“Stealing My College Degree Fair and Square”

When I talk to people about my time in the military one of the things that I am very proud of is the comment that I often make that “I stole my college degree fair and square”. So, what did I mean by this? You see I took advantage of everything that I could possibly do in the military to continue my education. You see I dropped out of college. I initially tried Virginia Military Institute in Lexington VA and after a very brief period of time I realized that that was not what I wanted to do educationally. From there I went to Virginia Polytechnic Institute, today known as Virginia Tech. I lasted two quarters there; we were on the old quarter system in those days.

My problem at Virginia Tech was that I was also an ROTC cadet there, a member of the corps of cadets. I enjoyed being a cadet, but I had a difficult time melding my cadet life with my academic studies. I was a good cadet, but a poor student! I can remember during freshman orientation that I sat in a large auditorium listening to the President of the University telling us to “look to the right and look to the left, two of you will not be here as a senior to graduate”.

I enrolled in Forestry and Wildlife Management as my major. I thought I was going to learn to work in the woods as a forest Ranger or perhaps an outdoor guide or something in that field of employment. I loved hiking, I loved camping, I loved the woods. As a kid I ran a trap line in Dayton Ohio. We would spend hours wandering around the creeks and the rivers in the Dayton area, and I thought that it would be the best job I could ever have in my life.

Unfortunately, when I got to college I found out that Forestry was basically an engineering program. The majority of my peers, upon graduation, ended up working for one of the big lumber companies in their laboratories. Very few of them actually spent any time in the woods doing what I thought I was being trained to do. As a result, I was taking chemistry, biology, organic chemistry, calculus, as well as standard college courses. Needless to say my math skills are ZERO! As a result, I knew that I either had to do something else or I was going to get kicked out of school. I was going to be one of those two people that would not be there to graduate as a senior.

In 1967 a young man in good health would quickly find himself in the US Army if he wasn’t in college or had some type of a draft deferment. I was now out of college, and I lost my deferment as a college student. I went to work for a short period of time and realized that sometime during that year I would be called up for the draft. The job that I held working in the print shop at RCA Government Service in Springfield, Virginia, actually qualified me for an industrial deferment since I was working on classified information for the Central Intelligence Agency and the US Navy.

But I never applied for the industrial deferment. I actually didn’t realize that I was eligible for a deferment until I had received my letter from the President of the United States and my fellow citizens ordering me to Richmond, Virginia for my pre-induction physical. By the time I realized that I might have been able to avoid the draft it was too late. I was classified 1-A, and I was sent home to get my affairs in order before being ordered to military service. There is a strong sense of patriotism in my family going all the way back to the Revolutionary War when my distant ancestors served as soldiers. My grandfather was a World War One veteran, my uncles and my father were World War II veterans, we have Civil War veterans and War of 1812 veterans in the family lineage. None of them had ever been drafted.

Rather than waiting for the draft I went ahead and enlisted. I had exceptionally high scores on my aptitude tests and was told that when I finished my basic and advanced training that I could apply for officer candidate school. My scores were high enough that I would be easily accepted. With that I decided that I should enlist as a combat infantryman. I figured if I was going to go to Vietnam, and I knew I would, I wanted to be prepared and knowledgeable in combat tactics. Regardless of the job that I held I figured that everybody needed that specific training.

In mid-April 1968 I reported to Fort Benning, Georgia and began my Infantry training there. During one of our early sessions in what was referred to as zero week, we were briefed on something called the Army Education System. The briefer told us all about the advantages of service-connected education. They explained that we actually could get college credit for things that we were doing in the Army. For example, someone who was in the ROTC program at the collegiate level would have received 15 semester hours for military science. Upon successful completion of our basic and advanced training the Education Office could arrange to have us qualify for those same hours. For those of my fellow basic trainees who were going on to a technical school, upon completion of basic training, they could be awarded college credit for the training that they received. We were also briefed on the GI bill, and they explained how to use this benefit to go to college once we left the service. They even indicated that we could go to the Education Office during our free time and earn college credits in many different ways.

The Education Officer explained that on many military installation’s colleges had schools that we could attend at night or during our off time. We could also take advantage of something called the College Level Education Program. We could sign up in the educational office to take a test of our knowledge of certain subjects. They would give us a study guide so that we could refresh ourselves on things like English or history or mathematics or sciences. If we were prepared and did well on those tests and scored a certain percentage, we could actually get up to three college credits for every CLEP test that we took.

Needless to say, while we were in our advanced training we really didn’t have much of an opportunity to take advantage of these educational opportunities. From my Advanced Infantry course I got sent straight to Fort Belvoir Virginia for Engineer Officer Candidate School. Again, this course did not offer us any free time to take advantage of the Educational Office’s offerings.

Upon graduation and commissioning I got sent to the Military Intelligence Officers Basic course at Fort Holabird, Maryland and there we had very little free time during the six weeks that I was there to even attempt to take any college courses. From there I was sent to Panama to the Jungle Warfare School and then from there straight to Vietnam.

When I arrived in Saigon once again we were briefed at Camp Alpha on some of the advantages that we had as far as continuing our education while we were in Vietnam. For a lot of men that meant getting their GED. Education was becoming increasingly important in the military. An enlisted man who did not have a high school diploma was encouraged to do so at literally every installation where they served. Many took advantage of the GED. For those with a high school diploma we were encouraged to take advantage of college educational programs while we were in Vietnam.

In my case I initially thought that was going to be very difficult. I was sent to a small three-man team in the Mekong delta when I arrived there. However, my commanding officer insisted that those of us that did not have a college degree do everything we could to continue our education while we were in Vietnam. He insisted that all of us should go to Saigon to the Education Office for three days each month and work on our college degrees. Both Lieutenant Colonels Terrell and Springman insisted that we continue our education.

Each month we were sent to Saigon and each month I would challenge CLEP tests and increase my educational resume. Both of my senior officers felt that when the Vietnam war ended any officer that didn’t have a college degree would probably face Reduction-in-Force (RIF) since the Army was insisting on a college educated officer corps.

I was fortunate. I worked with a wonderful woman as our Educational Officer in Saigon for the Military Assistance Command – Vietnam or MAC-V. She was a wonderful woman and very good at helping us. She was very good about sitting down and explaining what we needed to do to earn our college degree in Vietnam. She had been a guidance counselor in New York City prior to coming to Vietnam. I found out that her school had been closed and as a result she hired on with the Department of the Army to serve as a guidance counselor in Vietnam. She told me one time that she loved working with soldiers we were there looking to get our education. She said it was very frustrating working at a high school, especially in New York City, just trying to keep kids in school to graduate. She thought that her service as a civilian in Vietnam was very rewarding.

I would sit down on each of my monthly Saigon visits, and she would allow me to take three CLEP tests. Each of those tests that was successfully completed was worth three semester hours. Each month I was able to earn a minimum of nine semester hours. She would give me the study guides and quiz me first to make sure that I was ready to take the tests. Usually, I would take my tests on Saturday and Sunday and fortunately I was able to pass each of them with a high enough score to earn the college credits. She also encouraged us to enroll in a program operated by the University of Maryland. It was a distance learning program, a correspondence course. We were allowed to take two college courses at a time. I had to purchase the first textbook, but when I completed the course, I would have to return it and the next set of books were issued for free. Now, had I been an enlisted man my books would have been free I would not have had to have purchased the first one. As an officer they figured we had more money, and we could afford it. Every month that I was in Vietnam I would usually earn six additional credits through the University of Maryland.

But our educational officer also was very good about getting credits granted for other aspects of our duties in Vietnam and in the military. For example, I was working as a military advisor with the Vietnamese and as a result I learned the Vietnamese language. Now don’t get me wrong I will never say that I was fluent in Vietnamese. But I could carry on a basic conversation as a result of my immersion into the Vietnamese household we lived in. As a result the Education Officer arranged for me to take some language tests, and I qualified for six semester hours in Vietnamese language. This satisfied the language requirement that most colleges had at that time. Since I was an officer and was expected to do briefings I was also allowed nine semester hours additional college credits in communication.

By the time I left Vietnam the first time I earned the maximum number of CLEP tests that I could use in a college which was 60 hours. I was granted 15 hours for the ROTC, nine semester hours in communications and six semester hours in Vietnamese language. I paid nary a penny in college tuition for all of these credits. I had also earned eighteen semester hours through the University of Maryland.

When I left Vietnam, I had earned 108 semester hours towards my college degree, and I had not spent a penny on any of it.

I got sent home from Vietnam in 1971 and I was stationed in St. Paul, Minnesota at Old Fort Snelling. While I was there, I was able to go to the on-post Educational Office and enroll in college courses at the University of Minnesota. I took night courses while I was there and in the 18 months that I was stationed there I earned another eighteen semester hours. I now had 126 semester hours under my belt. When I returned from my third tour in Vietnam in 1973, I attended the University of Nebraska, Omaha campus, under something called the “Bootstrap program”. I had to attend in-residence for two semesters and earn an additional 24 credits from Nebraska in order to earn my degree. I was paid as an Army Captain to attend college, although I did have to use my GI bill, or portions of it, for my tuition. In other words, like I said, my rich Uncle Sam paid for my college degree.

Today the Education Officers are doing the same thing for our soldiers, helping them earn their college degrees, or their GED, at little or no cost to the soldier. There are a number of programs through the Educational Offices now where an enlisted man can earn his or her college credits online or in actual classrooms on military bases. Additionally, college students who enroll in the senior ROTC program are eligible for monthly stipends, to help pay for their education, as well as their room and board. Many receive ROTC scholarships as a result of their military service. So even today 50 years after I left Vietnam the military still tries to educate any soldier that wishes to do so.

Before I retired from the US Army I used my GI bill to complete a master’s degree from the Florida Institute of Technology. I was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia on the joint staff at the US Atlantic Command and I did night school courses over a period for a master’s degree. Again, I was able to walk away with a master’s degree when I retired from the US Army. Additionally, I was later awarded another master’s degree in military science for my completion of the United States Army War College.

So, I can truthfully say that the United States Army paid for my college education. I truthfully can say that I stole my education fair and square. LOL!

If you’re enjoying these blogs, please drop me a comment or if you have any questions that I might answer again submit a comment on the comment pages. I’m always glad to hear from you.

Again, please take a look at all of my books that I have listed. They can be purchased from Amazon.com with the click of a button directly from the website. Until next week, Have a good one.

The Advisor Series:

• “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam, 1969-1970. A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B09L4X5NQ3)
• “The Province Senior Intelligence Advisor, Kien Song Province 1970-1971; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0BHL2XCX5)
• “The Hardchargers,” Vietnam 1972-1973; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0C7SPR1JY)
• “The Tuscarora Trail” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0D3QY2GM6)

For more information visit Website: ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com