2
AS I ENTERED INTO THE ARMY INFANTRY Basic Training Program in 1951 I was exactly where I wanted to be even though I, like some of my buddies, had definite rough spots on us when it came to adapting to the military way. We did not always see eye-to-eye with our non-commissioned cadre. The one ingredient, however, that was not lacking from my thinking at the time was motivation. Even more, I wanted to excel in “basic” and then go on to other more challenging assignments—particularly airborne (parachute) training.
As we settled into our routine, I quickly learned that it was unwise to inform my fellow trainees that I had enlisted in the Army. Having enlisted was an invitation to ridicule, and my somewhat frail self-concept could not deal with too much joshing around at the time. Most of the men in basic training had actually been drafted into the service and were very disgruntled and un-motivated. They hated everything the Army stood for. Most of the recruits were older, in their twenties, and many had college degrees. Several draftees in the training company even had Ph.Ds. and would have rather been elsewhere other than in Army basic training learning about such things as the Garand M-1 rifle and night compass reading.
I quickly learned that “liking the Army” was invitation for becoming the butt of jokes. I actually had to learn to bitch about things that happened in order not to appear out of step with my buddies. Enlisted men had a derogatory term applied to them, they were called “RAs,” a term that was referred to as “Regular Army.” Army serial numbers for enlisted men were of two types, those beginning with the letters “RA” denoting regular Army for enlistees and those beginning with “US” for men who were drafted. Draftees had every right to bitch and complain while RAs, so the belief went, deserved none of those privileges because they were stupid enough to enlist therefore they deserved what the Army handed them…and more.
Of course, the military had ways of inciting anyone and everyone to the great act of griping because “the Army way” usually meant extracting a bit more pain or inconvenience out of the troops than was actually called for by the circumstances. The Army seemed inefficient beyond imagination, for example, the way the military organized outings. The Division Commander might want a march to begin by 8:30 A.M., which most of us agreed is a civilized hour. The Regimental Commander, in order to arrive at this time, would order the call-up to be at 7:30 A.M. Next, the Battalion Commander, fearing SNAFUS (military slang for “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up”), would set the call-up for 6:00 A.M. Finally, the Company Commander, knowing that the troops needed to be fed, had police call (the necessity for soldiers to line up, bend over, and pick up everything that doesn’t move in a radius of several hundred yards around the company area) would modify the call-up to be at 4:30 A.M. Every soldier knows the result of military logic to be “Hurry up and wait.”
SGT. SCARFACE AND HIS IMPACT ON CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Usually a grizzled combat veteran headed up each platoon in the training command at Indiantown Gap. Our sergeant was well suited for the job of shaping raw recruits. He was one of the toughest looking people I have ever met, although most of us recruits were afraid to actually look him in the face. Scuttlebutt had it that he received his horrible facial wounds either during the Second World War or in Korea. No one dared to inquire directly about how he got disfigured, because, in addition to looking mean, he was generally mean spirited in all of his interactions. Everyone referred to him (behind his back, of course) as Sgt. Scarface.
Sgt. Scarface was medium in height, athletically built, and had a flat top military-style hair cut. He never smiled, although some guys on the front rank one day thought they detected a tiny little smile on his lips. However, he was not being soft or friendly at all and as they shortly found out that it was simply because he had just passed gas! His manner and appearance defied anyone from commenting or looking displeased about it.
Sergeant Scarface and the noncoms were away from the barracks for the day (I thought) and there were only a few guys sitting around writing letters. It was very quiet and I was feeling sort of bored so I decided to have a bit of fun at the expense of the others. I was usually a well intentioned but certainly not a perfect soldier. The situation that followed was not one of my better moments for good judgment; in fact, it was a judgment error that I would regret for weeks to come. In order to see how quickly people could react, I stood at the top stoop to the front doorway of the barracks and loudly yelled into the room, “Fire! Fire!
I chuckled as the loungers all jumped to their feet and tumbled down the steps toward the company street and moved sharply away from the building that they assumed was burning. They waited; I watched their surprised expressions with some momentary enjoyment.
As I was enjoying my little prank, out of the barracks door in a frenzied rush, came a half-dressed Sgt. Scarface. I was astonished to see him as he burst open the door, accidentally tripped on the top step, and fell unceremoniously on his face (as one recruit described it later “ass over elbows”) into the dust of the company street below.
A hush came over the troops as the flustered non-com looked around to see that everyone got out of the “burning” building. He stood, brushed himself off, and then took stock of the situation. After a brief period, he realized that there was no fire and began an impromptu investigation into the circumstances of the unauthorized drill. He hurriedly formed the platoon remnants and in a somewhat angry tone of voice yelled, “Attention!” And he certainly held our attention with some characteristically unauthorized language.
Then he asked, “Who yelled fire?”
The ranks were silent as though nothing had happened.
“Well, speak up!” he screamed.
Then he blurted “Eh! You won’t say then! Then By God it’s time for some good old collective punishment!”
As he was about to call forward all of the collective wrath of all sergeants past and present against the whole platoon, I decided that I had better confess to the deed and face the punishment or else I would be ostracized for life. I timidly stepped forward and confessed, “I yelled fire, Sergeant.”
He marched in rigid military fashion over to where I stood at attention. He glared at me in disbelief. I was not feeling very comfortable at first; and my mouth became quite dry as I found myself staring deeply into his mouth at the spit oozing from it as he yelled various random obscenities. His yelling made the cumulative scars of battle appear more pronounced as his jaw wagged endlessly—yelling words and invectives that I do not remember.
Everyone else in the ranks was dismissed back to their pleasurable evening of relaxation while Sgt. Scarface and I got to know each other better—he yelling and me reflecting on my considerable inadequacies. After a time he marched me to the company supply room and showed me a rather large wooden box filled with Army pistols, not spiffy clean Army pistols, but dirty, grimy, cosmoline smothered pistols. He described in some detail how my new off-duty hour routine would consist of reporting to this box and cleaning these weapons until they passed a “white glove inspection.” Many hours were subsequently whiled away in this fashion. To this day I can field strip and put back together a U.S. Army .45 caliber pistol blindfolded in short order.
Periodically, and for the remaining weeks of basic training, Sgt. Scarface kept this event in memory and would frequently turn his attention to me. For example, when the platoon would be standing at parade rest awaiting a new activity, he would remember his embarrassment in stumbling down those steps and point angrily to me and yell: “You, soldier, double time! In place, double time HO!”
Difficult times pass. In spite of my occasional persecution by the cadre, I found myself actually enjoying basic training as the course proceeded. I was determined to get through this damn hurdle called “basic hell” so that I could get on with the rest of my Army career.
****
My situation steadily improved as I learned my lessons and I even had a fleeting fantasy, from time to time, of getting through the program with distinction (even though my little escapade with the fire drill pretty well deterred any kind of honorable mention in the final basic grading). I began to think about the next challenge—airborne training. But, first I had to get accepted into the airborne training program, a task which, we were told by Sgt. Scarface, would not be possible unless we were tough “sonza bitches,” which he doubted.
We were told that the PT (physical training) exam was to be held in a few weeks and that the airborne physical was more grueling than the exam that was required to successfully pass basic training. So, a few of us eager airborne hopefuls began to prepare for the big airborne PT test by doing extra exercise sessions. At the end of the long training day, that sometimes included long marches with full field packs, we would fall out on our own and do additional physical training (fortunately all of the pistols were by then cleaned).
Gary and I were pretty steady with this small group of regular Army volunteers. I felt that it was necessary because I was not exactly built like the sturdy, muscular paratroopers that are depicted on the recruiting posters, given that I weighed only about 150 pounds (soaking wet)—somewhat slim for my six-foot height. The extra PT drill we put ourselves through may not have done much to assure that we would pass the airborne fitness test but one thing was assured—there was not an ounce of fat on my bones. (Of course, there hadn’t been an ounce of fat on my bones since I was six months old!)
Regardless of the amount of will and sheer determination that spirits can muster, the human body has limits. The military has a flexible and shifting view of what those human limits are and the role of the non-commissioned officer is to find the breaking point—then stop just short of that in their demands on trainees. The plan doesn’t always work that way in reality. On one of those long marches designed to test our psychic mettle and physical back strength, our sergeant attempted to turn me into a pack mule with equipment weighing nearly as much as I did. My back was insufficient for the task and the next morning I couldn’t stand erect. I was sent to the Battalion Medical Dispensary for “sick call.” I was very reluctant to follow this course because I did not want to be seen as a laggard but I had few options; I was hurting too much to make the duty formation.
My first experience with Army sick call was not optimal—at least from the perspective of one who was experiencing great pain. After a rather long wait with other “suspected laggards” I was sent to see a medic, not a physician. Without a word he watched my awkward and strangely bent entrance into the examination room and nodded in a sage manner. He appeared to have an intuitive understanding of my problem. He reached on his shelf and pulled down two medicines—one a white bottle of APC tablets (better known as aspirin) and the other a reddish-brown liquid, which was referred to by one of my buddies as “horse piss.” This was a fiery designed to quell the desire to report pain in man, if not actually cure the problem. Rumor had it that the red-orange liquid is also used on the backsides of Army horses to promote docility, enhance speed to satisfy man’s determination, and to infuse the desire to carry heavy loads. I avoided sick call whenever possible after that. Thanks to a quiet weekend and the opportunity to lie on the barracks floor for long periods of time I was able to return to duty on Monday (though with the remnants of pain) in my company and not be “sent back” in training to another company. For decades hence this back problem has resurfaced from time to time as a reminder, through returning pain, that I am not well built for equestrian pursuits.
THE DUAL CHALLENGE
I wanted to make a strong finish to my basic training with a couple of major tasks that the Army used to “weed out” the unfit: one was the infiltration course often referred to euphemistically as the “confidence course”; the second was the thirty-mile forced march with full field packs. These were the crown jewels of Indiantown Gap basic training. It was important to finish them in strong fashion.
One of the highlights of basic training or, depending upon one’s perspective, one of the most horrendous hurdles to get through was the so called confidence course, aka as the infiltration course. This course allowed the basic trainee to put together a number of elements of his training involving crawling through difficult terrain, much of it under low barbed wire while live machine gun bullets whizzed about overhead. This course required a great deal of physical stamina plus a willingness to move forward with explosive charges going off around us and machine gun bullets whizzing a short distance overhead. Gary and I decided that we would be first to finish the course even if we had to stand up to run the thing. A little competitiveness went a long way and our trek through the course went as planned and we were the first through—needless to say it probably was as much the result of the draftees lack of motivation to do the course as it was our abilities to handle the grueling course. We didn’t care—we finished tied for first anyway and that was all that mattered. With the infiltration course out of the way, our training course took a nicer turn and we felt that we were on the last lap of basic training.
The final big hurdle for recruits in this basic training program was a thirty-mile march with full field packs up into the Blue Mountain. We all looked at this trek with some trepidation because of the tales told about the experience from other recruits who were ahead of us. The day before the grand march my turn came up to have “dental call” and the dentist promptly removed all of my wisdom teeth and returned me to duty.
The next morning the march began on time. The pace was swift and the loads heavy. We marched throughout the day and began our climb up the Blue Mountain in the afternoon. My teeth, or rather the packing where my teeth had been, had given me a lot of trouble throughout the march but became worse as we began our climb up the mountain. By nightfall I was in great pain and was having a lot of bleeding from the gums. I did not say anything to anyone about my problem because I wanted to finish the march so as not to be sent back in basic training.
By the time we finally arrived at our bivouac area, cut the brush, and pitched our tents I was in considerable misery. I slept very little that night but still kept quiet to the non-coms about my problem. In the morning my tent mate, against my protests, went to the captain and informed him of my condition. The company commander expressed genuine concern over my condition and ordered me to ride back to camp on the chow truck. I was discouraged about not completing the march because I thought it might be taken as “dropping out.” No one said a disparaging or joking comment to me about getting out of the last part of the march. Secretly, I was pretty relieved that I did not have to make the march back—I was feeling weak and miserable.
We were given a pass into town with our completion of this major hurdle in basic. Even I, who had wimped out on the last lap of the march, received the honor of the basic “success” pass. Our mood was running high and this was our first opportunity to go to town as soldiers since we had left our civilian days.
A TASTE OF AMERICA IN THE 1950S
The society I grew up in was racially segregated. African American soldiers primarily served in “All Negro Units” during World War II. In January 1948, President Truman decided to integrate the military through executive order (Truman Library, 2012). MacGregor (1981) described the resistance by senior officials and their predictions that racial conflict would occur at large U.S. military bases if integration were implemented. However, other senior officers like Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins, thought otherwise and, given the situation in Korea, argued that a segregated army was militarily inefficient. As MacGregor (1981) explained, gradual integration occurred because local commanders found it necessary. Commanders of the nine training divisions in the continental U.S. realized it was impractical to maintain separate white and black training units. I got to basic training about two months after the Defense Department’s March 1951 announcement that all basic training units were no longer segregated.
During my basic training at Indiantown Gap we encountered no problems among racial groups. We got along well, mixed well, and seemed largely to have a common enemy—the non-coms like Sgt. Scarface that treated all of us with equal disdain. My experiences were not uncommon. According to MacGregor (1981), no racial incidents were reported during the conversion to integrated basic training. Furthermore, my experiences working with African Americans in basic training (three out of seventeen in our platoon were African-American) influenced me for the rest of my life. I developed low tolerance for people who discriminated against others based on race.
One evening our platoon received a pass to go into Harrisburg. One of my buddies and I decided to go into town and invited another good friend, an African-American, along. We wandered into a beer joint, stepped up to the bar, ordered three beers, and laid down our money. The bartender, looking somewhat dismayed, took one look at us and brought back only two glasses of beer. He said, “Boys, I’ll serve you but I am not serving a darkie. I’m not going to encourage them to come here!”
We were angered at this treatment, not expecting it in a northern state. My friend and I looked at each other and without speaking a word in agreement we simply tipped our glasses upside down on the bar and walked out with our arm around our friend. We found ourselves another bar where the three of us were served.
Of course, the problem with discrimination against some of our buddies was not as great in Pennsylvania as in Georgia where some of us went to jump school. One of the most disgusting and surprising things that I noticed when I arrived in Georgia on my way to Fort Benning were the numerous “Whites Only” signs that were located at bus and train stations. This was the first time I saw such blatant discrimination. My Army buddies thought that our country had no place for such bigotry. We would have completely endorsed General Ridgeway’s conclusion described by MacGregor in 1981: “…it has always seemed to me both un-American and un-Christian for free citizens to be taught to downgrade themselves this way as if they were unfit to associate with their fellows or to accept leadership themselves.”
Despite the success with changes in basic training, desegregation of units in Korea was much more gradual and still ongoing by the time I got there in October 1952. The Eighth Army, confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing surplus of black replacements, quietly began assigning African American soldiers to understrength white units, just as they had already been doing with South Korean soldiers. General Ridgeway officially requested that the Army allow him to integrate African-American soldiers into units under his command in Korea in April 1951 (McGregor, 1981). However, it was only after the end of the Korean War that the Army announced that 95% of African-American soldiers were serving in integrated units (Truman Library, 2012).
ARMY JUMP SCHOOL
Infantry basic training tends to have variable effects on its victims. Some who are repelled by the experience tend to conclude that for the remainder of their lives “they will not walk any further than the corner pub or carry anything heavier than a six pack of beer” while others thrive on the situation. It was clear, however, that graduation from basic was a great day for all of us in the training command; even the draftees seemed to feel proud of their accomplishment during the sixteen-week infantry basic training program. Everyone, even the draftees, stood a bit taller than they did at the beginning of the program. Toward the last days of basic training rumor had it that all of the duty assignments were posted at the company orderly room bulletin board. I dropped what I was doing and ran to the company bulletin board to read the posting. I waited my turn to get my assignment and to find out whether I had made it into airborne training. I had. Others in my group were less ecstatic on finding out that they were on their way to Korea. One of the most sullen and vocal Ph.D.s in our command, one who was usually razzing the RAs, found himself on his way to Alaska.
Getting into jump school was a lot easier than getting through it. The airborne physical education program was extremely grueling—especially doing the entire PT in the hot Georgia sun in the summer. Fitness was, and still is, considered to be the sine qua non of airborne training. Physical strength and endurance were the themes running through the program whether it was getting to the mess hall or receiving indoctrination on the various elements of a jump. It was running, push-ups, and other harsh muscle building exercises. Most of us hurt in places we did not know we had throughout the course. A number of trainees failed to make it through because of the long runs and the grueling exercises. Most of the people who dropped out or were eliminated from the jump school program were excluded because of their failure in the physical training. Our “extra” PT sessions in basic training probably served us well in conditioning us for the airborne course.
The airborne training cadre was fully as aggressive and demeaning to the trainees as those in basic training. One day one of the picky corporals was jogging along with the other cadre to the front of their respective formations and, as on other days, hurdled over the wire fence as they usually did in a showy manner. This time, however, he failed to make the leap successfully, and fell flat on his face.
A few of us (perhaps those of us who learned our discipline from the Three Stooges movies) thinking this was very funny, laughed aloud. The corporal did not appreciate our finding such enjoyment at his expense and loudly requested that we step forward and remove sawdust from the pit a mouthful at a time (“No hands soldier!”) and carry it over to the next one. This accomplished, we were then told to move another mouthful of sawdust from pit number two back to the original pit. Our mouths, already dry from the hot Georgia sun, now had a horrible, rotten, wooden taste. We took all of this harassment in stride; we did, however, carefully note for future reference that corporals do not have much of a sense of humor.
Some people, of course, dropped out when it came time to leap from a perfectly good airplane into the Georgia sky 1,200 feet above mother earth. Each element in the training program was designed to acclimate the trainee to some phase of the parachute jump, whether it was the physical exercises, the PLFs (parachute landing falls), the thirty-four-foot tower (where door exiting procedures were perfected), or the 250-foot free fall tower where we practiced and mastered descent and landing procedures. All of these elements were honed to perfection so that the actual jumps were simply a routine culmination of the disparate skills that had by the time of the first jump become routine.
The actual parachute jumps were the easiest part of the program, once one made the first step into space; however, some of our fellows were disqualified because they froze in the door. The five training jumps went smoothly and those who remained at the end of jump week earned the coveted “jump wings” of the airborne corps.
The successful completion of jump school included an obligatory visit to one of the most decadent cities in the United States: Phoenix City, Alabama, better known as “Sin City, U. S. A.,” across the river from Columbus, Georgia and near Fort Benning. Phoenix City held a special attraction for soldiers—especially those who had just completed jump school and were “feeling their oats.”
It was obligatory for new jumpers to spend their well-deserved pass in Phoenix City. If one happened to get into a fracas of some sort then the more deserving they would be of the honor to wear the prized jump wings—symbol of toughness—at least as young jumpers were led to believe. If the jumper survived a night on the town then one’s final placement in an airborne division was supposed to be a snap.
After we got dressed for our visit we strolled by the Company Headquarters to read the listing of “Off Limits” places where a GI would get arrested just for walking into the joint. We read the list and discovered the most vile and wicked of places was called “Carlton’s Fish Camp.” The notice read Strictly Off Limits! This was exactly the kind of place we had in mind. (The “Off limits” designation was where adventuresome GIs looked to find places where people tended to have fun. We had heard about this establishment as a “place to drink, carouse, and gamble.”)
As it turned out, Carlton’s Fish Camp was somewhat of a bust. It was pretty tame and we left after dropping ten bucks in a dice game that was likely rigged. The town of Phoenix City did not have a great deal of excitement for us that evening so we returned to camp feeling somewhat disappointed that we had not raised much of a fuss in town and pondered whether we really deserved to be called paratroopers.
****
For my permanent duty assignment I drew the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was excited about this assignment to the famed 82nd—to which I would report after my five-day furlough. This would be my first visit home since I had enlisted and I looked forward to my return—this time as a soldier. Very different, I thought, than when I left more than six months before. I felt as though I was a different person than when I left and it was a good feeling walking around my home town in the uniform of an Army paratrooper. Even though, underneath, I was not much different than when I left, my appearance was certainly different. I found that going to bars and taverns was a much more exciting and rewarding experience—lots of free drinks and plenty of friendly up-beat conversation. And, it seemed that if one put an airborne soldier’s uniform on a fire hydrant it would attract young ladies. What a fantastic transition in just six short months!
LIFE IN THE 82ND AIRBORNE
My assignment in the 82nd Airborne was initially somewhat disappointing. In point of fact I was pretty discouraged with the unit to which I was assigned—the Quartermaster Corps—destined to become a parachute rigger, that is, the person who packed parachutes as a full time job. I was slated to remain at Ft. Bragg for only a few weeks then I would be sent to another facility to attend a three-month Parachute Rigging School; this I was told was because of my test scores on the Army entrance examinations that I had taken at Ft. Meade.
When I reported for duty in the Rigging Company I found it to be a pretty plush facility compared with all of the other duty stations I had been in since my enlistment. The barracks to which I was assigned had two-man, semi-private rooms instead of the large squad rooms, and the guys actually had them fixed up pretty nicely, even with non-military style decorations! The company size mess hall was homey and actually had a jukebox that seemed to play constantly. The one song that was most popular at the time and seemed to get the greatest play was a tune called “Slow Poke,” by Pee Wee King. This seemed to me to be an apt theme song for this outfit and one that was a bit too tame for my liking.
As I was being briefed on other aspects of the assignment, I was informed as to how lucky I was to be assigned to the Parachute Riggers for several reasons:
• No field duty
• All work was 8:00-4:30; no night problems.
• No KP—parachute riggers were too well trained and possessed very vital skills to waste on KP. Such routine duty was performed by lesser troops.
• No harassment from the officers and NCOs because everyone was treated as a valued employee.
This outfit sounded too good to be true but I was assured by guys in the company that it was a great place to be. Why then was I not happy with this assignment? Why did I request a transfer to the infantry? I told the First Sergeant that I was not really unhappy with the riggers but that I simply had enlisted in the Army in order to be in the airborne infantry. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing but agreed to process my request nevertheless. But, if I turned out to be unhappy there (as I surely would, he surmised) I would not be able to return to the Quartermaster Corps. I acknowledged my understanding but I assured him that I still wanted to transfer to the infantry. He wished me luck and signed my transfer.
A few days later the 325th Infantry Regiment sent a jeep for me and a soldier who was also being sent to an infantry line company. An Italian-American named Mazzetti, who was sporting a black eye and seemed to me to be a bit subdued, also awaited the transport to the 325th. Mazzetti was a “straightleg” or “leg,” which is a somewhat derogatory term referring to a soldier who has not completed airborne school and is not authorized to wear bloused boots, that is, must wear their pants straight. From time to time some legs get temporarily assigned to airborne units in order to fill slots if the unit is under strength. Some then go on to jump school. Others, like Mazzetti, just drift through their assignment without a desire to qualify. They usually end up in a regular infantry outfit somewhere.
We tossed our gear in the jeep and headed out to our new company; I, at least, with enthusiasm. As we drove along, Mazzetti was uncommunicative and I was in a good mood; I tried to talk to him but he was sullen and withdrawn. Finally, after we got near the 325th Regimental Area, he asked me, “What did you do wrong back there to get sent down to the goddam infantry?”
“I requested to be assigned there,” I said.
“Are you crazy? You are going to be sorry for that! Those bastards there are going to kill us!”
I found out later that Mazzetti had gotten into some trouble in the Rigging Company and was sent to the infantry as punishment (of course, only after he had been punched out by one of the people in the company) because he had been caught stealing from the other guys.
After getting my platoon assignment and bunk in the 325th Infantry Regiment I began my life as a parachute infantryman. The company to which I was assigned was an elite one and had great NCOs—men who had experienced considerable combat in the Second World War and who knew well what they were doing. Sgt. Wolf, a soft-spoken yet firm individual, had been in one of the infantry battalions in the first wave of troops during the Normandy invasion. He seemed to be very knowledgeable about handling troops and was well liked and respected by the guys in the platoon. I was excited about the duty and enjoyed the activities, believing that I could learn a great deal from this organization.
For the next few months, we made frequent training jumps and engaged in a lot of field problems. In some ways it was a continuation of basic training except that everyone knew what they were doing. It was, of course, somewhat repetitive. We ran, did PT, ran, did more PT, and then ran some more. A basic rule in an airborne infantry division is that everyone runs everywhere you go if you are outdoors. No slouching, no walking. Any infraction such as an unbuttoned shirt or dusty boots would result in punishment that always involved knocking out pushups—usually fifteen.
I loved this life—the feeling of involvement with something worthwhile and enjoyable. That is, except for those times when I might have been the target of some practical joke or mis- directed energies. For example, from another guy’s misfortune, I learned to sleep with my boots under my pillow on those nights when some guys went to the PX beer hall and came in late looking for a place in which to urinate.
After a few months in the 325th Regiment, my desire to experience a broader and more exciting military career began to get to me as I settled into barracks life in the airborne in a division that was considered to be the “Honor Guard” of America and not one likely to be sent overseas. This outfit was a “dress rehearsal” or “show and tell” division but the “spit and polish” was a bit much. There were frequent inspections to assure that we had our gear clean and tidy and, of course, laid out properly in a military fashion. Inspections were very serious business in the 82nd.
One day we were having an Inspector General’s review of the barracks that we were told had to be passed with flying colors in order for us to receive our promised weekend passes. One of our guys, Jim Jude (another West Virginian), was a friendly, sociable, fun loving guy who might be found on either end of a good natured practical joke. This particular time he was the recipient of an evil deed that caused the whole platoon to lose their weekend passes. Just seconds before the General was scheduled to inspect our barracks someone slipped a piece of paper in Jude’s mess kit that was otherwise laid out neatly on the bed as prescribed by protocol. As the General entered the room and the platoon leader yelled the obligatory, “Attention!” the whole room full of sharply dressed soldiers snapped to in preparation for the review.
As the General began his inspection, he made very sharp military style movements down the line of troops, occasionally stopping to look closely at items on a trooper’s bunk to assure that they were evenly placed, neat, and of course according to regulation. Three bunks down the row he stopped in front of Jude’s bunk and noticed something sticking out of the mess kit. He picked it up, saying, “What’s this? A piece of hamburger? What the...?”
He unwrapped the note that read, “Fuck you, the Phantom strikes again!”
The General snapped to attention, did an abrupt about face, and hurriedly left the room. His face showed a considerable amount of redness with the veins in his neck protruding in an unmilitary fashion. It was quiet in the squad room except for some muffled chuckles; outside the room voices were dismayed and loud.
Any survey taken during our two-week long restriction to barracks would likely have found great satisfaction in the prank even though no one liked the outcome. It seemed a small price to pay for the slight crack in the spit and shine of the 82nd Airborne routine.
After a time in the 82nd things became so routine that there seemed little challenge. The training jumps were usually interesting and fun but the most dangerous activities we encountered in the 82nd at this time involved the risky social lives of the troops. One dangerous sport involved going to the Enlisted Men’s Club where pent up energies, lots of alcohol, and young macho aggressiveness often erupted in physical free-for-alls. I have a vivid memory of sitting with three friends when, out of the blue, one of them used his fist to smash in the nose of the guy sitting across from him. It was eye opening to see the loss of control in someone who was typically pleasant and passive. This gathering ended abruptly with a trek to the medic.
Another break in routine was to going to “Fatalburg,” the GIs slang term for Fayetteville, NC. There was a notorious bar in Fayetteville called The Towne Pumpe with a bawdy floorshow consisting of five scantily clad obese women who danced demonstratively on a center circular bar. The other attraction was a bevy of prostitutes who openly described the sex acts they could perform. Although this popular watering hole was off limits for the 82nd Airborne Division, GIs regularly frequented it, so, of course, I had to go. Shortly into my visit with a couple of buddies, the M.P.’s conducted one of their periodic raids to scare away the clientele. As whistles were blowing, we could hear voices in the front of the bar yelling, “This is a raid! Everyone out in the street! Fall in!”
At the same time, other excited people inside the bar were shouting, “MPs! MPs! Beat it!”
I hurriedly ran to the back of the bar, accidentally bumping into one of the dancers on the way. We were both laughing hysterically. I cautiously crawled through the bathroom window into an alley and found myself a safe place to stand, out of the hustle and bustle in front of the bar, across the street where I could watch the raid progress from a distance. I remember commenting to other bystanders, some of whom had also been inside, “I think it’s a shame that 82nd Airborne soldiers—America’s Honor Guard—would go into such a dive!”
That turned out to be my first and only visit to The Towne Pump. Upon sober reflection, and at the ripe age of seventeen, I concluded it wasn’t worth risking my Army career for something that really wasn’t that much fun after all. Apparently, the off limits designation, M.P. raids, limited off duty time, and watching others behaving foolishly or violently did have an effect on some of us.
I enjoyed serving with the guys in the 325th and always felt a sense of camaraderie, even at times when I would rather have been left alone. One night we were on a field exercise and one of the guys had somehow wandered into town and come back late at night to where our tents were pitched. I was sleeping soundly when all of a sudden I felt my sleeping bag being dragged from the tent. I rubbed my eyes and found myself staring at Jude leaning over me with a quart fruit jar filled with “white lightening,” a homemade, illegal corn whiskey sold on the sly. Thinking that it would taste like turpentine I declined the offer. He was uproariously drunk and kept laughing, saying, as he held the potent substance over my head, “In you or on you, b’God. In you or on you!”
I made some appearance of drinking the stuff at least enough for Jude to satisfy himself that I had cooperated and went off and find another reluctant drinker to roust out of bed.
A SOLDIER’S LIFE CAN BE A DOG’S LIFE: WE GOT “RUN OUT OF TOWN”
Soldiers are not always desirable company; in fact, they are sometimes viewed as very unsavory characters. And, if the truth were known, we were certainly open to trouble though not particularly courting it. One spring day two other troopers from our outfit and I decided that we were tiring a bit of going down to “Fatalburg” and drinking beer until we couldn’t see straight and we were tired of hanging out in places with so many troopers around, so we decided that we would give ourselves a geography lesson and learn a little about the great state of North Carolina. We decided to go on a weekend pass to the City of Charlotte, some distance away in the western end of the state.
Charlotte was not a soldier’s town and no one that we knew had ever ventured there on pass; it was simply too far a journey for guys who were out for immediate fun. Stopping at a friendly appearing tavern on the outskirts of town we started in on our partying at the first watering hole we could locate. We thought we could ask directions and get information about the “hot spots” in town from the folks in the tavern but we couldn’t get much out of the bartenders so we stuck around there until the evening wore on.
This seemed like a pretty good spot and there were a lot of women drifting in and out so we settled in for the duration. Late in the evening as we were getting comfortable in the place, and a bit loud as I recall, our table got jostled accidentally by a good looking but quite drunk woman and a man leaving the dance floor. We were simply going to ignore the incident until the woman turned to one of our guys and dumped the glass of beer she was carrying on his head—all the while laughing in a somewhat hysterical manner trying to pull the chair out from under the other trooper. I watched in amazement as the events began to unfold until I, too, got into the fracas. In a flash we found ourselves surrounded by a pack of local ruffians who were now set on clearing their town of solder riffraff as we were referred to. After a few minutes of scuffling around, a police squad came on the scene and broke up the engagement well before much damage was done to anyone or property. Only we solders were hauled outside. The civilian perpetrators were allowed to continue their fun.
As the police sergeant, a balding chubby, red faced man with a rather gruff personal style, and his cohorts were about to drag us into the station the bartender from the tavern came to our rescue and explained to the officers that we had pretty much been drawn into the situation and that he did not think our actions warranted our being arrested. The policeman thought for a moment, looked us over, and pointed to the highway back toward Ft. Bragg and said, “See here! You fellas get out of town while the gettin’ is good! Don’t ever come back to Charlotte again! And tell all your buddies if they know what’s good for them stay out of Charlotte. This aint no solder’s town!”
We happily left town, vowing to ourselves never to return to that “Hick Place.” After we drove a few miles down the road we stopped the car and slept until morning, a most uncomfortable sleep. It was good to get back home, back to the barracks with a comfortable cot to sleep on, back to “Fatalburg,” a town with many blemishes but one that knew the value of being a soldier’s town.
FROM QUIET VOLUNTEERING TO POLITICAL INFLUENCE
It was a lot of fun being in the 82nd Airborne. Although I enjoyed the comradeship of an airborne infantry line company after I had effected my transfer from the Parachute Rigging Company I was, nevertheless, somewhat bored with stateside duty and wanted to serve overseas, preferably in a combat unit; obviously this would not be with the 82nd Airborne. I then began to submit my parade of transfer requests. Each week I went into the First Sergeant’s office and requested that I be transferred to a combat unit in Korea. Each week Top Sergeant Swedish, a gruff but very well liked older soldier, told me that our company was under strength and, because I was parachute qualified and was government property, I would remain with the unit. (Sergeant Swedish was an interesting and colorful soldier in that during the time that I was there he set the record for the number of parachute jumps in a single day, something like 120.) Undaunted, I continued my overseas transfer requests for several months.
In the spring of 1952, the entire 82nd Airborne Division was detached to the state of Texas for a grand military maneuver that was dubbed “Operation Longhorn.” We rode all the way from Ft. Bragg North Carolina to Lomita, Texas by Army convoy—a trip that lasted many days (since we traveled at only thirty-five miles per hour). The trucks drove about twelve hours a day and each day the cooks provided us a packed lunch of one cheese and one baloney sandwich (dry, without any dressing) and a carton of milk.
The trip was interesting, with lots of scenery, although traveling hundreds of miles sitting on the wooden seats of an Army two-and-a-half-ton truck was sometimes uncomfortable and very hard on the posterior. One interesting aspect of this trip was driving through the little towns along the way with people watching us by the side of the road. Occasionally, when we were stopped, we’d see pretty girls along the way and invariably someone would strike up a serious conversation with one of them.
One of my best buddies at the time, a Ukrainian fellow named Taras Zacharco, even made a date with one woman through a note that he wrote to her and threw alongside her feet tied to a rock. She threw back her phone number. Another friend, Jude, bought a puppy from one of the bystanders along the road. The puppy became a platoon mascot for a while until it soon became ostracized because it had the bad habit of urinating on one’s lap. Periodic yells from troopers could be heard, “Great pails of puppy pee, Jude, take this damn dog!”
Another interesting part of the drive down to Texas involved the periodic bathroom stops better known in the Army as “piss calls.” Picture this scenario: A long line of Army vehicles are traveling in a caravan several miles long. When the officer in charge in the front jeep finds a likely spot to stop for a handy bathroom trip, that is, when he finds a somewhat deserted section of road where he can find privacy, he then stops his vehicle and dismounts. All of the other vehicles following the commander take this cue as the signal that the long awaited bathroom stop has arrived and they begin to come to their sequenced halt—a halt regardless where the remaining vehicles find their spot, for example, along residential parts of the town, on city streets, next to a church, in front of a girls’ school! Where to find a potty? Of course, any spot along the road had to suffice. The 82nd Airborne’s nickname was changed from America’s Honor Guard to America’s “Watering Division” as we made our way through the South.
The soldiers en route to Texas in this long caravan likewise did not have the opportunity to find accommodations in motels or hostels along the way as one might do on a vacation drive through the country. Rather, the sleeping accommodations were carried attached to our own field packs in the form of shelter halves. Each soldier carried a piece of canvas that when combined with his buddy’s tent half became a pup tent, which was pitched along our course of travel—usually in wooded parts of the states. In true military fashion the tents were typically pitched in rows facing a common front or company street. Not palatial by any means but considered adequate to offer enough shelter to keep us dry for those rainy nights—a climatic situation we encountered several times during our journey.
During one of our many evening stops we pitched our tents on a wide, flat, open field near Jackson, Mississippi. This large expanse of flat ground was excellent in that we did not have to clear brush in order to set up our company tents. We pitched our tents, dug the holes in the ground to house our latrines and deeper garbage pits, set up our mess tent, and the cooks prepared a nice dinner. All was good: a nice home, a nutritious Army meal, and good companionship as we built our campfires and sat around talking. It was good then to be in the Army—a fun camping adventure!
After lights out and the camp began to settle in for the night it began to rain, slightly at first then in a tremendous downpour. I was awakened, at first by a slight feeling of cold on my backside, then by distinct feelings of wetness all through my body. I began to hear curses and grumbling from the tents in the company area, as the large flat area (which had apparently been only a dried out swamp) became a lake.
“AAAGH! I’m soaked”
“Head for the trucks!”
My buddy Taras and I began to quickly roll up our gear in the shelter halves trying to retain all of the tent pegs (the Army charged us if we lost them) and headed for the trucks. I was running, falling, splashing, and laughing all the time trying to hold on our equipment.
In front of me, running in an equally awkward manner holding his gear under his arms, was our platoon sergeant, Sgt. Wolf, all 6’5” of him. Suddenly he disappeared completely from sight as he fell headlong in the deep garbage sump now filled with filthy water. We made it to the truck nearly dead from laughing at the Sarge trying to pull himself out of the inundated pit. When he finally made it to the truck with potato peelings and carrot tops protruding from his hair and equipment he did not look the part of a tough infantry platoon sergeant but more like a drowned garbage rat. Even he, setting aside his usually serious manner, found much to laugh about in the drowning of the 82nd Airborne.
When we arrived in Texas, we camped near the town of Lometa (nowhere near anything we had ever heard of), pitched our tents, and busied ourselves getting our gear in shape after the long drive and the horrendous weather we had experienced getting there. Most of us were pretty naive about desert living but found great fun in throwing cactus burrs at each other, playing with armadillos, and talking about rattlesnakes, which were thought to be quite abundant in the desert.
As the sun sunk over the western prairie, the sky began to take on the appearance of a deep purple haze with ever increasing points of light as the stars became more visible in the darkening void. What beautiful sunsets there were in the desert! That night I slept soundly until about 2:00 in the morning when I was awakened by a distinct rattling sound in the tent. I moved slightly and immediately felt a very sharp pain in my thigh—a snakebite I hastily concluded!
I lay there awake for a while not wanting to rile up the snake any further. I contemplated moving about, getting up, and getting help for the snakebite. But instead, I just waited in silence—concluding that the snake would only bite me more and I would only die sooner. I thought about dying there in the desert for a long time, finally I fell back to sleep not expecting to be alive in the morning.
As the light began to dawn and I awakened with noises coming from outside the tent signaling the beginning of a new day. My eyes popped open in amazement—where am I? I’m not dead! What happened? I thought to myself. Maybe the poison from the rattler was not enough to kill me but I actually felt pretty good. What happened to the snake? Was it still here in the sleeping bag? I began to slowly unzip the bag being careful not to stir whatever was in the bag with me. After a time, I quickly leapt from the bag nearly trampling Taras as I crawled from the tent. What happened? Was it all a dream?
Actually I figured out pretty quickly what had made the sharp jabbing pain in my thigh—a few very small needles from the cactus that we had been playing with the day before had stuck in my leg. I had somehow rolled on them in the night causing what I thought was a “snakebite.” The most troublesome aspect of this situation was when I later evaluated my own reaction to it:
“Why did I not yell for help?”
I have thought about this situation for a long time and have never resolved in my own mind that even though I was pretty convinced that I had been bitten by a poisonous snake I very complacently resigned myself to do nothing about it and simply accept death. Even today I am more than a bit surprised by my crass resignation not to go for help and my apparent willingness to accept “signing off” from life so readily.
****
We obtained our briefing on the field operation a couple of days later. Our job in the three-week maneuver was to serve as “aggressors” in order to provide an enemy for National Guard troops that had been recently activated to prepare them for combat. During the maneuver we made two parachute jumps in the desert and walked around among the cacti for seventeen days playing war games. It was a lot of fun and we surprised the “enemy” (National Guardsmen from the Dixie Division who had recently been called up to active duty) on several occasions, capturing units that our script told us we should allow to win.
I especially liked being in the desert and enjoyed seeing the wild horses running free on the range. My favorites were two white horses that leaped over our heads as we were lying in a skirmish line early one morning, playing the aggressors and awaiting the designated enemy in an ambush. But, as Operation Longhorn came to a close I began to look forward to new adventures.
The truck convoy journey back to North Carolina was tedious and did not offer us the humorous episodes that our trip down had done. After the maneuver was over and our long olive drab convoy finally made its way back to North Carolina and home base, I became even more determined to obtain my transfer to a combat unit in Korea.
One evening I sat down and wrote a letter to the senator from West Virginia, the Honorable Harley M. Kilgore, indicating that I was from West Virginia and that I had volunteered a number of times to serve in Korea but that my request had always been turned down. I pointed out to him that I was eighteen years old and single. “Why not send me to Korea instead of someone who is married or has family responsibilities?” Within a week a response came from Washington—a very nice letter from the Senator indicating that he was proud that a fellow West Virginian was so patriotic as to volunteer for Korea the way that I did and that he would see if he could do anything about my request. He indicated that he might not have much influence in such matters as Army personnel movements but that he would inquire into my honorable request.
Senator Kilgore was a powerful member of the Senate Arms Appropriations Committee which, among other duties, voted on the promotions of general officers. His letter to me clearly understated his influence with the military and what he might do in terms of my request. Within hours after he made his inquiry with the 82nd Airborne Commanding General, I was called into the company day room (CQ). Sergeant Swedish was in a bit of a rage and told me that he did not like soldiers going over his head to get their way. He indicated that my request to go to Korea was being granted and that I was to be processed for immediate reassignment to a Korean combat unit. But, in the meantime he had a number of jobs to keep me busy. Obviously he thought that I had too much time on my hands so he provided some additional tasks for me to do to limit my letter writing. I was given a permanent KP assignment for the remainder of my time in the company.
****
The 82nd Airborne paratrooper was, for the most part, a pretty Gung Ho guy and most of the men in my platoon were envious of my orders to go to Korea; several of them told me that they wished they were going also. One day as I was running through the company street from the mess hall to my barracks I passed by the Company Commander. As regulations required, I slowed and saluted sharply. The captain walked over to me and said, “Soldier. Never mind what the sergeant says. I know he’s stuck you on extra duty. I want to tell you something else. Good job! I wished I were going to Korea, too!”
I was on my way to FEACOM—or, in official terms, Far East Army Command. I felt pretty good now. I knew that I had done the right thing.
I was given a one-week stopover in Charleston on my way to Seattle and the port of embarkation. I had a chance to say goodbye to my sister, Joan, and my two brothers, all of whom seemed to be doing pretty well. My sister Joan had married a good man, Corky Hissom, and had just recently delivered a new baby. I felt reassured that everything was going well at home.
GOODBYE TO THE STATES
The train ride across the northern states was exciting. I took the train from Charleston to Chicago, then hooked up with a Great Northern Railway train that went all the way through Minneapolis-St. Paul and on to Seattle. The whole trip took several days. During the layover in Chicago I met a couple of guys (“straightlegs” but friendly) that I spent a lot of time with on the trip. They enjoyed going to the club car of the train where drinks were served and one could while away the hours playing cards.
We arrived in the processing center in Fort Lewis, near Seattle, and went through the usual military processing—we had to update our records, insurance forms, allotments, wills, and so forth. Just before our departure we traded in all of our dress uniforms for Army fatigues. The message that we were getting was that we would not likely be needing all of our pay where we were going; and that there would be no fancy parades.
There was a lot of waiting time at the center and the troop ship we were waiting for was not yet prepared for embarkation. So, we were given a pass on the weekend prior to our departure. We were authorized to go into Seattle for an overnight. I hooked up with my two buddies from the train and we caught a bus into town. We found that Seattle was a nice town and the people were friendly enough; we walked around a bit until after dark and decided that since we were going to be departing the good ole USA for overseas we would have ourselves a farewell party at one of the local joints.
We sauntered into a very likely spirit house and asked for a table. It was very crowded and loud with what seemed to us to be just the type of exciting, fun entertainment we deserved and there were a lot of attractive young women. Aha! We thought our uniforms would be a very fine attraction. Then, the manager checked our identification and, unfortunately, I fell short of the legal age to be admitted. I felt a little embarrassed that I, one of the rugged paratrooper types, could not even be admitted into a drinking establishment because I was too young, a mere child! My buddies tried to convince the manager that I should be immediately let in the bar because I was going off to fight for our country and could die there. The manager did not buy the argument and I was unceremoniously kicked out. My buddies, being loyal comrades, chose to go with me—a tough decision given the ample supply of attractive ladies we could see laughing and dancing inside.
We did manage to find another bar that was less discriminating; it was called the Chinese Beer Gardens, and seemed to specialize in beer with no questions asked. It was tough for a soldier to actually buy a drink because every time our glasses emptied one of the local Seattle citizens would buy us another round.
Getting up the next day was not a pleasant experience. My head felt as though there were jackhammers working inside and my mouth tasted like the floor of a bat cave. Later in the day our heads began to clear, and as we were strolling down the street just killing time until we needed to return to post, we approached a man standing by the open door of his car. He had apparently seen us walking and drove ahead of us, stopped, and waited for us to walk by. He asked us if we could talk for a moment. Soldiers were a bit wary of strange men approaching them on the street, but we stopped to hear what he had to say. He said, “Would you boys like to come out to my house and have dinner?”
Somewhat taken aback, we looked at each other.
“I’ll bring you back to town afterward. My wife, daughter and I would like to have your company for Sunday dinner. What do you say?”
We agreed, thinking that there was probably no problem that could result. We went along. and it turned out to be a most enjoyable afternoon. Our friendly host told us that evening that they had lost a son in the Second World War and now made a point to befriend soldiers who were likely to be bound for overseas. His wife and fifteen-year-old daughter received us like we were part of their family. The dinner was excellent and we enjoyed their friendly spirit.
When he took us back to camp he, recognizing that the other two guys smoked, gave them each a cartoon of cigarettes. I (the mere child of the trio who didn’t even smoke) was given a batch of candy bars. A few days later when we boarded the ship to leave for Asia we had very pleasant memories of our brief stopover in Seattle and all of the people that we had encountered there. It was as though the folks had adopted us as their own. Our pleasant thoughts of this seacoast town would not soon die in our memories. These were the kind of people I thought we were going overseas to defend.
LIFE ABOARD A TROOP SHIP
Our ship, the Marine Phoenix, was definitely not a luxury cruise liner either in terms of accommodations or cuisine. It was known as a troop ship, aka a tub or a floating sick bed. The accommodations for sleeping were sparse and crowded for the three-week trip. Compartments were over booked and the men slept in vertical stacks of bunks about six high with just a couple of feet between rows. Each bunk had only about a two-foot crawl space between it and the bottom of the next bunk above. Most of us (except for some seasick ones) preferred the darkness of the evening and quiet of the deck rather than staying in the stale atmosphere down below. At night one of the larger decks was rigged with a screen and showed recent movies. One beautiful, starry evening on deck we watched the movie “High Noon”—for about the third time.
Everywhere you looked on the continually rolling and overstuffed troop ship there were brown, Army fatigue dressed GIs all trying to do the same thing—kill a lot of hours until we reached our destination. Finding a quiet spot on the crowded ship took some ingenuity but I managed to find a niche on the aft deck or fantail and whiled away some hours looking for flying fish and whales in between drifting thoughts. At times we gathered on the top deck in small groups, at least those of us who were not sick. There our conversations usually gravitated to the question of whether the war was going to last until we got into it. We did not get much news about the war except an occasional announcement on a bulletin board near our mess hall. There was usually little of substance in those few vague, mimeographed lines that mysteriously appeared and then disappeared just as anonymously.
Sitting alone on the deck of a ship overlooking an expanse of rolling sea provokes one’s thoughts and images. In my case a constant preoccupying concern was that the war was going to end before we had our chance to get into the action. A few other guys that I hung out with who were volunteers shared these thoughts. The draftees among us had different anticipations. They prayed for an end to the hostilities before their arrival. Their wishes and prayers were, of course, aimed at canceling out those of the volunteers. As the ship plied the waters on its sluggish trek toward the Far East, it was a nip and tuck battle of minds as to the outcome of the war—whose prayers would have the greatest influence to the fate of the war? Would the draftees best us in their quest for an end to the war and will it to be all over before we arrived? Would the RA’s get their wish? The time dragged on.
Those fortunate GIs who felt well enough could eat all they wanted but most found the Navy meals unappetizing and boring: tasteless breakfasts consisting of plastic pancakes or watery scrambled eggs, a comparably unpleasant lunch comprised of beans and weenies, and suppers repeating the theme of beans but with variation in some other unidentified meat-like substance.
One form of entertainment for those of us who, perhaps due to sheer luck did not get sick, was watching others handle the task of dignified barfing on a miserable ship. The only time that I came close to getting seasick myself was one day when the fellow standing (there were no sitting tables) next to me at lunch puked directly into his plate of beans and weenies. When I glanced at his plate I found that the resulting combination actually looked more appetizing than what I had been originally served!