Article October 2, 2000 Issue

SINGING

Warren Bolon

It was barely dawn on a winter morning at Fort Polk, Louisiana, known among draftees at that time as "Little Vietnam." We were in the early days of army basic training, and it was the morning of a long forced march in full field gear. I was to learn one reason they call it boot camp.

Early in the march, blisters developed on my feet. Pain was a big challenge. So was fatigue. Guys were dropping out from exhaustion. I was probably cursing my still fairly new boots. I wish I could say I prayed deeply, but thoughts of any kind were hard to come by. All I could do was sing.

So while the trainees around me were counting cadence or singing "I wanna be an airborne Ranger ..." I sang, in cadence, a hymn I'd learned as a little child. It was a way of reaching out to an infinite power that, instinctively, I knew was right there with me, with all of us.

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