that I will bet that I have seen more of your husbands most private parts than you have!!! We finished our stay at Blanding with the 30 mile speed march with full field equipment and everyone passed with record setting times.

The big day for all of us was the move to Ft. Benning and jump school. This was what it was all about — the mystique of the wings and the jump boots. When we were issued our jump boots it was spit and polish over and over again. We were excused from "A" stage (the physical training week) because we had been given our PT during basic. This rankled some of the parachute cadre who were pretty proud of [their own] PT ability.

However, we proved to them that we were in good shape one afternoon during rigger training in one of the hangers. The troops were a little restless and the instructors decided to run us around Lawson field as punishment. About three quarters of the way, the instructors began to tire and called out "quick time, quick time" but we all just kept running and when we reached the hangers we came to a stop and waited. The instructors came straggling in, got us back in the hangers, and nothing more was said. We finally made our five qualifying jumps and there it was we were paratroopers. Incidentally, Lt. Fleming, our PT nemisis [sic], made his first jump at Ft. Benning and they say that the x-ray of his leg looked like shredded wheat!!! So much for PT...

Camp Mackall—March - December 1943.

It was on to Camp Mackall, North Carolina. A desolate spot between Pinehurst and Rockingham. Here we got more lessons in "beautification of the area." our mission was to conduct advanced individual training and that we did. Training was the name of the game from early morning till late at night. You were either training or on sick call. We were introduced to night training and spent lots of time stumbling around those scrub pine trees in the area. We also had some day and night jumps into those pine woods. No plowed drop zones for us. It was also getting hot and those of you who were there remember all those watermelons from the farmers fields that we "put away."  It seems like we were always taking up a collection to pacify those irate farmers. Up until this time, all of our training was within the 508. We got our chance to compete against the "leg soldiers" in the Tennessee maneuvers in September 1943. We found out that, by gosh, we were not only in superior physical shape, but we were well trained. We had a night jump which the Air Force loused up (shades of things to come). The 1st Bn was scattered along a 15 mile area along the river. Scattered or not, we were able to put about four signal battalions out of action. Imagine a 15 mile line of people about 100 yards apart taking a bundle of wire, tactical administrative and umpire and hacking it into 100 yard segments... What fun ..

In the critique afterward, I was sitting with Lt. Col. Harrison our Bn C.O. when a signal Bn C.O. sat next to us, looked at our parachute insignia and got up and moved to another area. We really found out in Tennessee that we were better trained and in superior physical training than our contemporaries.