In July 1953, I took my Army basic training at Camp Gordon located outside of Augusta, Ga. It was around our 12th week of basic training when I learned to consume a pitcher of ice cold beer with my buddies.

In those years, there was a very limited amount of air conditioning anywhere on the post. Temperatures would daily reach in the high nineties, and many days it exceeded 100 degrees. In those 12 weeks, I don't believe there were any more than three very brief showers.

In our training we did several obstacle courses. On one hell course, I was crawling 100 yards over blistering Georgia sands between noon and 1500. When we finished the course, the majority of us had the skin on our knees and elbows rubbed off and blisters from the hot sand.

Just prior to closing of the BX that night, I slipped over to the BX and purchased a box of Kotex to use the pads on both knees and elbows for the next obstacle course. Taking the box of Kotex back to the barracks, the guys started ribbing me. I explained why I purchased them, and the ribbing slowly halted.

Several guy wanted me to share some pads with them after realizing how the Kotex could possibly help the next time we had to do crawling across the Georgian hot sand. I think I sold each pad for about 25 cents. I profited enough to give me some badly needed pocket money.

The next day, the drill instructors discovered several of the guys wearing the pads and I had to run several miles plus assigned to clean "Ole Smoky." "Old Smoky" was the coal cooked stove in the mess hall normally covered with grease and soot.