Major Conflict by Maj USA (ret.) Jeffrey McGowan

learning that there was a big difference between rhetoric and reality, and that life, and life in the army especially, is serious business indeed.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Coins and Butter Bars
    The accident notwithstanding, my experience at Advanced Camp was overall a good one. I’d gone down to North Carolina thinking it would be a piece of cake and discovered it was pretty challenging. I ended up being evaluated as a three out of that possible five. Not bad, but no Eisenhower. I was disappointed, felt I could’ve gotten a four had I gone in a little more focused, and I caught hell from the cadre when I returned to school. But after a few ass-chewings they let the matter go. And for senior year, I was promoted to commander of the entire corps of cadets.
    By the time I officially started my senior year at Fordham, I’d already made up my mind that I wanted to serve in the infantry and go into the Eighty-second Airborne. I let the detachment commander know and asked him to do what he could for me. I even wrote a letter to the battalion saying that I wanted to serve with Second Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR). It turned out that I would actually serve with them a few years later, though in a different capacity. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. I felt pretty confident I was going to get what I wanted. But the army was short artillery men in the late eighties, so I ended up being assigned there. I was disappointed at first but then less so once I’d learned a bit more about the artillery. I was to report to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, two weeks after graduation.
    I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and my grandmother was thrilled. For years afterward she bragged to everyone just how proud she was on my commencement day at Fordham and how much it would’ve meant to my grandfather had he been alive to see it. I was glad to make her proud.
    I was commissioned a few days after commencement in a ceremony that was subdued compared to the large graduation ceremony at Fordham. The detachment commander put us in formation and called each one of us up to pin the “butter bar,” the bar for second lieutenant, on our shoulders. After a few perfunctory remarks the formation was dismissed. Then, as the time-honored tradition dictates, each newly minted second lieutenant took his first salute, bearing a coin that tradition also dictates he give to the officer from whom he’s chosen to receive this first salute.
    The tradition of giving coins in the military is a fairly old one. It’s a form of reward and recognition that commanders at all levels use in place of medals. The coins are larger than regular currency, more like medallions, usually one and a half to two inches in diameter. Every unit has one that is unique to it, bearing the insignia or arms of the unit or some other symbol, like airborne wings or unit patches on either side. They’re used to encourage esprit de corps. For example, every member of a unit will be given one on the condition that they bear it all times as a symbol of pride and belonging. Sometimes they hold more practical value; for instance, a general will award one that, when presented to a commander, guarantees a three-day pass or some other incentive. Soldiers tend to collect them over the lifetime of their career.
    For those of us who trained under SMG Robert Carpenter, it was a no-brainer which officer we’d take our first salute from and present our coin to. And so we all lined up and stood patiently as, one by one, we filed by our mentor and hero, and he saluted and graciously received our coins of gratitude.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Steel on Target
    I was a soldier at last! And off to strange and distant lands! Well, Oklahoma, at least. Some people say New Yorkers are the most provincial people on earth, after Parisians, and I guess I was no exception. Like most New Yorkers, I tended to believe that the city of my birth was the center of the