In the summer of ’99, the Army sold us yearbooks to help us remember our three months at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, enduring basic training and learning to be combat engineers. Through the pages of black and white photos, all the soldiers look the same, serious and with shaved heads. But I’m surprised by how many of the 198 privates I remember. Richard Kirsland was a nice guy who’d become frustrated when training with inert explosives. Chris Thomalson later became an officer. And then there was Reginald Pond.
He stands out because the yearbook photos were taken before Army conditioning, and his face appears larger than most of the others.
Reggie Pond, from rural West Virginia, was a good man, determined and kind. Unlike most of the young privates in the basic training company, he had joined the active-duty Army in search of a better life for himself, his wife, and their two little children.
He loved his country and believed in the Army. Once, during morning physical training, when the drill sergeant shouted, “the pushup,” I amused myself by yelling back the required “the pushup” echo in a weird voice. Pond frowned next to me.
“Do it right,” he said.
The Army meant a lot to the guy. It was his big hope.
Many privates, myself included, were out of shape, so the physical training was hard, but it was especially difficult for Pond, who was more overweight than most. But that difficulty wasn’t going to stop him. He never complained, and he kept working. He took great pride in showing off the family photo in his wallet.
He’d smile. “I’m doing this for them.”
Pond could fire the M-16, and he passed the grenade course. But as training went on and he continued to fail the PT test, he began to worry about being “recycled” into the next basic training class, which would mean being stuck at Leonard Wood, away from his family, for even longer.
Drill sergeants offered encouragement in their drill sergeant way. “Pvt. Pond, you will run faster or I will kill you!”
He hung in there, edging closer to passing the PT test, but he became more discouraged each time he failed.
Then came the day he received the dreaded letter from home. His wife had had enough and wanted to split up. After that, the last traces of that determined fire went out of Reggie’s eyes. He didn’t — couldn’t — push himself as hard. He gave up his extra evening workouts and went to sick call a lot more, eventually pursuing a medical discharge.
“Don’t give up, Pond!” Sgt. Rodriguez shouted with genuine care.
But it was too late. Pond loved his wife and family, and when there was trouble back home, all he could think of was getting back there to try to fix it.
The Army is interested in keeping its recruits. It’s very hard to get a medical discharge. Those who sought them, including Pond, sadly remained stuck in the basic training barracks until long after the company of trainees had graduated and moved on. The Army wanted to make it clear that the fastest way out of training was to get through it. I was back home in college, drilling with my National Guard company, before Pond ever got out of there.
I don’t know what became of Reggie Pond. His real name is rather common, making internet searches futile. But I hope that when the Army finally let him go, he went home and fixed things up with his wife. I’d like to think she realized all he’d tried to do for her, how hard he’d worked, and how much he’d been willing to sacrifice. I hope the last 20 years have been good for him. Reggie Pond isn’t one of the Army’s success stories, but he’s a good man whose heart was in the right place, and I wish him the best.
Some names in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
