November 18, 1976 - September, 1977

This is Rourke.

(Who the hell is Rourke?)

This is my bunkmate, Pat McMullin.

(Basic Training in Fort Ord, California, late 1976)

This is Gomez.
He claimed to be a tough little latino, but tended to hang out with big white guys.

Case in point.

This gentleman introduced me to slap-boxing.
He gave me my nickname
- "Bass" -
as in the guitar, not the fish.
But it's hard to hold a nickname like that when your last name is "Scott."

This is McGuffy.
He had the same camera I was using -- 110 "Instamatic"

What I remember most about the Army was Basic Training.
It is very relaxing not to have to think.
The Army teaches you to stop thinking, and it doesn't take long at all.

In our free time we studied technical journals.

Once I passed basic training I ended up in "Advanced Individual Training" with a much more sophisticated crowd.

We made new friends. This young lady was working her way through school.

And here again is Rourke.
He got an early promotion out of Basic Training and he told me I was the only person in the entire Company to have congratulated him. We became something like friends. Together with others, we joined an Army sponsored parachute club and jumped out of an airplane 3,000 feet above the ground.

I would not have been able to do that without the Basic Training that the Army gave me.