How did jump school at Fort Benning, GA., contrast with your training time at Toccoa?
Fort Benning was a luxury place compared to Toccoa. We had big brick barracks and beautiful big mess halls. The post exchange had everything you could imagine- the PX at Camp Toccoa had been only cigarettes and chocolate bars. The training at Benning consisted of double time everywhere you went. We had the parachute mock-up towers. We also had these at Toccoa, except for the parachute device that drew you up and then released you. The highlight of Benning, of course, was the jumps. I still remember the exhilaration of thos jumps. That was the frosting on the cake. Camp McCall (N.C.) was different from Toccoa because we now had pass privileges and the opportunity to go to other places. What were your impressions of your first company commander, Herbert Sobel? Sobel was an officer and presumably a gentleman. He was a man of authority, and that’s the way it was as far as I was concerned. I never agreed with the controversy regarding Sobel in the book or the movie. From my recollection, a
