First Team Academy

The First Team Academy is where the First Cavalry Division sent recruits who had just arrived from the United States.  A busload of us  spent a week there training in the hot sun as a way to get used to the climate.

I like it there for a lot of reasons.  I felt like I was finally moving forward rather than hanging around waiting to be assigned to a unit.  The conditions were better.  We received three good meals a day and slept on a bed that felt reasonably clean.  We learned a lot more about how to fight in the villages and jungles of Vietnam.  The highlight of the place however, was the repelling tower that you can see in the snapshot below.

Repelling was the art of leaping from a hovering helicopter to the ground below by sliding down a rope using a D-Ring as a brake.  Instructors told us that we may have to repel from a helicopter if the pilot could not set down on the jungle floor for some reason.

To practice, they had us repel from the platform you can see at the top, down forty feet to the ground below.  We first learned how to belt ourselves into a body harness then connect a rope to the harness with a D-Ring.  To ensure that the training would be a hair-raising experience, instructors forced us to jump of the end of the platform with enough slack in the rope to free-fall about ten feet before being jerked to a stop.  Then we lowered ourselves to the ground using the D-Ring.

Throwing yourself of the platform rather than crawling over the edge was meant to be part confidence building, part sadistic.  The fear I felt before the leap quickly changed to a feeling of pride as I lowered myself to the ground.

Time went by quickly at First Team Academy because they kept us busy.  Much too soon, we received our orders for the next leg of our tour of Vietnam.