Crippled by Vietnam, the non-commissioned officer corps had hit bottom — despite a cadre of stalwarts who would not give up. Officers ranged from the shoulder-shruggers to the grimly determined. The barracks were pits. Soldiers made their own survival rules — for example, hashish was OK, but no junkies were allowed on our barracks floor.

Then there were the drunks. Of all ranks. And the overweight and out of shape. As well as good men simply worn out by a long, bitter war.

Had "the balloon gone up," our Infantry would have entered battle in death-trap M113s that were no match for Soviet infantry combat vehicles. Our tanks couldn't rival the firepower of the new Russian models. Our radios were unreliable and the antique encryption devices rarely worked.

Our war games weren't about winning but about losing as slowly as possible. We always had to resort to nukes in the end.

Our nation had ended the draft and transitioned to an all-volunteer military. But the pay remained at draftee levels. As a sergeant living in an unheated attic apartment, I had no phone and no car.

Once, while we were out on maneuvers, President Carter's secretary of the Army came to visit. He flew in by helicopter, pretended to eat our field rations, spoke to no enlisted troops or junior officers and left. We didn't exactly feel valued.

Then came Ronald Reagan.

Yes, he raised Defense budgets dramatically. And the money mattered. But the increased funding and higher pay wouldn't have made a decisive difference without the sense that we had a real leader in the White House again. The man in the Oval Office genuinely admired the men and women who served. When he saluted his Marine guards, he meant it. The troops could tell.

I attended Officer Candidate School in Georgia during the 1980 presidential election. When I returned to Germany in late 1981, the change in the quality and morale of the "dirty boots" Army was already unmistakable. Even before the new equipment began arriving, the Army was regaining its fighting spirit.

We still had some bad apples — but fewer with every infusion of new, better-educated recruits. Officers were held to ever-higher standards. The young sergeants coming up had an energy and optimism that had been missing for years, while the senior NCOs who lasted were the toughest and best of them all. And our new generals, men who had commanded battalions and brigades in Vietnam, had learned the right lessons.

New gear began to arrive. Training budgets increased. We even replaced our janitor-style uniforms with camouflage fatigues. We looked like soldiers again.

We had a president who cared about us, a man who was proud of us and proud of the country we were pledged to defend. He even understood the power of uniforms and would not enter the Oval Office himself unless wearing a tie.

President Reagan made mistakes. He was human. The intervention in Lebanon ended badly with our precipitous withdrawal after the Marine-barracks bombing. That decision sent a message to the nascent forces of terror that we had no stomach left for a serious fight. The Iran-Contra scandal, although not the debacle the president's detractors tried to make it, was an example of thinking tactically, not strategically. Too much money went into gold-plated weapons systems that never earned their keep.

Yet these were minor matters compared to the fact that this man — this single, remarkable visionary — brought us two world-changing insights: America's greatness remained undiminished, and the Cold War wasn't eternal.

Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union. After all the academic arguments about the USSR's internal weakness and the inevitability of its ultimate failure, the truth is that none of those who speak so knowingly now had the strategic insight of an aging former actor when it mattered.

Which brings me to my confession. Having grown up in the late '60s and early '70s, I carried some of my generation's prejudices along with me into the Army. While I realized that Jimmy Carter had been an inept president (if a good man), I didn't support Ronald Reagan in 1980. I believed that Carter remained the safer of two mediocrities. I bought into the bigotry of those who mocked Reagan as lacking the intelligence to be president.

And it's doubtless true that he didn't possess the highest IQ ever to enter the White House. That goes directly to what Reagan taught me: As we recently saw with another president, the greatest intelligence isn't a substitute for vision, courage and leadership. Above all, a president needs good instincts, guts and sound values. The world's overstocked with brilliant people who never get anything done.

Reagan got things done.

He gave us the military that serves the cause of freedom so well today. He gave us back our pride. And he gave us back our country.

Like Abraham Lincoln, another self-made mid-Westerner mocked by the elites at home and abroad, Reagan's greatness transcended conventional measure. Despite the current outpouring of love and admiration, we have not yet lived long enough to comprehend his full achievement. He was the first among Americans of our time.

If that wasn't clear from the campus, it was obvious to those of us in the mud on the frontiers of freedom.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."