August 23rd, 1983...my first night in the US Army at Ft Knox, KY. We got to the base around 7pm, so we were all very hot and tired having been up early after traveling most of the day.

We were shuffled in to a large gym around 10pm for more paperwork to be filled out. There must haven been 150 of us. A female sergeant E-7 was trying to talk to us and give us instructions on what to fill out, form numbers etc but the gang of still civilians that I was with kept talking, laughing, goofing etc. The female E-7 asked us in a very nice way, several times, to be quiet and that the sooner we finished the sooner we could get to out barracks and maybe go to sleep.

After several attempts to get us quiet she simply said, "I'm on duty till 0700. You knuckleheads are going to be up at 0330. I'm taking my lunch now and will be back in an hour to see if you learned how to shut your mouths, your on my time!" She stormed off the stage.

After about 1.25 hours, she came back around 11:15 and walked up to the mike and simply looked at us. You could have heard a pin drop in that room as no one and I mean no one said a word. After a minute or two of staring at us she said, "very good, let's continue" while adding , "your in the US Army now and not back on the block, do what your told!".

We got about two hours sleep that night.