My basic training was in 1965 at Fort Dix, N.J. I was pretty much in the front-running of my company. I graduated with the top shooting score in my company with a trophy and came in third from getting the trophy for physical training.

But one time during my second month of boot camp, for some reason I did not hear the sergeant's wake-up call. He came over to my bunk, grabbed my mattress and threw it and me on the floor. Nobody even laughed when he did this, and later most of the guys said that was so uncalled for.

At the end of training, the same staff sergeant came in our barrack with a trophy in his hand, started shooting the bull with a couple guys he liked for about half an hour then he said, "Oh yeah. This trophy goes to Andre." He almost dropped it when handing it to me. I almost told him what I thought of him but it was the end of boot camp and I just wanted to get out of there. I didn't even say thank you. I still have this trophy today.

The rest of boot camp was fairly decent.