He was right. I got through alive. But then, 76.5 per cent of draftees do get through the Basic Fighter Course, alive. But for me it took a drastic rearrangement of philosophy. Me, all I'd ever wanted was a good life. An adequate income, art and music, congenial friends, an understanding wife--just one wife was all I'd ever hoped for. As you can see, I was an untypical Haldorian on every point. After my first day in Basic Fighter Course I just wanted to stay alive. "There's two kinds of men we turn out here," our Haldor told us as we lined up awkwardly for the first time (that scene so loved by vision-makers). We new draftees called our Trontar our Haldor because he actually had the power over our bodies that the chaplains assured us the Heavenly Haldor had over our liberated spirits. Our Trontar looked us over with his fatherly stare, flexing his powerful arm muscles so that his three tattooed stripes rippled and danced. "Yeah," he went on, "two kinds of men: Fighting men and dead men!" The Trontar grinned that fighting Haldorian grin you see all your lives on the Prop Sheets. "And I'll tell you something, men. When you leave here--all Fighters Basic--I'm going to envy you. Yeah, I'll really envy you gutsy killers when you go out in that big Out-There and grab yourselves a new chunk of sky." He paused and studied our faces. "Now we're gonna run, and I do mean run, two full decades. The last four men in get to do it over again, and pull kitchen duty tonight too." I tried, as others have tried, to slip quietly out of Basic Fighter. I tried being sick, but following sick report one found oneself doing a full day's training--after the understanding medics had shoved some pep pills into you. I demanded a physical examination. They weren't going to push me around. After a couple of days in solitary, I asked in a nice way for physical evaluation. Well, I asked. I wasn't very smart in those days. They weren't interested in my story of how my records had been falsified or in my fighting aptitude. "Look, draftee," the psycho-man said after I finally got to him, "the fact that you've got to see me shows you have enough of a fighting aptitude. Your Trontar didn't encourage you to request evaluation, did he? And he isn't going to like you very much when you report back to your platoon, is he?" I shuddered. "Not exactly." "Call me Sir." "No, Sir. But I was desperate, Sir. I don't think I can stand...." * * * * * "Draftee, you know that some unfortunate men break down in training and that we have to take them out. Maybe you've already lost some that way. Suppose you were brought in here, gibbering, yowling, and drooling--I guess we'd have to cure you and send you back home as non-fighter material, eh?" Someone up here liked me! Here was a tip on how to escape back to the old quiet life. I nodded agreeably.