Soldier Boy by Timothy James Bazzett

From the Product Description:

In 1962 when Tim Bazzett graduated from high school he'd had enough of academia and classroom drudgery, so he joined the army - and received an education he'd never imagined. Perhaps one of the most unlikely and inept citizen-soldiers since Gomer Pyle, Tim somehow survives the terrors and tribulations of basic training at "Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, Misery," and after further training in the mysteries of Morse code in Massachusetts and Maryland, the small-town innocent is launched overseas and into the larger world. In northern Turkey he finds himself a link in the outermost defenses of America during a Cold War he only imperfectly understands.