The war in Viet Nam was a horrible memory. Young teens were taught to kill the enemy even when you had no way of knowing for sure that the people you are killing is, in fact, your enemy. How do you train someone to do such an unthinkable act? I have restless nights even now, over fifty years later, just remembering how such training was accomplished. I know because I was one of those trainers who had the duty of preparing these young men to go into battle. The memories haunt me still.

The classroom training was done in an old WWII barrack that had been gutted for use as a classroom. Yes, it was changed from 24 bedrooms to one small classroom at the end of a long, narrow hallway. The entire building was dedicated to just this one classroom. It was a large building but the intent was to make that one classroom put a 'kill or be killed' attitude in young minds that, up to this point, had only learned to be kind to their high school teachers. I remember the very first time I entered that building and walked down the long hallway to the small room where the teaching would be done behind a closed door.

As I entered the building for the first time, I noticed that the hallway had been decorated with photos of prior students. I thought it was nice that they honored their graduates so well. Actually, it displayed more than just the boot camp portrait. Each person was honored with two very different photos. The first photo was the boot camp photo, showing the pride of accomplishment and the determination each one had to serve their nation. Proud pictures. Pictures for parents to put on the fireplace mantle with their son's soon to be won medals for the world to see. The other photo, though, was of a dead body on a battlefield, often unrecognizable, with a head blown off or an arm six feet away from the body. Under each of the two photos was the same name... the proud graduate of boot camp. Picture after picture after picture lined that hallway. Each photo was so graphic that, once seen, there was no way the human mind could 'unsee' them. They were photos that the military never released to loved ones, or even to the news media because they revealed far too much of what war truly entails. Those photos were kept for only one reason. They were intended to be seen by students walking down this one long hallway leading to a three hour classroom that was required of everyone being shipped overseas.

I didn't even want to look at those photos. Who could be so hard-hearted that they would show such a sight to young men getting ready to go into battle. The proud boot camp portraits? Of course, those photos showed the "me" that I hoped I had become. But the mutilated barrage of death? Those pictures made me sick at my stomach, so much so that I thought about not even going into the classroom. All that was in my mind's eye was those before and after photos.

Finally I reached the end of the hall and faced the door to the classroom. On the door was a note that said:

"Each photo you have seen in the hallway leading to this door is of people who, like you, were being prepared to go into a life-threatening war zone. This class is here to prepare you for that same call to duty. Unfortunately, those in the photos you just saw chose not to pay attention to what we tried to teach them. We taught them what could have saved their lives but they didn't listen to us. You will not be forced to listen to what we have to say, so, we leave it up to you to decide. Will you listen? or should we prepare a place for your photo in the hallway?"

As I began teaching that class I gained a morbid appreciation for that hallway of photos. Why?Never have I taught a class of students who listened so intently to every word I said as those students who had walked down that long hallway of pictures.

T