Spit Shine: Mud, Sweat, and Coming of Age

It was 1962, an odd time in American history; a time when grizzled and professional combat veterans who had fought World II and Korea with bayonets, M-1 rifles, and grenades passed their deadly skills to 19-year-old boys who had grown up being taught to cringe under school desks when atomic bombs rained death from the sky.In seven short years astronauts would walk on the moon but while the engineers and scientists were busy tinkering with their rockets, homesick boys crawled through mud, fired rifles just like their fathers had carried, and wondered if they if they would ever measure up. They didn’t know it then but a war was coming to Southeast Asia and they had much to learn.But first, they had to spit shine their boots.