I kept my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. That's what I learned growing up in South Philly. You want to get educated? You observe, but you don'… - William Guarnere

I drove trucks. I drove Jeeps. I tried to be versatile. I didn't say a word to nobody. I just did it. If I told them, they'd have me all over the damn place. So I played dumb like a fox. Keep your mouth shut, never volunteer. You got to learn that real fast. When you first come in everybody volunteers. Once you volunteer, you think, What the hell did I do that for? I said to myself, Keep your mouth shut, you dummy. You don't know what the hell they're going to throw at you. It's usually the worst thing in the world. Never volunteer. Turn your back and run the other way. Say you didn't hear it.

People ask if your first kill is hard. It was easy as squashing a bug. I released a lot of anger.

Camp Toccoa was only about one thing: weeding out the weaklings. Our training schedule was brutal, and the training was brutal- all physical conditioning, led by Captain Sobel. Sobel didn't look like an officer. He was kind of awkward, and all he did was scream. He was high-strung, ranted and raved, criticized everything, a mean son of a bitch. He'd punish you for the hell of it. He was a chickenshit. Any GI knows what chickenshit is. A tyrant, takes authority to an extreme, the type that would get their ass kicked if the situation was reversed!