. Dufton and more than a thousand other ROTC graduates “an officer and a gentleman”. It was not like the eponymous Richard Gere movie. The strains of “Up Where We Belong” did not swell as we scooped Debra Winger in our arms and swept her away from her dismal factory job. The Navy gets all the good stuff.

We were crammed inside a (non-air conditioned, of course) Quonset Hut normally used as a helicopter maintenance building. We could literally see the waves of heat shimmering from the metal ceiling. None other than General William Westmoreland, formerly commender of all forces in Vietnam, gave the keynote address. “Westy” must have been impervious to heat. The man did not sweat a drop. He was every inch a soldier, ramrod straight, perfect uniform.

Logically, 22 year old college graduates many of us with orders in hand for Vietnam, might be a “tough crowd” for the guy whose orders led to the deaths of about 50,000 (at that point) guys just like us. Woodstock was a couple of weeks away. Rebellion was in the air.

“Westy’s” speech was perfect — “Duty, Honor, Country”, in that order. We have been trained. We will be given the tools we need. Now was our time to do our duty, to uphold our honor, and, when our service is complete, change the country. I would have followed “Westy” anywhere.

Fifty-four years mellowed memories of ROTC Summer Camp. My platoon, 3A3, adopted the motto, “Cooperate and Graduate”. Those of us who were good at cleaning rifles cleaned them for everyone. Those who were good at “spit shining” boots did that for everyone. My talent, thanks to years of swimming, was the “low crawl” portion of the Personal Combat Proficiency Test. I would start at the “back of the pack” and push guys forward so that we all finished within allowable time. We were all the same — same uniforms, same bad haircuts, same lousy pay. No one had a nicer car, a better job, or a fancy house.

One memory that will not mellow was the Confidence Course followed by the Gas Chamber. The Confidence Course required low-crawling uphill and under barbed wire while live machine gun rounds ripped over your head. By the time 3A3 got to the course, rain had washed away the dirt and we were crawling on gravel. It literally wore holes in our uniforms. Our knees and our elbows were bleeding. We then proceeded to the Gas Chamber where we had to take off our gas masks and recite General Orders until we got decent eyefuls and lungfuls of CS gas. CS gas really did a job on our bloody knees and elbows as well.

Richard Gere didn’t have to put up with any of that to become “an officer and a gentleman”. Damn Navy.

By Ed Dufton