After graduating from college in 1965, Robert Ferguson enlisted in the United States Marine Corps to escape the draft. Ferguson completed Officers Candidate School, but was rejected from flight training due to poor depth perception. Instead, he trained as a radar operator and deployed to Vietnam in 1966, completed seventy combat missions in seven months. He was then reassigned as a Forward Air Controller (FAC) to coordinate air support in the field. In 1967, Ferguson was severely burned when an armored vehicle detonated an explosive device. He was evacuated and spent the remainder of his military career recovering in various hospitals in Japan and the United States.

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