Michael Richardson is a resident of Beaufort, South Carolina, but grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, where the average winter temperature hovers in the mid-to-upper-60s.
Upon graduating at age 17 in June of 1967, Richardson pondered his future and longed for a career. In December of that year, he decided to enlist in the U.S. Army, where his training began in January 1968 at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was there that Richardson had his first experience working in snowy conditions.
In 2021, he and his daughter, Jacqueline Richardson Lawton, shared their conversation with StoryCorps about his first few weeks of Army training.
TRANSCRIPT:
Richardson: Leaving Jacksonville, I was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, January 1968. And it was cold.
Lawton: (laughs) I guess you weren't used to that, because you're from Florida.
Richardson: And it didn't snow but one time in Florida, and certainly not like this.
Lawton: So, did that snow have an effect on you and your performance?
Richardson: Yes. The greatest difficulty I had was trying to lie down in the snow on the rifle range and hit a target. I had 40 rounds, and I was shaking so much, I missed a target every time. And the drill sergeant was like, “Richardson, what's wrong with you??” I said, “I ain't never been this cold in my life!” (He said) “You gotta stay out here until you shoot the targets and qualify.” Which meant my whole platoon was gonna stay out there.
Lawton: Oh, wow.
Richardson: So, the guys that were closest to me--I only had 40 rounds, but I had over a hundred holes in my target where everybody was helping me out. So, I qualified that day.
Lawton: That's all right. Boy, that's what you call some teamwork!
Richardson: The drill sergeant said, “You will not fire ‘expert’ just because you had all those holes in your target. People helped you out.”
Lawton: You can say, “‘Marksman’ is good enough for me.”
Richardson: That's what I said. That was good enough for me! I'm out of here!
Lawton: Where did you go from there?
Richardson: I was assigned to attend personnel management school in Columbia, South Carolina, at Fort Jackson. That was my advanced individual training, my AIT. And one of the things that I learned was how to type. To graduate from the school, you had to type 35 words a minute. Having graduated from a segregated school, our teachers told us to always be better. So, I learned how to type more than 35 words a minute.
Lawton: So, after you finished AIT?
Richardson: I had two brother-in-laws who were Airborne, and the advice was to apply for the school, and then I could become a paratrooper. So, I was reassigned back to Fort Benning, Georgia to attend jump school.
Lawton: So, this time in Fort Benning, what was the weather like?
Richardson: Oh, it was 100 degrees. I was good to go then. I can tell that. This was my kind of weather. I was okay!
Lawton: Oh, that's all right, man. So, were there a lot of people that were attending the paratrooper school?
Richardson: Yes, there were. There were 500 of us that showed up for training. And the commander of the school made an announcement: “If there's anyone who's changed their mind and do not want to go through this training, step to the side.” So 200 people stepped to the side.
Lawton: What??
Richardson: And then he informed them that they were assigned to the school. For the whole month, and they were going to be all the people doing the details and the trash and the KP and all the assignments while the rest of us went to school.
Lawton: This has really been great. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to talk with you about this, celebrating you as a veteran and all the sacrifices that you made for our country. You are definitely my hero.
Richardson: Army strong, and Airborne all the way!
