Sixtydriver
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High School to Flight School: When I joined the Army, I signed a WOFT (Warrant Officer Flight Training) contract which was euphemistically called “High School to Flight School” or as it’s also known as today “Street to Seat”. I don’t know the exact proportion but the majority of WOCs (Warrant Officer Candidates) are prior service meaning, they have been in the military for 4 or more years. The majority of these guys are Army from all branches, with a smattering of ex-Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps types mixed in. The selection process for all WOFT candidates starts with a trip to the recruiter’s office. When I walked in off the street, I was a sporting a cool 80’s style mullet. It’s a wonder the recruiter didn’t laugh at me when I announced that I wanted to be an aviator. The process for WOFT selection begins with taking the ASVAB, a minimum GT of 110 is required. Naturally it took about a month (seems like every step took about a month) for the official results to be released. Next came an induction physical, one month later I was told I passed. I was then flown to Fort Leonard Wood of all places, for a Class 1 flight physical, one month later I was taking the AFAST, a test given to all aspiring aviators. Next was a formal sit down interview with a board of 3 officers, one of which was an aviator (who tried to talk me out of flight school). This board was responsible for grading me as a potential officer, mannerisms, speech, and so forth were graded. Finally, and along with a 1 page black ink hand written on unlined paper letter on why I wanted to be an aviator my packet was sent to the selection board. One month later I received my letter announcing that I slipped through the cracks and was going to flight training! It was another 4 months before I shipped out for step 1, basic training. Warrant Officers attend basic with and just like the enlisted folks. Fort Jackson, here I come.
Photo: Alpha Company “Active” Street. This is essentially WOCS, we lived in the old WW2 barracks, the smell of coal and mothballs will always remind me of my old barracks. We actually had coal fired furnaces!  Golden Warriors, First to Fight, Last to Fall: The day finally came where our class was assigned to the “active street” meaning, we would be moving to a barracks on the Alpha Co street versus the snowbird barracks we had been in. We were Gold class, and adopted First to Fight, Last to Fall as our class motto. To this point all we heard about was “start day”. Start day was something to dread. Before I go further I have to explain the training cadre for WOCS, known as TAC’s. A TAC is a Warrant Officer, most of them are CW3 or higher, some are pilots, some are not. All of them were means SOB’s. TAC’s wore black ball caps, black T-Shirts and BDU pants. Many of them were master fitness trainers and could and often did, PT a class to death. My class TAC was a marathon runner and we definitely went on some Nazi death runs. A TAC officer was FEARED! We were required to give them (or any other officer) the greeting of day and salute, no matter how far away they were. It was not unusual to salute officers more than ¼ miles away. There was a catch, you only gave the greeting of the day (Sir, Candidate Lint, Good Morning Sir!) to a TAC ONCE per greeting period, from 0001 hours to 1200 it was morning, from 1200 to 1800 hours it was afternoon, and from 1800 to 2400 it was evening. If you gave the greeting of the day to the same officer more than one, you got smoked and I mean smoked! Now something nobody bothered to tell us was that our “new” barracks was temporary. The first 3 days of WOCS were spent in processing, classes on protocol and so forth. We were required to double time at all times, you didn’t see WOC’s walking to class (about a mile away) or walking to the PX (only allowed to buy shoe polish and so forth). After the 3rd day we experienced “move day”, we were moving across the street to our final A Co barracks for the “official” start of WOCS. There must have been 20 TAC’s in the AO on move day, we were required to move all of our junk, double time, and render greetings and salutes. In other words, you had many trips to make “out there” where the TAC’s circled like hungry sharks, ready to deal out a smoking to any WOC for the slightest breach of protocol (which was of course unique to WOCS). When we were dropped for pushups, whatever we had in our hands we had to put on our back while we pushed up countryside. It’s not easy knocking out 20 with a duffle bag balanced on your back. 3 or 4 hours later, the very exhausted Golden Warriors were finally settling in to their new home. 2 days later, start day arrived. It was about 0200 hours when the light came on and the TAC’s entered our barracks yelling “toe TAC alley!”. TAC alley was the middle of the barracks, it was painted white with silver edges and all of the Warrant Officer rank bars and Aviator Wings (giant sized) painted on. It was highly highly shined, and we were NEVER allowed to walk on it. Toe TAC alley means you fall in, with your toes just a millimeter from touching the edge of TAC alley. We were instructed to remove all jewelry and dog tags and to be in formation, in the company street in BDU’s, Kevlar, LBE and weapon. Oh yeah, we were told we had 2 minutes! It was assholes and elbows getting all that stuff on and a mad dash out the door. The first thing each WOC noticed coming out the door was that there must have been 100 TAC officers out there! I didn’t even get down the barracks steps before I screwed up the greeting of the day was told to assume the front leaning rest position, in the ditch, which had been sandbagged and filled with water. It took us about 2 hours to get our formation made up in the street, everyone was getting smoked. We were marched out to the PT field where the real fun started. The gauntlet, grass drills, gorilla drills and drinking of much water commenced. We were told to drink 1 quart every 15 minutes. Soon, the grass drills group was puking up water and rolling around in it. We rotated through these drills until revile (0700) where we stood up, presented arms and saluted the unseen flag 2 miles away at HQ as it was hoisted up the flag pole. The Nazi death run commenced next, where we ran and ran and ran and then back to the company area for more grass drills etc. Along the way a couple of folks dropped out, one quit and one admitted to trying pot once. These guys were done with WOCS, and would be going back to whatever it was they did before they arrived. Bummer. (To Be continued!)   
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