After being up for an hour and a half, breakfast was at 5:30 A.M. There was usually scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, oatmeal porridge, and toast with ham, bacon, or sausage.

Before long, even after we all had our uniforms, we were all infected with what came to be called the Sheppard Field croup. We had bronchitis on top of the feverishness from all of the shots. The fact that we had to wear the same uniform all day long that we started out with at 4:30 AM in those February mornings contributed to that croup. Occasionally that uniform of the day was nothing but socks, shoes, and a raincoat if sometime during the day we were scheduled for a physical inspection. I went on sick call one day but that was more miserable than struggling through the day's routine.

Everyone who has ever been in the military knows about waiting in lines. There were lines for everything. You waited in line for meals, for the restrooms, for the soft drink machines during breaks, for the shots, for everything. But, none of the lines were as long as the one at sick call. After that one day when I went on sick call and got no help even after I finally saw a medic, I bought some Groves' Cold Tablets and Vicks Vaporub at the PX and treated myself. Groves' Bromo-Quinine and Vicks had been standard remedies for most of my life but quinine had gone to war so Groves Cold tablets had to suffice. I was able to keep going with my home remedies for the rest of the initial two weeks of quarantine which was standard procedure while all recruits were getting their initial shots and training.

After those first two weeks we were able to get passes to go to town on Sundays and I was able to look up the RLDS Church in Wichita Falls. It was good to be treated as a human being again. I spent two of the next four to six weeks in the base hospital having my tonsils removed. Most people were out of the hospital in just one week after a tonsillectomy but I had a fever for over a week so I was two weeks in the hospital. The doctor who operated on me was a First Lieutenant. I never again saw an army doctor who was only a First Lieutenant. This doctor must have been at best a guy just out of medical school or at worst a screw-up. The worst of my entire military career was soon over. Nothing I had to face afterwards was as bad as that first eight weeks.