Dear Editor:

I pass along this true story about Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Green Berets.

In 1966 two friends of mine from ROTC college and I finished in the top 5 out of 110 in basic officer training in Ordnance at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The Commanding Officer of the school said we could pick any career assignment we wanted and sent us to Human Resources to pick an assignment. We encountered an HR Master Sergeant there and told him we wanted to become Airborne Rangers. Unlike Infantry or Armor, Ordnance was not a combat arm in the Army. So after the Sergeant stopped laughing, he told us the allocation for Ordnance officers for Jump School at Ft. Benning was one per month and you had to be assigned to a combat unit to get in and switch your branch from Ordnance to Infantry. He said if we wanted something exciting, we could go to nuclear training and get certified as nuclear weapons storage officers.

We went to conventional ammunition storage school at Redstone Arsenal from which I was assigned to an Ammunition Storage Company as a Motor Officer, running a motor pool.

True.

Seth Morton

Boothbay Harbor