I graduated from the Intelligence Analyst course at Fort Holabird, Maryland as honor student. My rank was changed from platoon sergeant E7 to sergeant first class E7, which was only a change in title, not pay grade. I returned to Fort Hood and was assigned to G2, III Corps, working on contingency plans.
A short time later, I received orders for the Military Advisor Training Academy (MATA) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina to be trained as an advisor to the South Vietnamese army (ARVN). Nobody I knew really wanted advisor duty, including me. The toughest part of the training was learning Vietnamese language. It is a tonal language having up to five tones for a word, e.g. “ban” could mean either “friend” or “shoot,” depending on the tone. As I had a hearing impairment I didn’t do well. With about ten days to go I received new orders assigning me to the 55th MI Company supporting G2, I Field Force Vietnam (IFFV) which was a U.S. Army corps level headquarters. I nearly cried with happiness. I didn’t find out until it was nearly time to rotate back to the U.S. that I had been requested by the G2 operations officer (who I’d worked for at III Corps) when he saw my name on the advisors list. He never told me, rather I found out from the G2 operations sergeant.