This will be the first of several posts about the LAIC. When I was in the Army and just completing the Armor Advanced Course at Fort Knox, I received a call from my branch. Those are the folks that plan where to send you next (sometimes, but that is another post).
The branch officer wanted to know if I wanted to attend the British Army Long Armour Infantry Course in Dorset, England. It was 18 months long and was starting in January 1971.
It took me about 10 seconds to decide. I was selected in large part because of my math background. There would be only one other American officer going, an Ordnance branch officer, though starting the next class in 1972 an infantry officer would be added.
There were 30 officers in the class; in addition to us Americans, there were three Australians, one Canadian, and 24 British officers.
The purpose of the course was to allow combat officers provide direct input into the development of armoured fighting vehicles for the British army by way of designing vehicles from the ground up and presenting them to the civilian scientific community responsible for that mission in England.
The first eight weeks was all class work. We studied subjects such as geometry, calculus, physics, strength of materials, chemistry, electrical engineering, and optics. There were others, but these were the major ones.
At the end of the first two months, we had to take what they called “bar exams”. If you didn’t pass all of them, you were cut from the course and sent home.
When the time came for the examinations, only one British officer was sent packing. My fellow American, Woody, was one of the highest in the class. I passed but was in the lower third.
(Trebuchet MS12)
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