In a 1987 profile on Churchill , the Denver Post reported that he was drafted , went to paratrooper school , then volunteered for Vietnam , where he served a 10 @-@ month tour as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol ( LRRP ) , one of a six @-@ man team sent out to track down the enemy . The Post article also reported that Churchill was politically radicalized as a result of his experiences in Vietnam . Churchill told the Post that he had spent some time at the Chicago office of the Students for a Democratic Society ( SDS ) in the late 1960s , and briefly taught members of the Weather Underground how to build bombs and fire weapons .