[Mitch]

When I attended ANCOES at Fort Gordon in 1978, (as a 31V4) – we were approached on the first day of class from a representative of Georgia Military College – who told us that if we signed up for a class in Government, they would give us credit for the ANOC class as well as all the other military schools and MOSs we had, to include any CLEP tests, as well as any additional College Credit we may have had form other colleges. They said that it was possible that we might qualify to receive an Associate’s Degree.

Every one of us signed up. We took the class during our lunch break, right there in our Class Room. I got an “A.” They examined my 201 file and added everything up (I had already taken the full complement of General CLEP - passed those too. I also got a big chunck of hours for my German Language School taken at DLI. A few months later, I received my Associates Degree Diploma; I took it down to Personnel and had it filed. From that day forward, I had an AA on my record.

The big question I had to ask myself after all that - what had I learned, how much smarter had I become? Well, I learned a little bit about Government. Other than that, I was the same guy and hadn’t learned a thing.
Later on, when I became a Warrant Officer, it was possible to take a full year off for Boot Strap and attend any two year institution that would have us, at the Government’s expense – in order to get that AA. I actually tried to do that too – but of course I was denied because I had already posted the Associates degree – no way Icould I tell them that I hadn’t really learned anything.

That continued to nag at me for the rest of my time in the Army.