In April of 1959, I was “flunking”, out of college. Two other friends and I decided to join the Army. It was called “the buddy system.” The first thing we had to do was pass a physical. We went up to Portland, Oregon to do that.

There were about 25 guys there having their physicals. They had us line up, and then the horror started. They told us undress. We were all naked.

The two doctors came out and started their examinations. One was in the front and the other was in the back. The one in the front said to cough while he was feeling your privates. The other told us to bend over and he inserted his finger up our rear. That was extremely embarrassing for me.

I was just an 18 year old kid who had never faced another close to this.

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We all passed that and walked down a long hall way. There were stops all along the way where they were doing other tests. We all somehow made through that hallway.

Then they did some testing. Actual testing. They wanted to see how smart we was. The test seemed pretty easy to me, and was told I aced it. (This was the guy who was flunking out of college!)

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On the way home all three of us sat in silence. We were dumbfounded about what we had just been through.

More tomorrow on the wonderful life in the military.

Doug