COMSEC Specialists in the ASA received their training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where many of them first heard such terms as ‘wind-chill factor’ and ’50 degrees below zero.’ Before departing Fort Devens with orders for Vietnam, every ASA soldier was required to go through the Tactical Training Course (TTC), the brainchild of Colonel Lewis Millett, a highly decorated and much-admired officer in the ASA. Colonel Millett’s decorations include the Medal of Honor, received for leading a bayonet charge against an enemy position in Korea. Earlier he had deserted. Wikepedia has an interesting and informative article on him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Millett. It is well worth the read.
TTC consisted of a week of living in the woods and attending various survival and recognition classes which were designed to help in the event things went sideways for them in Vietnam. The culmination of the week was Escape and Evasion Night. All of the students ‘escaped’ from an enemy camp just after dark and, basically, roamed around in the woods all night searching for checkpoints and trying to avoid the Viet Cong, who were played by ASA soldiers from Hawaii, called the ‘Menehunes.’ Playing hide and seek in the Massachusetts woods on a cold night in February with three feet of snow on the ground doesn’t exactly put one in mind of a tropical jungle and rice paddies.
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