We were next sent by troop train to Maxwell Field in Alabama. Somewhere on the trip we had to get off the train and spend the night in the train station in one of those little southern towns. It was cold so we made a mountain of barracks bags in the waiting room and then we climbed up on them and tried to sleep. We arrived at Maxwell in September and trained there through November. The first few weeks were just like college with hazing and all that by the upper classman. We had to sit at attention in the dining room and eat with our eyes straight ahead and our shirt buttons touching the table. You couldn't look at your plate so really didn't get much to eat. It was probably just as well because later we had a Sunday dinner with half a chicken each. The chicken was a green color and when I lifted a wing the feathers were stil1 there. Needless to say, most everyone got up and left. These three months were about the hardest I experienced. I used to be the first one up in our barracks at 4:30 am and got everyone else up. It was nice to get to wash and shave before the others made it crowded. It was just like going to college and they told us it was the equivalent of two years of college. Besides getting up at 4:30 am we had classes all day and homework until 11:00 pm. We had classes in airplane engines, theory of flight, math, physics, and similar subjects. During the evenings I helped others with physics and they helped me with the math. I was 27 years old at this time and older than most of the others. I was always happy and cheerful in the morning and got everyone off to a good start. Some of the math problems were very difficult. If you took off from an aircraft carrier at a certain compass heading and flew at another heading to the target, what compass heading would you take to return to the carrier if it had also changed to a different heading? You had to also take into consideration your air speed and the wind direction. Bomber pilots had a navigator to tell them where to go and a bombardier to drop the bombs. A fighter pilot had to learn all of these things as he was up there all alone. We worked like this for three months and it was tough. I found out that Red Hayes from Bristol Valley was a sergeant mechanic there at Maxwell Field. He used to go to all the Saturday night square dances and was a good friend of mine. He was married to a southern girl and lived off base in a nice brick house. Sometimes on Sunday I would go out to their house for a southern fried chicken dinner with pecan pie. One time another service man and I went to church there. I don't know what denomination it was but the minister would rant and rave and wave his arms for about three minutes then they would take up a collection. After about ten collections we were out of money so got up and left.