Two days after his seventeenth birthday, Brian found himself at the United States Army Engineer School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

  He arrived with a rucksack, a sheet of orders, and no real idea what he’d signed up for.

  The guard at the entrance barely looked at him.

  “Report to Sergeant Myers, Basic Intake, D Block.”

  He set off in the direction of the housing blocks, walking with the casual shuffle of a civilian who still had choices.

  He didn’t get far.

  “You there! Stop where you are!”

  The voice cracked through the air like a whip. A broad-shouldered man in pressed fatigues strode toward him with the gait of someone who didn’t like being questioned—or even looked at funny.

  “Stand to attention!” the man barked.

  Brian tried. He straightened his spine and stiffened his legs, unsure what “attention” actually meant. It felt like pretending to be a lamp post.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the man demanded.

  “I’m looking for D Block, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir. I work for a living. Can’t you see the stripes? You call me sergeant. You must be fresh out the packet.”

  “Yes, Sergeant. I just arrived.”

  “D Block’s up there on the left. Straighten yourself up when you walk. You’re in the army now, not strolling to the ice cream stand. Now move—and get out of my sight.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The sergeant turned on his heel.

  Bloody hell, thought Brian. Welcome to the army.

  At D Block, he found Sergeant Myers, who took one look at him and said simply, “Get a haircut and report back.”

  The barber didn’t waste time. Clippers out, hair gone. No mirror, no small talk.

  He joined 29 other recruits in a concrete-floored barracks that smelled of floor polish and nervous sweat.

  “I’m your mother now,” bellowed Sergeant Myers on the first morning. “Reveille is at 0430. PT at 0500. Breakfast at 0600. Lights out at 2100. If you don’t like it, I don’t care.”

  He continued:

  “Every night, two of you will be on fire guard. One hour each. You’ll patrol the barracks, mop the floors, keep an eye out for anyone sneaking off. If there’s a fire, don’t panic—wake everyone up and then panic.”

  Then it began.

  Physical training. Marching. Obstacle courses. Lessons on how to make a bed with sheets so tight you could bounce a coin on them. How to do laundry, fold your socks, and iron a crease sharp enough to draw blood.

  Weapons training followed: M16 rifles, M203 grenade launchers, M249 light machine guns, and M60s. Brian had thought he was reasonably fit, but his body ached in places he didn’t know existed.

  By the end of seven weeks, he was leaner, tougher, and mildly terrified of anyone in a hat.

  Then came engineering school—another seven weeks.

  They learned to breach obstacles, dig shell scrapes and trenches, build both fixed and floating bridges. They laid mines, cleared routes, built fortifications, detonated charges, and trained to fight as backup infantry.

  Every bit of digging was done by hand. Pickaxe and shovel. No machines.

  Brian didn’t mind the digging. He didn’t even mind the explosives.

  On one memorable day, they buried a shaped charge beneath a concrete railway sleeper. When it blew, a three-foot chunk of concrete rocketed 200 yards and embedded itself in a tree trunk.

  “Beautiful,” one of the instructors murmured.

  But there were darker lessons.

  Minefield clearance was another beast entirely.

  It was no fun at 11 o’clock on a cold and wet night.

  The first man into a suspected field was called “The Ghost Man.” He crawled flat on his stomach, sweeping a length of stiff steel wire in arcs ahead of him. Then he would prod the earth with a thin metal spike and feel the ground, if he felt anything it was removed and disarmed. If his swinging wire made contact with a trip wire, there would be a clink. He then had to follow the wire, all the time feeling and prodding the ground. He did not know which end of the trip wire had the explosive device. At the other end of the wire was the anchor point for the trip wire.

  Only after disarming the device could the tripwire be safely removed.

  Crawling through wet mud at 11 o’clock on a freezing night, every nerve on edge, Brian came to one conclusion:

  I don’t like minefields. Not one bit.

  At the end of the course, the Squadron Sergeant Major gave a farewell speech. His face was granite, but his eyes twinkled.

  “Let me give you a word of advice,” he said. “If you hadn’t gone to that bar that night in that town, you’d have met someone else. Remember that. And wherever you go—carry a packet of three.”

  The room erupted in laughter.

  Then it was time for postings.

  The sergeant read from a clipboard.

  “Jones, 20th Engineer Battalion.”

  “Abel, 36th Engineer.”

  “Cadman, 555th.”

  And then, at last—

  “Bradshaw, 130th Engineer.”

  Overseas.

  West Germany.

  First posting.

  Brian stared at the floor, not sure whether to feel excited or terrified.

  He settled on both.