Translations:Chapter One Trey/69/en

Officer’s school had regular reviews: if you didn’t pass, you got booted. With each review, my dad saw his class get smaller and smaller. Even as he survived, he worried about the next review, particularly the push-ups, chin-ups, 100-yard chest crawl, and other physical tests. He entered the service as “more or less a weakling,” he wrote. “I sort of get the feeling of becoming a man instead of just a boy now. If I flunk out of here, I know I’ll never recover. If I make it I believe I’ll tackle everything in life more confidently and with more spirit. I’m sure it will make me. Besides the mental side of it I have never been in better shape physically.”