Chapter 16
(My junior year at Auburn University, September 1967 thru May 1968)
In
late September 1967 it was a tremendous joy to drive
my little Falcon back to Auburn from Vernon and move back into my room in Mrs. Taylor’s
house after being in the professor’s basement during the summer term. The Mars’
house and Mrs. Taylor’s house each seemed like my own home and the peoples in
those houses seemed like my own family. How blessed I was. I started working
in the cafeteria as soon as it opened at the start of class registration for
the autumn quarter. I registered for my classes and launched seriously into my
studies, keeping foremost in mind that I had to pass my courses to get a
university degree. I was on that campus
to study.
Back
in August when my doctor in Montgomery told me I had worn the back brace long
enough, he dismissed me from his care. He gave me a quite promising outlook of
my back’s condition. The crushed vertebra had healed well. It would always be
about 75% of its normal height. (That is the size to which it
was compressed.) Its strength and agility would be
decreased slightly. But the doctor hinted that
military doctors would possibly declare me to be fully physically qualified for
all military duty. I prayed that would be so.
Regarding
the present condition of my injured back, the Navy ROTC unit on campus
scheduled me for a thorough physical exam by Navy doctors at
the Naval Hospital at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Florida. Likely that
was around late October. I had to drive my little Falcon there with no pay from
the Navy for travel expense. I think I lodged free in military housing on base
at Pensacola (1 or 2 nights) (missing 2 days or so of classes at Auburn) and
paid for my meals I ate on base at Pensacola. The doctors x-rayed my back,
studied those x-rays closely, had me twist and turn at the waist; touch my toes
without bending my knees and such. Their
conclusion was that I was fully
physically fit for military duty. That was a tremendous relief to hear, as this had constantly hung heavily in doubt in my mind ever since the
accident!
Thank
Thee, my Lord, for healing me.
From high school graduation day (at the end of May 1964) till
classes started at Auburn this fall term in late September 1967 (a period of
more than 3 years and 3 months), I had experienced a good measure of adversity and
delays in staying out of college 2 fall terms to earn money for college
and then the life-threatening traffic accident that now clouded with doubt the
possibility of me being physically able to become a Marine officer and pilot. It
had been plenty rough, turbulent sailing on life’s seas since high school
graduation. Thank God for sustaining me thru it all!
I didn’t know it at this time (September 1967), but such rough
sailing was past and the remainder of my college days turned out to be smooth
sailing (regarding such matters I just mentioned). There were
no more interruptions that kept me out of school. Thank
Thee, Sweet Lord Jesus!
Also
from this time on, my finances were greatly improved. If
you have never experienced periods of extreme poverty, likely you cannot
fully perceive of and appreciate the severe strain that poverty brings into
one’s life. I thank God for bringing me to the plateau where I live to
daily proclaim to all the souls I can, the eternal riches that are in Christ
Jesus and to also do everything God leads me to do to help
alleviate earthly poverty and suffering of other human souls.
When
classes reconvened at Auburn U. in late September, I was debt free, thank God. I still had a few hundred dollars
remaining from the $2300 settlement I got from the accident. My job at the
cafeteria paid a dollar or more a day above the bountiful 3
meals I ate each day for working.
Also, starting my junior year, the Navy ROTC now paid me monthly ($50
I think). There were “Regular” midshipmen there who got a full paid scholarship
(tuition and books) for all 4 years of study in the university, plus a $50
paycheck each month they were enrolled in school for 4
years. Then they received an officer’s “Regular” commission into the Navy or
Marines. I was not a “Regular”. I was a “Contract” midshipman. As such, I
received neither scholarship nor financial help from the Navy during my first 2
years at Auburn. During my last 2 years, I was paid
that $50 monthly during the time school was in session. When I graduated I would receive a “Reserve” officers’ commission
into the Marines. This ROTC pay enhanced my finances.
In
summary, I started this fall term debt free with some money in the bank and
receiving 2 (somewhat small) paychecks each month on
campus. But both paychecks each month were a
tremendous financial help. It was an immense relief to
now breathe easier financially, to be free of such thoughts as: ‘I’m
short of money again! What am I going to do?’
I
started maintaining a thicker layer of tire between the small body of air
inside my car tires and the larger body of air (the universe) outside of those 4 tires. I also bought car insurance. Until Mr. Mars turned
over his 1962 Falcon to me, I did not have any insurance at all on the 3 cars I had previously owned. Thank
Thee, Precious Lord Jesus, for keeping me safe on those thin tires with no car
insurance. Now, I maintain safer tires and insurance. Also, I could reasonably expect this little Falcon to last
me till I graduate from the university. I dreamed of then buying a new
car.
The
campus atmosphere of the autumn term was especially pleasant to me. Being
financially “sound” now added to my serenity. I threw myself heavily into Navy
ROTC activities because those earned merits that upped my standing in my class
of midshipmen. And such would stay on my military
record and might later make a difference in getting selected or rejected for
pilot training.
I
joined the Navy ROTC rifle team and the pistol team (separate teams). We fired
competition matches with ROTC units in other state universities in the South.
This fall, I played on the Navy intramural football team. I joined the Navy
choir and sang in it. The former Marine major who instructed us was transferred from Auburn. He had fought in Korea. Late
this summer, Major Cleveland came to Auburn to be our instructor. He had fought
in Viet Nam. He was a topnotch instructor and I strove to excel under him.
I
mentioned before how that I would be set back 1 year
in Navy ROTC. So, this year I am regarded as a junior for the 2nd time. My 4 Marine
classmates of last year are now seniors and we juniors have class together with
those four. Now there are 8 other fellow junior
classmate Marines along with me. (These eight guys are
each about a year younger than I.) I soon made friends with them all. Among
them was Mike ④, a good natured likeable guy. A few years later when he and I are both stationed at Cherry Point as A-6 pilots, he will
crash his A-6, killing him and his navigator.
Southern
Alabama autumn is sun-kissed with many warm pleasant days. I enjoy each day to
the fullest, now being much more carefree because of sound finances and being declared physically sound by the Navy doctor. I busy
myself keeping as active as possible in Navy ROTC activities.
Till I got the Falcon car from Mr. Mars, I usually walked to the
Baptist Student Union and rode with another student on Friday night missions. I
didn’t want other human souls riding with me in my
older and uninsured car. So I avoided riders as much
as I could (tho I did give a few other students rides to and from the Vernon
area, but only because they asked me for a ride). Now, I often took my
car to the BSU and often 2 or 3 Baptist students rode
with me to our destination for Friday night missions’ service. It was all so blessed.
At
the ladies’ cafeteria where I worked, as I talked of
going out to an isolated area beside a creek to practice rifle and pistol
marksmanship shooting on Saturday afternoons, Linda spoke up. “I want to go
shooting with you.” So she went with me on a sunny
warm Saturday afternoon. I don’t know if she had ever
shot a .22 caliber rifle or pistol. But she followed
my instructions and shot quite well with the pistol that fine Saturday
afternoon. We two had a good time together.
“Good
going, Pistol Coach! You pick your trainees well, do you not?!”
‘Thank
you! Actually she picked me!’
All
thru my 12 years of school in Vernon, I usually considered some girl my
sweetheart and we did a few various things together at school (like smile at
each other). I enjoyed choosing a partner for class plays, formals and such
events that required boy and girl to pair up. There were times when I walked my
sweetheart to her bus after school, carrying her books like
a chivalrous knight should do. But other than pairing
up for those events and such, I never actually dated. Poverty was one reason. I
never invited a girlfriend to come to our house. I was generally ashamed of our
living conditions (an outhouse and such). Also, likely
Dad and my stepmother would not have made a girl feel very welcome there. I was
around neighborhood girls some in various social settings, but constant farm
work limited that fun.
Anyway, at Auburn U. it was
a joy to date formally and informally. (Like when lovely, slender, petite, long
dark hair, soft-spoken Linda asked to go target shooting with me. I mean, how
could I be so rude and callous as to refuse her request?)
“Just
one big, kind, unselfish heart, aren’t you, college
boy?”
As I
made friends amongst girls at the dining hall and girls at the BSU, I just
naturally began to socialize with them and I enjoyed it much. Everyone
knows
that (at any age) a girl’s mental and social maturity exceeds a guy’s mental and social maturity by a zillion years, give or
take a few trillion years. So, now drawing close to 22
years of age, I am catching up somewhat to the maturity of the 18 to
19-year-old girls on campus. That sure helped!
(New
subject) Likely it was in October when I sat in court sessions a few days. At
the time of our traffic accident, that stretch of highway was under
construction. Our lawyer brought separate lawsuits against the highway
construction company on behalf of Justus, Sharon and me. Another lawyer brought
a lawsuit against that company on behalf of the dead driver’s “family”. (I don’t recall what family members that bachelor had.)
Why
was he driving on the wrong side of a highway with which he was most familiar? The
most reasonable assumption was that the highway under construction was not
marked well enough for him to discern where he was supposed to be driving. Our
lawyer got 3 or more local people to testify to that
effect. They each told our lawyer that at times they could not discern at all
where they were supposed to be driving, as lanes in use changed as construction
progressed and such. They each readily agreed to testify that they considered
the driving conditions there to be dangerous at that time. Our lawyer felt
quite sure he had an airtight case of negligent endangerment by the
construction company. But a couple of factors went
against us and we lost in court.
Of
the 4 cases, my case was tried first. I sat beside my
lawyer in the courtroom. He planned to call Justus and Sharon as witnesses, so
they could not be in the courtroom except when they testified. They and
Sharon’s parents had to sit in a small room in the courthouse, very bored.
Justus and I were both over 21 years old, but Sharon was still a minor. So her parents came there and paid for a motel room out of
their pockets for several nights.
My
trial lasted just 2 days or so. Our lawyer called local people as witnesses
(who drove on that highway under construction and considered it dangerous).
But after each witness took the stand, gave their names and such
basic information, our lawyer soon asked if they considered it dangerous to
drive on that highway in its condition. The defense lawyer instantly objected
saying they were not professionals and thus could not make that
judgment. I was surprised that the judge sustained that objection each time it was made.
I
also think the lawyer did his job poorly. I think he should have started by
asking each witness to tell the jury of his or her experience of driving on
that highway while it was under construction. “Many times I was greatly
confused.” “I could not discern exactly where I was supposed to be driving
because there were not temporary signs erected to show drivers where to drive.”
“I was much afraid driving on it for those reasons.” “As I was driving I often thought
‘This is dangerous’.” When the defense lawyer objected to that last statement, possibly he would be overruled. But he would find no grounds to object to those other
statements from the hearts of other drivers, speaking as a driver, not a
“safety expert”.
No doubt our lawyer asked a police officer if he thought there were hazardous driving conditions. But I don’t recall anything about that. I was the last witness my lawyer called. After he finished questioning me, the defense lawyer tried to make me look like a dumb know-nothing.
“Well,
college boy Richard…?”
‘Hush.’
After
my lawyer rested his case, the defense called the defendant (the highway
construction company’s “boss”). They asked him several questions. Among them:
“Was that highway dangerous.” Our lawyer objected. The judge overruled our
lawyer, saying this construction boss was a professional regarding such.
Thus he was allowed to tell the jury his opinion. “No
sir, at no time was there any thing or condition dangerous about driving on
that highway.” He boldly expounded such to the jury fairly
long. I think the judge acted improper regarding this.
After
my case ended, the jury deliberated just a brief time before returning a “Not
Guilty” verdict. My lawyer lost my case.
Next,
a different lawyer tried the case for the dead man’s family with a different
jury. Same verdict. “Not Guilty.” So
both lawyers decided to throw in the towel at that point. Our lawyer did not
try Justus and Sharon’s cases. We 3 spent several days at that courthouse when
we should have been in school studying.
Warm,
pleasant fall quarter ended about December 20. My Lord graciously gave me
numerous exceedingly joyful days this autumn term. Truly my
cup runneth over! This calendar year of 1967, I attend all of the
year’s four quarters at Auburn U. This was my only calendar year to do that.
I
drove to Daddy’s house for the joy of spending Christmas and New Years with
family and friends in the Vernon area, the third time to do so after moving out
of my father’s house.
The
first week in January 1968, I drive my little tan Falcon back to Grandmother
Taylor’s house in Auburn. This month I turn 22 years old. During the Winter
Quarter at Auburn, basketball was the intramural sport. So
I played on the Navy ROTC team. By God’s grace, I studied hard, played hard,
and worked hard at the enjoyable job in the girls’ dining hall. I’ll keep my comments on Winter Term that brief. I rejoiced
to be steadily progressing toward graduating from a university.
During
Spring Quarter, I played on the Navy ROTC intramural softball team. Thu out
this school year, I continued to participate in all the other Navy activities I
listed in the Fall Quarter. Almost all of the competition matches we fired on
the pistol team and on the rifle team were done by
mail. Our coach was the Marine Gunnery Sergeant who assisted Major Cleveland in
instructing us. Each time we competed by mail, he closely supervised our
shooting in the indoor range in the hanger on campus at Auburn. He then mailed
our scores to the team at another college against whom we were competing. Our
competitor mailed their scores to us. Sort of boring but it saved travel time
and money.
Normally,
once or twice a year, a competing team would travel to Auburn and we would
compete in person here in our hanger. Likewise our
team would go to another university once or twice a year to compete in person
there. This spring was the 1st time I
traveled to compete elsewhere.
An
old Air Force transport plane flew over to the Auburn airport from Maxwell ABF
near Montgomery, Alabama. Our shooting teams loaded our firearms and ourselves
onto it and flew to Oxford, Mississippi to compete with University of
Mississippi (Ol’ Miss). It was my 1st time ever
to fly in any kind of aircraft. (Quite a late start for a
redneck barefoot farm boy aspiring to become a pilot.) One or 2 days
later, we flew back to Auburn in that plane. The next 5 times I flew in an
airplane, I parachuted out of it while it was flying thru the sky. (We’ll get to that story later.)
For
this shooting match, we flew to Oxford, Mississippi Friday afternoon 5 April
1968, spent the night on campus, shot our rifle and pistol matches the next
morning and flew back to Auburn that afternoon (Saturday). I was able to
research that exact date because on the day before we flew to Oxford, Mr. King
was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee not far from Oxford, Mississippi. The
situation on Ol’ Miss campus was somewhat tense because of his murder.
In
mid or late May, our team drove to Atlanta, Georgia on a Friday afternoon and
competed in person with Georgia Tech’s Navy ROTC rifle and pistol teams. I didn’t drive my little Falcon. I forgot with whom I rode to
Atlanta. I rode back with Jerry (a “Marine” midshipman now 1 year ahead of me,
but my age). We talked firearms, competition shooting and such. We had much in
common and Jerry was a pleasant Marine to be around.
He was dating a girl who ate in “my” dining hall on campus. I knew her well. I
think they later married.
Each
year, the U.S. Navy received a set number of “slots” for Army Airborne training
at Ft. Benning, Georgia just over 30 miles from Auburn. It is typical to ask
for more slots than the Navy expects to use, just to be safe. In the summer,
Navy Headquarters would offer a few available slots to ROTC units. I asked to
go jump out of airplanes this summer. I was accepted.
I
participated in more ROTC events than any other midshipman
this year. At the end of this year, when our instructors evaluated us and rated
us from first to last in class standing, I was ranked Number One in the entire
junior class (Marines and Navy guys)
of about 40 midshipmen. I was elated, to say the least.
During
my freshman year, each quarter, I was last or next to
last in class standing. Now, it felt good to be rated at the very
top of my class this one time. I thank God for the victorious feeling I
have this academic year at Auburn U. Former days (of much apprehension and
doubt about making it thru college) are receding. I steadily become more and
more hopeful of actually gaining my college degree and a commission as a 2nd
Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. I am most thankful to my All-Powerful God
for bringing me along. To God be the Glory!