The Brown Shoe Army

In 1959 Ray Smith joined the 340th Engineers unaware that he might be expected to fight on a nuclear battlefield. After an eventful Basic Training Ray was ordered to a Fort Gordon Georgia unit named after the Reserve Forces Act (RFA #1). There 470 low-ranking enlisted men mostly college graduates were supervised by a first lieutenant a sergeant and a corporal who ran the mail room. All were unmotivated short-timers whose interests were comfort sleep and counting the days not unlike characters from previous generations-No Time for Sergeants Biloxi Blues or M*A*S*H-except that one day with a few weeks remaining in their enlistment the RFA #1 boys were told that they were to become Pentomic warriors modeled after the 101st Airborne Division.