In 1963 I was on my way by rail to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood. What an undesirable hole that was then.

Any others have the misfortune of serving at the fort?

Nope, but I can tell you've never been to Amarillo, Tx.

Oh, you mean Hell. Yeah, I got to spend some time there...............

I remember it being the coldest place on the planet. I was never warm there.

My first cousin, who in 1970 was in his 3rd week of basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, contracted meningitis and died a week later along with 14 other of our servicemen. Seeing as he was from Amarillo, I'm sure he would have chosen his home town over that particular army post. But, as a teenager, my mother would check the mileage of my car after a late Saturday night and accuse me of " sneaking over to Amarillo." She thought the town was the den of iniquity full of young women with loose morals waiting to entrap her baby boy.

Fort Lost in theWoods. Summer of 1970. Crunch bugs, skeeters, copperheads, corals and water Mocs. Hot, humid and just generally nasty place. Then I got sent to APG Maryland and wished I was back at lost in the woods as the East coast was more fugged up than there. 😀

The OD green melting pot.

Never thought I would get tired of fishing, hunting, and golf. But as a single CPT at a TRADOC post in the middle of nowhere where 90 percent of the females were trainees and off limits, that is about all I did.

Yea I did both basic and AIT there in 83. Got there in May, and having grown up in Canada it was the hottest place I had ever experienced. The DIs loved to make us do pushups on the pavement. It was so hot our hands blistered. Anyone who has been there might remember a little wide spot in the road just south of the Fort called Buckyrus. There was a little gas station/ liquor store right beside the road. My wife parents owned and ran it for years.

Boot camp and AIT there in 1991.

It was not a great deal of fun.

Dave

In 1972 I had my choice of going to Fort Leonard Wood or Fort Knox Kentucky, I chose the latter.

Basic and AIT in 1973. Blistering hot in the summer. Heat lighting every night!

I used to deer hunt near there and you are right.

I went there in 1985 for basic and AIT. I went back again, for the first time since, in August of 2017 for an anti-terrorism school. It is much nicer than it was 30+ years ago and, is a completely different experience than that I experienced as a basic trainee. It's a nice fort.

Spent my last two years of HS there. Joined the Reserves while still in HS (split option) and was assigned to the 25th MASH unit and worked at the hospital on weekends.

Dad was training knuckleheads in the "Million dollar hole".

Oct-Feb 70-71. Damn cold..

g

Well remember TA-214 known better as the Million dollar hole. Hell I dug part of it!

g

I see so many not tough enough to handle MO.

I did AIT at Leonard Wood in '68. Not the worst place the Army sent me...

My Dad joined the Army and went through basic there in 1941. Bad timing.

Yup..Fall of 62. Actually had fun going through basic..really enjoyed shooting the M-1.

In 1963, my high school best bud and I were on our way by train to Lackland AFB, TX for basic training. It was a hot summer there, for sure.

Yes. June, July and part of August 1973.

kwg

Basic and AIT in the summer of 70. Hot and humid. The training was a joke. They were running them through as fast as they could so they could ship them off to Nam. I was NG and came home. I always felt sorry for those who went into combat with the poor training we had. All they cared about was filling quotas of warm bodies. One week of combat would teach them (the survivors, that is) more than FLW taught them in 16 weeks.

Then I started hunting in Northern Missouri and found out what real cold was all about...

Basic training jan 1956 cold and wet all the time...

I, and I guess all of us had to blow on the ice on the peep sights in November. and December.

What time period?

I did basic training there in August of 1994. I freaking loved it! Yes it was hot. Best Drill Sgt's...SFC Anthony Smith, SSG Longcor, SSG Blair. Cant remember the batallion, I would have to check my letters home during that time period.

My one regret is that I wish I would have done a stint RA instead of all NG. Kind a wish I could do it again.

Oct70-Feb71

I did AIT there the Summer of 67. They trained me to operate a Road Grader and after AIT they stationed me there permanent party in the Concrete Paving Equipment Operators Course. They did not even have a road grader in the outfit. One cold February day in 1968 we were chipping dried concrete off of steel forms when the SFC in charge walked in and said he needed 2 volunteers to try out for the FLW rifle team. I jumped to my feet and volunteered. For the next several months we shot the National Match Course twice a day and once on Saturday. I also was exempt from the duty roster. I went on to shoot the 5th Army Matches in Fort Riley and shot well enough to make the 5th Army Team for a few months. When I returned 1st Sgt Crabtree was so pleased one of his engineering troops made the 5th Army team that he put me in for soldier of the month and I even made it. They promised me a $50 savings bond but I never saw it.

It got to minus 20 F one week during the winter and froze the propane lines to the furnace. All we had was 2 wool blankets and our long johns. That was one cold night. They had to move us to an old barracks that still had a coal fired furnace for the rest of the week.

I remember sitting on the roof of the barracks watching the lighting storms off in the distance. That is the only place I have seen Lightning Bugs. One of the troops was from Kentucky. He paid a visit to a black whore and caught a case of the crabs. He did not want to see the medic as he would be reported and get in trouble. So he stripped naked and proceeded to rub a bunch of stuff on his crotch. As I recall it was a mixture of aquavelva rubbing alcohol and what ever else he could find. When he finished he literally ran around the barracks twice screaming and then he sat on his foot locker picking out the dead crabs.

Yes I remember Little Korea well.

My cousin Nathan is a drill instructor there right now. He enjoys his work. He has been nominated best DI at least once. Not bad for a Canadian boy from Strathmore Alberta. (His mother is American, so he chose the US Army.) He is very fit.

May-July 1988,Basic Training, 1992, EOBC, 1997 EOAC. Didn’t leave anything there, so no need to go back. But my CG wants me to be an MP now, so there may be one more trip in my future. Yikes.

Old70

I did an Army Reserve active duty tour there.

I remember a canoe trip down the Big Piney River. Our guys flew a Huey for 10 miles, located a bridge for us to meet a duce and a half for the canoes and trip back to base..

Well, we paddled and paddled. Beautiful scenery, still water, fast water. All day we paddled. It was dark when we arrived at the bridge.

Ten miles by chopper turned out to be 26 miles by river.

Took a bit longer than expected, We were tired.

DF

Basic training, the summer of 1985.

Back in 63, and the old coal heated barracks, , I learned quickly when that fireman with the red helmet liner headed to the shower, I'd best as well if I wanted any hot water.

Basic training there, Feb-Apr 97. Went to much worse places than there in my 20 years.

I've got a buddy that's retired AF and is a GS on Ft. Leonard Wood. He's asked me several times if I wanted a job there with him when I retired from the AF myself. The wife usually answers him quicker than I can, with "Hell no"! Can it be that bad, I spent 3 years at Ft. Hood though. The oldest son may be heading there next summer if all goes right, as he's looking to join the Army Guard to help pay for college.

I completed basic there in 1985 and then was off to Ft Jackson. My son completed basic and AIT there in 2005.

My son-in-law just finished basic there.
I don’t think he enjoyed it any more than you did.

Were you there early enough to experience the March/April ice and rain storms?
Water ankle deep ON TOP of the berms at the rifle ranges, they quit msking us rotate our boots every day. We went to ~ a 2 day rotation to dry them out.
What a mess!

Basic Training, August 1971. Hot, lots of ticks under the shade trees.

Spent 2 days there in October this year. Son graduated Basic and is there for AIT now. Rather nice base compared to Ft. Ord where I had housing in the 2000's.

He's from the UP/WI - doesn't find it cold at all from what he's told me recently.

My brother was stationed there. He refers to it as Fort Leonard Wood, Misery

Been there, too.

I guess Ord does make Leonard Wood look pretty good.

Beautiful landscape, both places.

DF

A guy on my lease has a son stationed there.

Did Basic Training there May-July 1983

5th Engineer Battalion there from 1973 to 1977.........

Both my nephews went through there in the last five years for different training courses, one enlisted, one commissioned.

I was able to drive up to see my one commissioned nephew graduate in late July, they were out of regular suites to put him in in the college dorm-type buildings so they put him in a senior officer grade suite, came with extra blankets, extra fluffy pillows and a white bathrobe, plus booze in a refrigerator, which we couldn't touch. The enlisted guy (the one that did a tour in Afghanistan) graduated from there when high school was in session so I couldn't get free. To a casual visitor like me what I saw looked like a college campus and the Px was like a supermarket.

Stopped in on the way home at Wilson's Creek Battlefield (1861) over by Springfield.

Basic Training summer of 89. I did the split option between Junior and Senior years of High School.

Dirtfarmer, the big piney is a smallmouth bass wet dream river. I use to deer hunt in the mid 80’s just outside of FLW near the pig piney wilderness area. There are some deep deep hollows in that area. For all of you on this thread that served our country, thank you for your time.