The Making of a Soldier: My Father’s Early Life

My father was born into a world already shaped by war. By the time he took his first steps, the men in his family had already returned from the battlefields of World War II and were preparing for the next conflicts that would define the mid-twentieth century. Service wasn’t something discussed as an obligation—it simply existed as part of the air they breathed, the structure of their home, and the expectations handed down from father to son.

His own father, Raymond McLaughlin Sr., served as an Army Air Corps pilot in World War II.

The Army Air Corp was before today's Air Force existed as a branch of the military. He flew gliders into some of the most dangerous missions of the European campaign—wood and canvas aircraft with no engines, no armor, and no second chances. He delivered troops behind enemy lines, supported operations and became part of the Great Airlift, and earlier served across the African theater. After the war, the military moved the family to Japan as part of the post-war occupation, giving my father a childhood set against the backdrop of a nation rebuilding from ashes.

Family of Service

That sense of transience—life defined by orders, bases, and movements—became the architecture of my fathers early years. From Japan to the United States, from base to base, he grew up watching his father step into roles that ranged from airman to officer to commander. By the time the Korean War began, the family was already accustomed to life in uniform and the silence that came with deployments.

The legacy of service reached every part of his childhood. His father continued into Korea, then into Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star with Valor. It set a bar—high, unspoken, and impossible to ignore.

My father grew up knowing exactly what kind of men the McLaughlin line produced: warriors, officers, leaders, men trusted with missions that mattered. They weren’t boastful. They didn’t dramatize their service. But they carried themselves with a quiet discipline that permeated the household.

As a boy, he absorbed the culture of military life long before he ever wore a uniform. He learned precision, structure, and toughness from a father who had survived three wars. He learned resilience from a mother who held the family together through each deployment. He learned that home was often temporary, friendships came and went, and discipline wasn’t negotiable.

The expectations were clear:
A McLaughlin served.
A McLaughlin performed.
A McLaughlin didn’t complain.
A McLaughlin did what was required.

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He grew up in the shadow of men who answered the call every time it came, and even as a young man he understood that service wasn’t so much a choice as a legacy. When he came of age, at a time when the Vietnam War was escalating, there was never a question about whether he would serve—only a question of how.

He was intelligent, athletic, driven. As a child he was restless. He had the temperament and steadiness that instructors look for in leaders. He finished in the top of his class in basic training earning the top award called the “soldier of cycle”. And he had something else—a desire not to simply inherit his father’s legacy but to carve out his own.

If his father had commanded from the skies, he would serve on the ground.

If his father had flown gliders and later commanded air bases, he would go where the fighting was closest.

If his father had built a career in the Air corp, he would choose the Army

He would become the first in his line not to look down at a battlefield from above, but to walk straight into it.

This chapter marks the beginning of that journey—how a boy raised in the long shadow of warriors found his own path into the war that would define his life.

1966 United states army

Airborne and the Big Red One

When my father entered the Army, he wasn’t looking for an easy path. He came from a lineage of officers and pilots who had set a standard across three major wars, and he carried that weight with him from the first day of Basic Training. He didn’t talk about competing with his father or trying to live up to a reputation—he simply understood the expectation: a McLaughlin served with distinction. And he intended to earn his place in that lineage.

Airborne: Learning to Step Into the Sky

After Basic, he volunteered for Airborne School. Nobody told him to do it, and it wasn’t a prerequisite for becoming an officer. He chose it because it was harder. Because it separated the serious from everyone else. Airborne isn’t Ranger School, but it tests a different kind of nerve—the ability to step out of a C-130 into nothing but wind and gravity.

He learned the mechanics and mindset of a jump—hooking into the static line, bracing for the blast of heat when the doors opened, trusting the jumpmaster and the chute, hitting the ground hard and rolling out before the next man dropped in—but those weren’t the parts that tested him.

The real challenges were the ones that punished the body and stripped away instinct. Tower Week forced every mistake into the open, one brutal repetition after another. PLF training left ankles, knees, and hips throbbing from deliberately hitting the ground hundreds of times. Each door drill demanded that he ignore the most basic human instinct: don’t step into empty air. And every landing zone was chaos—shifting winds, uneven ground, bodies dropping all around him. You hit, rolled, got up, and moved, or you got landed on.

The noise of the aircraft, the cramped space, the red light flipping to green—these became the easy parts. What mattered was whether you could stay composed when it counted. Each jump stripped away hesitation. Each landing taught him control, resilience, and how to steady himself under pressure.

The Injury That Changed His Path

Near the end of Airborne School during a jump, he broke his collarbone—a clean, brutal stop to the momentum he’d built. He wasn’t going to graduate with wings. He wasn’t going to keep jumping. Most men would have waited to heal and continued on the enlisted track. He didn’t. After winning the top class award "Soldier of Cycle" in basic training he faced his first real challenge.

Instead, he made a pivot that would shape the rest of his career: he applied to Officer Candidate School.

From Enlisted to Officer Candidate OCS was its own crucible. It stripped candidates down and rebuilt them—or sent them packing. It demanded leadership, judgment, and the ability to stay sharp when everything hurt and the pressure didn’t let up.

He made the cut. He earned his commission. He chose artillery—a branch that requires precision, calm thinking, and the willingness to make decisions that matter.

He went from enlisted man to officer, reshaping his entire future before ever stepping foot in Vietnam.

Deployment to Vietnam and Assignment to the Big Red One

Once commissioned, the Army wasted no time. His orders sent him directly into Vietnam, assigned to the famed 1st Infantry Division—the Big Red One. This division had a reputation forged in North Africa and Europe during World War II. In Vietnam, it was fighting some of the most dangerous, contested, and politically complex operations of the entire war.

He wasn’t placed in a safe posting or a protected rear-area assignment. His job as an artillery officer meant forward positioning—directing fire missions, coordinating with infantry units, and often being close enough to the fighting that miscalculations were lethal.

The Big Red One operated in zones where enemy contact was a daily expectation, not an exception. Their operations were fast, aggressive, and relentless. Ambushes were common. Booby traps were everywhere. Patrols routinely turned into firefights.

Carrying the Family Legacy Into His Own War

He entered Vietnam not as the son of a Lt Colonel, but as a young officer prepared to prove himself. His father had flown dangerous glider missions in Europe, but he would be the one fighting face-to-face with the enemy, trekking dense jungles, directing artillery under fire, and making decisions that meant life or death for the men around him.

He may not have realized it at the time, but Vietnam would become the most defining period of his life. It shaped how he viewed people, leadership, danger, and survival. It shaped how he raised his children. It shaped the silence that followed him home.

The Big Red One was only the beginning.

From this position—already dangerous, already holding immense responsibility—he would soon be selected for an even more demanding combat role: advising ARVN Airborne units and operating in the shadowed world that intersected with MACV-SOG.