When it was time for Jim Kimball to make a decision about college, there wasn't much to consider.
It was 1964, and he was graduating from McCallie, then a military prep school. He said he'd been a good enough football player to draw interest from the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt, among others, but he knew he was headed elsewhere.
"My father was thinking I was likely to get drafted, and that I'd be better prepared coming from West Point," Kimball recalled. "He let me visit UT and Vanderbilt, but I didn't apply anywhere but West Point."
Once at the U.S. Military Academy, Kimball opted for infantry training. That meant Ranger School, referred to by the Army's official website as "one of the toughest training courses for which a soldier can volunteer for more than two months, Ranger students train to exhaustion, pushing the limits of their minds and bodies."
Kimball wouldn't have had it any other way.
"Best military training I ever had," he said. "I was never in a Ranger unit, but I was Ranger-qualified - I had all the skills."
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Foremost among those, Kimball said, was navigation.
"You learned how to navigate, night or day," he said. "If your GPS runs out of batteries, what do you do? You get out your compass and your map.
"If you're in the jungle and don't know where you are, you can't get air support," he said. "Your goose is cooked."
Staff photo by Troy Stolt / Jim Kimball poses for a portrait at his home on Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 in Chattanooga, Tenn.More Info
BioName: Dr. Jim KimballAge: 75Branch of military: U.S. ArmyYears of service: 1968-1973
The Vietnamese jungle was where Kimball found himself in mid-1969, serving as an infantry platoon leader. His unit's job, he said, was simple.
"We spent most of our time looking for people to ambush," he recalled. "Day after day, the same thing - find a trail where we could set up an ambush [with] trip wires and mines.
"We never got ambushed ourselves," he said, "because we never walked on a trail."
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And, oddly enough, Kimball said the men in his unit usually slept pretty well in the jungle.
"Two people to a foxhole," he said. "One sleeps while the other keeps an eye. You can actually get pretty comfortable if you do it right, and doing it right goes back to what you learned in Ranger School.
"Sometimes, when you knew you were pretty safe, you could relax a little - find the bottom of a bomb crater with beautiful, clear water and get a bath," he said.
Kimball went on to serve in Vietnam as his company's executive officer and a psychological warfare officer. He said he served the final three of his five years on active duty in Germany.
He later became a dentist and returned to Chattanooga, not only running a private practice but rendering considerable volunteer service as well. He said his Army experience stood him in good stead when he was running his practice.
"In the Army, enlisted men eat first. Officers eat last," he said. "If you're in charge, you have to take care of your people.
"In [a dental] office, those people are your patients. The patient is No. 1. To do a good job, you've got to take care of those patients," he said.
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