Bill Curwick was born in 1950, the eldest of Winifred and James Curwick’s five children. He graduated from Marshall High School in 1968 and enrolled in Southwest Minnesota State College.

“I figured I’d get a two-year Drafting degree at Southwest and then attend the University of Minnesota for Architecture.”

Bill described anti-war rallies on-campus and in town.

“They held rallies at the college. Mostly it was speakers objecting to the war effort. A group came down Main Street one day and blocked traffic for a while. I began thinking, ‘Why protest something I don’t understand?’ I didn’t think I’d join the Army for that, but (Bill chuckled) that’s what I ended up doing.”

Bill recalled another reason for leaving college.

“I attended one year, living with my parents because it was less expensive than the dorms. I developed the bad habit of getting up; going to classes; and by 9 or 10 a.m. knowing where the parties were. I attended more parties than classes. After a couple weeks of heavy drinking, I thought, ‘At this rate, I’m going to get drafted and sent to Vietnam. I might as well join the Army and have some choice.’

Bill encountered a friend in the same situation.

“I ran into Augie, who was experiencing the same thing. We walked downtown to the Army recruiter. He was surprised because nobody wanted to join the Army at that time, but he signed us up.”

Bill recalled his parents’ reaction to his Army enlistment.

“It was the same as my college counselor, ‘Are you nuts?’ (Bill laughed) That’s exactly what they said! I thought my dad would be happy about it, but he wasn’t.”

Bill traveled to Minneapolis for a physical, aptitude tests, and Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) selection.

“I could have my choice within reason. I asked about the combat engineer MOS. He said, ‘You don’t want that. If you get that, you are going to go to Vietnam. I asked, ‘Explosives?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Sign me up!’ (Bill laughed) So, I got 12B, which is Combat Engineer.”

Bill’s delayed entry kicked in that summer.

“I joined on 25 February ’70 and went to Basic Training on 16 June ’70. They flew us to Washington and then to Raleigh, North Carolina. A bus took us to Fort Bragg.”

He described their training company area.

“The barracks were two-story, WWII-type, wooden structures. My company had three barracks for the three platoons. There was a street between the rows of barracks for formations. Across the street was the Mess Hall and next to it was a PT (Physical Training) area of overhead rungs you had to swing through (before meals).”

Bill described his Basic Training routine.

“They woke us about 4:30 for PT while it was still cool. After PT we’d go to breakfast and then more PT. The day included classes followed by PT at the end of the day. They soon realized we didn’t need all that PT, but we needed to maintain our fitness to pass PT tests half-way through and at the end. We spent a lot of classroom time. I think that helped because many of us went to Vietnam.”

One Basic Training personality stood out.

“We had one Drill Instructor (DI) who took a dislike to me. He had a scar across his face and was a Vietnam veteran. He looked mean and sounded mean. I thought he was funny, (Bill laughed) so he came after me. When we did pugil stick he was my opponent.”

Bill explained pugil stick training.

“A pugil stick is a 6-foot wooden bar. Both ends are wrapped with covered cotton. It is supposed to represent your rifle, so you learn to thrust, parry, and block if you get into hand-to-hand combat. He got into this with me and I pounded him to the ground (Bill laughed) as the company cheered me on. When the Senior DI came to see what was happening, he said, ‘You don’t need this exercise any longer. (Bill laughed) Next person come out.'”

Bill graduated Basic and went to Advanced Individual Training (AIT) as a Combat Engineer at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Bill was unimpressed with the training barracks.

“The barracks were vintage. (Bill chuckled) The wood was so dried out there were gaps of almost an inch between boards. We suffered through the heat. Our air conditioning was the wind blowing through the cracks in the walls.”

Bill found Combat Engineer training interesting.

“I remember building a pontoon bridge, a steel girder bridge, a rope bridge, and doing a zip line from atop this cliff down to drop into a river. The next week we’d be on a Huey flying over a lake and they wanted you to know how to enter that water at speed. That lake drop was hairy because you had to hold your weapon; remove your boots; tie them together; and sling them around your neck. Then you removed your trousers; tied the ankles together; and captured air in them as a flotation device. They had to send divers a couple times to drag someone off the bottom.”

Demolition training intrigued him.

“We learned everything they could teach about dynamite; TNT, which is more stable than dynamite; and plastic explosives.”

Bill completed the 8-week Combat Engineer course and a shorter, pre-Vietnam deployment course.

“We spent time learning a little of the language and what we might expect. We went to classes during the day; bars at night; and classes the next day. When that was up I had one weeks’ leave and then headed to Vietnam.”

©2025 William D. Palmer.