Shake 'n Bake Sergeant: True Story of Infantry Sergeants in Vietnam, The

Army, May 2008 by Spencer, Jimmie W

The Shake 'n Bake Sergeant: True Story of Infantry Sergeants in Vietnam. Jerry S. Horton. Trafford Publishing. 322 pages; black and white photographs; $24.95.

The Shake 'n Bake Sergeant by Jerry S. Horton is the story of a young man growing up and coming of age in America during the turbulent decade of the 1960s. It was a time in our history when young Americans were bombarded by the media with mixed messages about their government. They were being told that they could not trust anything that our elected leaders (the establishment) told them. The war in Vietnam and the draft were being protested on college campuses at home and abroad, and the hippie lifestyle was at its zenith.

If that was all Shake 'n Bake Sergeant was about, it would be a very interesting story-but there is much more. Horton's goal in life upon graduation from high school was to become an electrical engineer. He made it through his first year of college with high marks and a seemingly bright future; then the money ran out. That's where the real story begins.

To help pay for college, young Horton joined the U.S. Army. Early in his training to become an infantryman, he was selected by his drill sergeants for additional training-leadership training. He was chosen for the newly implemented NCO Candidate Course, which was patterned after the Officer Candidate School and was the Army's answer to the shortage of infantry sergeants. The best and brightest soldiers with demonstrated potential for leadership were selected for Vietnamoriented small-unit leader training; training that would, in three months, transform them from recruits to infantry fire team leaders-instant NCOs-also known as Shake 'n Bake sergeants.

The term Shake 'n Bake came from a popular product that contained bags filled with ingredients for preparing "fried" chicken. You simply placed the chicken parts in the bag, shook vigorously and put the bag in an oven for baking. As a shortcut to preparing chicken, the expression seemed to fit a program designed as a shortcut to becoming an infantry sergeant.

Horton provides a firsthand account of what it was like to take command of a squad of combat infantry soldiers in Vietnam: "This was the big day. I was to join my unit. For weeks I had thought long and hard about this day, and now it was here. I was going to the real war zone."

As one reads Shake 'n Bake Sergeant, the stress, fear and frustration of combat comes across loud and dear as Horton matures from an FNG (f***ing new guy) to an experienced combat leader. The reader senses the bonding that Horton experienced at the squad level and the pain of losing a friend in combat-someone he cared about, and someone for whom he was responsible.

The Shake 'n Bake program lasted five years, from 1968 to 1972, producing 20,068 graduates. Of that number, 1,003 were killed in action. Horton's tour as a combat infantryman was cut short when he was seriously wounded and evacuated through medical channels from the battlefield in Vietnam all the way back to Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

This well-written narrative is about the war in Vietnam and the young Americans who fought it. This is their story, told by someone who lived it and survived. And it is about a successful and almost forgotten Army NCO leader program.

If you like military history or a good story well told, you will like The Shake 'n Bake Sergeant.

-CSM Jimmie W. Spencer, USA Ret.