suitable field could be found, but football games against the University of Mississippi were always played in Jackson. Middleton graduated with a bachelor's degree in the spring of 1909, and was hoping to get an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. No such opportunity presented itself, however, and at the age of 19 he was too young to take the examination for an army commission. Taking the advice of an army officer back at A&M, he decided to enlist in the United States Army. Early service in the U.S. Army Enlisted service On 3 March 1910 Troy Middleton enlisted into the 29th Infantry Regiment at Fort Porter in Buffalo, New York. He was put to work as a company clerk, and as a private earned $15 a month, which was paid in gold until it became scarce, and was then paid in silver. Private Middleton tired of this desk work quickly and asked to become a soldier. While this did not happen at Fort Porter, his talents as a football player became known, and he was pressed into duty as the quarterback of the local team, which played civilian teams in the Buffalo area as well as other army teams such as the one at Fort Niagara near Niagara Falls. For the next several years Middleton would play a lot of football, a sport that was strongly endorsed by the army. After getting a commission, an officer is never returned to the same unit from which he served as an enlisted member, but Middleton became the exception because of his talents as a quarterback. Middleton felt that football provided him with the finest training he received while in the army, and he said he never met a good football player who wasn't also a good soldier. Officer's commission After 27 months of serving in the army, Middleton got his first promotion, to corporal. Promotions came very slowly, and occurred only when a position was vacated by someone else getting promoted or retiring. Shortly after his promotion on 10 June 1912, Corporal Middleton was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he would have a chance to compete for an army commission. Here Middleton attended an intensive training course to prepare for the written examination required for a second lieutenant's commission. Of the 300 civilians and enlisted men who took the exam, 56 of them passed and were