After hearing Dad's army stories over lunch one day, I remembered thinking to myself how I could never do his storytelling justice. "You should write this down," I told him. Thankfully, he did.
- YEAR 1 -
Almost everyone joined something. It may have had something to do with patriotism, though probably not very much. It was instead a way to be somewhere else, doing something different, with people we hadn’t known for years. Most went to the army, some to the navy and a few became marines. To not do so meant a person would never have left Inwood. While it was a wonderful place in which to grow up, it was not a place to stay, not without having compared to someplace else and the people to those from other parts of the country, or other parts of the world.
It was my understanding, based on the experience of everyone who had ever gone into the army, that one went from Fort Dix to Germany. I expected to do the same, but that was not to be. Instead, I was given the job of keeping the Red Menace, the Communist Horde, from invading Oklahoma. I was successful, as far as I could tell.
This adventure began in my sophomore year at Manhattan College. I was in the Business School, not knowing what else to take. I was adept enough to know engineering wasn’t to be my career. I had no sense what a slide rule might do, how electricity worked, what could be learned from blueprints or other such things. Liberal Arts were never considered, in part because I had no real notion what they were; and too because I was reluctant to be either liberal or artistic. The College offered physical education, but that seemed silly and could lead only to teaching gym. So, it was business. I had been majoring in Spanish I and Accounting I, having taken both classes days, nights and summers. I was on a second round of Statistics, without having an inkling what it meant. I liked the literature classes. Mr. Collins who had taught us classics of Greece and Rome seemed to have witnessed what he shared, and he did so with ease and excitement rarely seen. In our second year it was medieval writing and bits of what happened beyond. The class was taught by Mr. Lair, a pale gentleman who I see now sitting on his desk, asking what had we understood and what did it mean.
After others had replied, he would turn to my friend, Jake, saying, ‘Mr. Mahoney, what is the real meaning?’ Jake may not always have known, and not having read all of what was assigned it seems likely he knew less about the book than what might be gathered from the morning’s discussion. He did, however, know enough to reply, and to elaborate on what he had understood, raising associations and significance the books had never held. When Jake finished talking, the class was over.
A few other teachers were memorable – Mr. Dixon, who taught Economic Geography, and would every ten minutes ask, ‘Any question or comment?’ There were few, but it was nice to be asked. Fr. Borzaga, the theology teacher who raised questions and accepted no standard answers. The urbane and entertaining Spanish teacher, Mr. Speranza, who I realized said each time what he had said the semester before, doing so as though the thoughts had just that moment emerged. There were others, most of whom meant well, but whose lectures sped quickly past me. They were the classes people in business were supposed to know – accounting, marketing and other such things.
Ours was a Catholic College, and the feast day of the order’s founder, May 15th, was a holiday. I had met Jake, and having nothing planned, we decided it was the day to become soldiers. He was doing about as well as I in school, and realized at the current rate we would graduate and qualify for Social Security in the same week. Jake and I had been in grade school together. We went to different high schools, but came together around football and where we would hang out through adolescence. (I know we would not have referred to that time in our lives as ‘adolescence’ and might not have thought it anything out of the ordinary – it was just what we were doing, what we were at the time about; but, that is a story for another day).
Jake was quite capable, and had there been a leader it would surely have been him. He knew what should be done, and how. He was wise, in a crude and funny way. He could sometimes be frightening, as he teetered on the edge of control, as sometimes happened when he was drinking, a behavior that would intrude with greater frequency, but not always. Jake was kind too, and protective. He wanted things to be right, and done well. He was exuberant, vital, loud, brazen and played football with an abandon that endeared him to teammates and to those watching.
We took the subway to the draft board, somewhere in the forties, on the West Side. They asked when we wanted to go, and said sometime in June. That would give us time to finish school, if not to pass all of the courses. By being drafted we were committed to two years, rather than three which awaited those who enlisted, and four if they had an interest in the air force. On the way home I went by the out-of-town newspaper stand at Times Square, getting the Halifax paper for my father.
The paper was to make available an answer to the question, ‘What were you doing downtown?,’ which it did. My father took it well, and seemed less surprised by the answer. Mother was more distraught, but there was nothing to be done, which made protests useless. I don’t recall her becoming immediately reconciled, but my parents were aware of the limits of wishes when choices were not their own. It was done. When my grades arrived, and I was headed for another round of Spanish and had barely left Accounting I behind, it helped them see college was not where I then belonged.
On June 25, 1959 I was off to defend the nation, and to see Europe along the way. I walked to the subway with my father, but was taking a different line than he. We said good-bye, in ways we did so many things. There was no display of emotion, nor had there been when we had left mother and headed he to work and me to Whitehall Street with the letter of greetings from Selective Service, a subway token taped in the corner. That we were not demonstrative seemed more an act of trust. We accepted, without identifying them, the feelings each might have. We assumed they were good and that we cared for one another as well as anyone could, or ever would.
With day under way, I went to meet Jake, who appeared as expected and a bit hung over. At Whitehall Street we began the routine of which everyone had ever spoken – the physical, that was less formal and less thorough when administered to groups rather than to individuals, and focused on the number of arms, legs, eyes and ears one might have, the total being divided by four with those having a score above one and below three passing the test. We spent a lot of time waiting, which was good training for military life. We got to know whomever was standing where we stood, and most were good company for the time we wee together. It was during such a lull that Jake walked by, headed home.
His blood pressure was too high even for the army’s standard. I thought it no surprise, given what he may have drunk the evening before; but, it was a bit disconcerting. ‘Oh, well’ is, and has been the available response to any number of things; and is, I assume, how I responded to the sight of Mahoney headed home. I wondered how he would be received in front of Schifani’s store by guys who had just said ‘so long.’ It would be funny, another of Jake’s adventures; and it would remain funny as long as the army found him acceptable on the following day.
I was nominally in charge of the group boarding the evening bus across the river to New Jersey’s Fort Dix. Being in charge meant my name had been at the head of the list at the point where it had been divided into manageable numbers – ten or twelve to a group. Most slept, a few talked, none had a change of heart, deciding to begin their army career with desertion. That I delivered them safely ended my command. No other would replace it.
We were fed, shorn, given clothing and boots – brown boots, and a bottle of dye the army having changed from brown to black with warehouses full of its World War II and Korean stock. As long as anyone had them they also had dye rubbing off on their pants. The clothes were new, very olive green in color. Not everything fit, and what did would not fit us when we left Fort Dix as trimmer people in another eight weeks. The first days no one had any idea what to do with us, other than to keep us in or around the place where we were supposed to be. We had tests, to see what skills we might possess – though skills were less an issue that how we might fit what the army then needed.
Jake showed up, and caught up with me by the end of the second day. We were by then a large enough group to be made into a company – about two hundred, or so. There were interesting people in the group – Tom McGibney, a tall man who could play tunes by flexing his knuckles. All Tom’s songs sounded alike, unless accompanied by singing. He was from the Bronx, a taciturn fellow who let it be known what space he required and what he was unwilling to tolerate, without having to say. A fellow in the neighborhood, Mickey St. Claire, had said the best way to enter a unit was to pick out the biggest man, and to start a fight with him, a fight that would hopefully be quickly over, and having the other guy unconscious. As nice as Mickey was, his advice would have had me trying to KO McGibney, an impossible task. There was Henry Osman, an enthusiastic fellow who became unrecognizable without his glasses, as did all the world to him if he were to take them off; Alan Lovitch, who would one day sell me a suit at Bonds, a suit with two pairs of pants. Alan was among those who chose military service rather than jail – a common offer in those days – and he had a gift for complaining, for acting offended by reasonable requests, thought it did not seem like whining; Jerry Nadeau, one of a large group who had enlisted in Maine (people not from New York seemed more inclined to enlist, perhaps not knowing there was a less intrusive choice. Jerry had a wonderful singing voice and would use it to make cry those who had left girls behind, serious romances for guys eighteen or nineteen years old. Jerry also looked like a young Rocky Marciano, which made some believe they were related, that Jerry and Rocky were brothers.
There was also a fellow named Bob, whose last name I cannot now recall. He had, he said, left West Point before graduation and was coming back to the army, as an enlisted man. It may have been so, but in the middle of training Bob was taken away by the police. No explanation was given, which gave rise to a number of rumors, all of which thought the problem must be someone else’s, since Bob was an OK guy. Also in our company was Lance Norton, who had come from New Jersey to find a career in explosives. His name was intriguing, especially for those who came from neighborhoods filled with Mikes, Jacks, Steves, Bills and Joes.
I’m not sure if it was in that company, but I also served for a time with Phil Corner, a musician in real life, who could sleep standing up, and could do so quite readily. The only flaw was his moving, swaying forward and back while dreaming. Had he controlled that he would have done quite well. I later met a man, Ed Miley, who could both sleep and appear interested while standing; and, Ed never moved.
Not everyone was someone I wanted to know. There were in the company, as anywhere, a fair number of morons. There was one, whose name was alphabetically near my own. Because that was the case he was always close to me, next in line or just ahead, doing what I was doing; and so, he almost shot me while trying to maneuver his rifle. I doubt the shot came close, but it was close enough to unnerve the instructor who was no doubt dreading the paperwork accompanying the slaying of one recruit by another, while he was in charge. I would later appropriate the poor soul’s bayonet, having lost mine and needing to return one to the government at the end of basic training. He took it as well as he took most things, wandering up and down the aisle saying, ‘Who’s got my knife.’ He was not surprised, having long been a victim, and having defined himself so. Too there was a man who I had awoken one night to serve as furnace guard, but he never got up. The furnaces were surely well serviced, as was everything in the army, but they were also old and in wooden buildings fire was not always our friend. That he never got up to be first to smell smoke annoyed me because he said he hadn’t been awakened. I thought I could really hurt this man, but the incident passed.
Another person toward whom I had a similar feeling was a National Guard specialist, who having served six months was on his two week summer assignment. Our platoon was without an officer, and somehow hadn’t enough NCOs, meaning this specialist was assigned to us – or we to him. We didn’t get along. He seemed not to like me, which I found surprising; but, it seemed only fair that I not like him. He took to taunting me during a long march during which we would sometimes have also to run while carting what seemed all the equipment we might ever need. Later he came by to say something was amiss in the tent Jake and I shared. While he was looking to find something else wrong I told him he would do well not to find it, since it would only annoy me, and he might regret having done so. Or words to that effect. In the midst of my lecture I thought this was how people got into military prisons, but having once begun I thought it only fair to continue. We saw little of him after that evening.
Having no officer assigned, and no regular NCO that I recall meant we had more freedom than might others. We did well with it. The sergeants who filled in were good men, and interested in having us be good soldiers. They were helpful, rather than demanding. One tried very hard to teach me marching, something I never did learn. I apparently failed to grasp an essential difference between walking and marching, though I mastered for a time the proper length of a step, and the manner in which my foot should come forward. He was pleased. I was pleased. The knowledge did not transfer to the next day’s demands, but it seemed all we could reasonably expect. Perhaps because of my ‘marching disability’ I was not assigned to the infantry, to the ‘Ultimate Weapon’ as the sign had proclaimed at the camp’s entrance. Also against me was being a poor marksman. I recall being told, ‘You could have hit it if you saw it, or if it had stayed where you were aiming.’
****
Instead, I was sent to the Artillery. ‘The Deciding Factor,’ the sign at Fort Sill would read. Somewhere in the army was a need for surveyors, for men who would determine where to put the guns relative to the position of the enemy. After a leave longer than we needed Jake went back to New Jersey, to Fort Monmouth where he would learn something about some aspect of a missile, though not enough to be thought an asset to the operation of it. He would also break his arm playing football, and be re-cycled, a delay that assured his going to Europe at training’s end.
I boarded a flight to Dallas, a charter I believe. It was an airline I’d never heard of, and would never hear of again. We left early and arrived late, transferring then to a smaller plane, one that flew close to the ground, following the highway leading from Dallas up into Oklahoma. Though it was my first time in a plane, I was sure this was not how it was ordinarily done. My mother and I had in the previous year been to see ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘Carousel,’ a double-feature at the Alpine Theater. I hadn’t thought it an omen, but my mother was pleased to see me off to a place where people sang a lot, and sometimes danced. She knew, of course, it was probably not that way, at least not anymore; but, it was better to think of it that way than as a place where even when it snowed the wind was blowing dust on you; a place the government thought might be improved by cannon fire. It was open and could appear bleak, but I liked it. I especially liked it when thinking the skills acquired would serve me well once I got to Germany.
I was early arriving by a day or so, and again waited for enough to make a company of would-be surveyors. While waiting, I heard a man say, ‘Where can you find a beer in this place?’ Enter John Degnan. John was a football coach and teacher from Middletown, New York. He had a voice suggesting he should be on the radio, and a personality that made him seem a friend from the time he said hello – or in this case, ‘I need a beer.’ John was in the National Guard, and after training would be going home, to be married and to resume his teaching career. In the meantime we would learn these intricate skills together.
****
Surveying is intricate. It is geometry. It has theoretical foundations, and practical applications. But, in the army’s wisdom it becomes a question of following the form, filling in the blanks, looking data up in the tables provided, and checking with whomever is in charge. That the theoretical aspect was given short shrift surprised no one. That the applications were limited to where does the gun go, which way does it point, made as much sense as it could. The idea was to make us serviceable in eight weeks. It worked.
Too, it was time to introduce ourselves to Lawton, Oklahoma, a city which has changed since then; but was even in those days a main street beyond which few soldiers seemed to venture, a number of bars accommodating what the soldiers were at ease with while drinking; and a land where real people lived, worked, went to school and led non-military lives. It was clean, neat, open and responsive. Some of those living in Lawton worked for the army, or were in the army, but many were as you might find them in any town. Very pleasant, kindly folk.
We never had much money, and even less as the month progressed; but, being broke was no reason to stay on the base. On a Sunday morning, to get a free breakfast John and I went to a service and meal at the Catholic Church, where over pancakes and coffee Charlie Wade, the owner of an automobile dealership, and Father Dan Allen, the pastor, recruited us to coach basketball. I could tell the difference between a basketball and a brick, but was less certain about other aspects of the game. Not John. He knew drills, plays, strategy, motivation and all one would expect of a coach. We became the coach, and the other guy. It was fun, and it was away from the base. It lent normalcy to life, and while I inherited the coaching position when John moved back to Middletown, I can only say no one died as a result of my efforts. The kids won some games, lost others. In addition to the game there was the company of those I met, people like Mr. Wade, Fr. Allen and others of the parish and Lawton community.
We, due to our financial status, attended other free meals. Thanksgiving we spent with Brother and Mother Crockett at their storefront church. We began with polite conversation, a few prayers, a hymn or two, and waiting for others to arrive. When they were slow in appear we nodded at the message Brother Crockett provided, a religious message entwined with the values and worth of military service. I recall, perhaps incorrectly, how God was pleased and proud to see us in uniform, defending the free world, containing atheistic communism, making the nation almost as proud as God was, and being ready to accept salvation should it be offered, as in the very moment it might be. We sang another hymn or two (I’m not sure I knew the words, and could only hum the refrain) but Brother and Mother Crockett had enthusiasm enough, and nice voices too. The oven had been off for a time, the turkey just sitting in it keeping warm. While we sang, or hummed, the potatoes were mashed and whipped once more, and the vegetables set to bubble. A little more conversation, a few more salvation stories, another prayer. Still no one else came. I was pleased we had. We were not expected to join the storefront church. Salvation was not on the immediate schedule, though it would, we were assured, be available when we were ready. With no ill feeling, no annoyance at those who had not come, Brother Crockett told Mother the congregation was fully assembled, to cut up the bird and to please pass the peas. It was a fine meal with good companions.
****
Training was a practical thing. We were after a short time in the classroom out in the field. Aiming circles were used to determine angles, a simple device, more manageable than would be the transit or theodolite we would later see in use. It was a matter of angles and distances, and how they related one to another. To measure the angles one peered into the aiming circle, aligned it on a familiar object – one whose coordinates were already known – then turned it to another, usually a rod held by another soldier; and recorded the angle in the official army book, and on the even more official form. The distance was determined by stretching a metal tape from one site to the other, keeping the line as straight as possible. In determining titles for those performing these tasks the army avoided clever or too technical names. He holding the rod was called the rodman. Those taping the distance were known as tapers. The person looking into the device measuring angles was called the instrument operator.
On one of our earlier problems the instructor picked a soldier to serve as rodman. He said, ‘Take the rod and go stand alongside that tank out there.’ Off he went. The instructor then explained what we would do, but the explanation became more complex than expected and as we watched the rodman came to no tank. There was none to be seen. We assumed it could be seen through the magnification offered by the aiming circle. As the instructor talked the rodman grew smaller and smaller. Soon he was gone. It would have helped had he known in that part of Oklahoma a tank was what others call a pond. Unfortunately, the lecture became too complex and the explanation far more extended, leaving no time to actually conduct the exercise. I suppose there is out there on the range, or even beyond, a very old rodman still in search if a tank. Or else his bones can be found, leaning forward rod in hand.
The tapers were often a Mutt ‘n Jeff team, one tall the other short. It facilitated going up and down hills, keeping the tape as level as possible. One could hold an end above his head while the other stayed low to the ground if need be. The man out in front would measure a distance, aligning the tape with the ground using a plumb bob, dropping or lowering it to form a hole or mark, the trailing taper would align himself over as the tape moved forward. I see no more tapers when I see survey crews. Their role was even then being replaced by a radio or light signal.
The team tried not to conclude its task in unknown territory, just in case an error had been made. Where possible they would close on another known site, a benchmark established by an earlier team – a team who knew what they were doing, and had done it well. It was surprising how small variations could accumulate, or be often enough to counter one another over a great enough distance. The army was probably assuming an answer ‘good enough for government work’ would suffice, especially if the guns were big enough and there was sufficient shot as they adjusted to the target.
In addition to those out surveying were others who listening to the sound of shots, determining the distance intervening, and so the position of enemy guns. Others tried to measure based on the flash seen as those guns fired. Still others were forward observers, positioned where they could see the shells’ effect, and radio back alterations in elevation or charge if the attack was to be successful.
****
The course having been completed I was ready to go to Germany. The army was not ready to send me. Instead, I was to stay at Fort Sill, moving to the Artillery and Missile School, as an instructor; or rather an assistant instructor, officers providing the more essential information, especially since officers would be the students too.
- YEAR 2 -
I was assigned to one of three instructional teams. If they had more specific designations I don’t know now what they were. On one side of the hall were the officers, with the commander having a separate office and the others in together. On our side were four desks, though there were more people than places to sit. It was assumed those below a certain rank would probably stand, or be out doing something more worthwhile. The cut-off rank was sergeant, and below that were two of us: myself and Cal.
Cal was Fleming A. Cal, a delightful man who had plans to become a mortician when his tour had ended. He would be good at it, as he was at other things. And if Cal was good at things, I was not nearly as capable – particularly at driving. In New York there had been no need to know. There were subways, buses or we walked where we needed to go. A car would have been an inconvenience, an expense. But, most other people had grown up with cars. They had looked forward to being old enough to drive, and some had been driving long before that day came. Cal was in charge of the group’s half-ton pick up, which meant he drove it some of the time; and all of the time had to wash it at the end of the day before walking back to the barracks. It was not terrible, but he would have been pleased to share the chore. I would have been pleased as well, but never got the hang of driving.
When there was nothing else to do, he and I would either paint blackboards, cut the grass, Cal would take me driving, or Sergeant Rom would find something else that might let us appear busy. We painted the blackboards green, of course, this being the army; and with a paint that made writing on them difficult. Cutting the grass was a job for hot days, but the ground was level and the grass already short – which was helpful because large, hairy spiders lived in it and resented being disturbed. Driving would be done out on the range, out where I could do little damage if the truck and I were at odds one with another. It was a standard shift, which did not help. Much time was spent getting started, staying going and stopping without stalling.
Cal would say, ‘You got to watch where you’re going,’ which often meant I was headed for trouble, that I was looking in the rear view mirror though there was nothing to be seen, or that something was coming toward us and I should get out of the middle of the road. We would drive for several hours, and if after a few days no harm had been done, Sergeant Rom would ask, ‘How’s he doing, Cal?’ Cal would say, ‘OK. He’s doing OK.’
Sergeant Rom would soon realize ‘OK,’ in this context had a different meaning. It meant we were both alive and the truck was intact. ‘Take a few more days,’ he would say; and after a few days he might say, ‘Time to take the test.’ Cal agreed, but without his usual enthusiasm.
The test was given monthly, I believe. It was conducted at the main motor pool, and the vehicle used was whatever was then available. It was never one the size Cal and I had used for practice, and more often was one of seeming mammoth proportions. The test was provided by a civilian employee, Mr. Kykedahl who had lost his arms mid-forearm, presumably when he had been a soldier; but he needed no more than that to start, shift, drive, turn and reverse any of the trucks on hand. On my first visit, we never did go anywhere. I couldn’t start the thing; or starting it, it would stall. ‘Another day,’ he said.
Back to the range. After a few more weeks Sergeant Rom would ask, Cal would respond, we would try a few more days before making an appointment. I thought I was doing well, though I drove mostly far from civilization. Cal was kind, but not enthused. He was settling into the notion that the truck would remain his responsibility. On my second visit to the motor pool, I started the truck, shifted into first, moved forward a few feet only to have it stop. Mr. Kykendahl was not pleased. He, like everyone else, assumed everyone could drive. It was an innate response, needing only an occasion to have it flourish. ‘Another day,’ he said.
On my third and final visit, the truck started and stayed running. We should have stopped there. ‘Put it in gear,’ said Mr. Kykendahl. As I did, my foot slipped off the clutch. The truck instead of rolling took a great leap forward, stopping suddenly enough to throw Mr. Kykendahl forward. ‘I’ve got no arms, Noonan,’ he said, ‘If you keep coming out here I’ll soon have no legs. Don’t practice anymore. Don’t drive, or think about driving. Walk, Noonan. Walk a lot. We’ll all be better for it.’
Cal was pleased to end his role in the comedy my driving had become. But, friends still believed I must know, that I knew but was pretending not to, or I knew but could drive only as a civilian, that something about military vehicles intruded on use of this natural ability. One night I was up to Anadarko, a village up toward Oklahoma City. I was with John LaBranche, a fellow from Michigan, who too would become a mortician – it having been his father’s profession too. John was short, clever, wise in some ways and good company. On the way back he asked if I would drive. I declined, but John assured me there was nothing to it, that his 1950 Ford was more manageable, that the gears were more synchronized, that the only problem was getting going, but that once in movement we would be just fine.
John was partially right. We did get started. I shifted into first, kept moving and shifted into second. I was encouraged to go then into third, and we were rolling along. Ahead was a car pulling a trailer. I needed no encouragement to pass it, and into the on-coming lane I swung. There was nothing coming toward us. I was moving past the trailer. Twig, as he was also called, was encouraging. I looked out the window on his side. We were passing the car. Nothing coming. Nothing to do now but pull back into our lane. Unfortunately, the front of the car we were passing was already there. Our side touched his bumper. The driver blew his horn. I pulled back to the on-coming lane. Twig said, ‘Oops. I think you may have hit him.’
‘Do you think so?’ I said.
‘Maybe not.’ We were past him now. I could see him flashing his light, and hear him honking the horn.
‘Maybe we should stop,’ I said.
‘Maybe,’ said Twig, ‘How about up there,’ up there being a parking lot. We did, but I had no license and could not be seen to get out of the driver’s side. John knew I had none, and had insisted I drive his car, in part because he had been drinking and might have been influenced in his decision by that fact. ‘You climb over me, and I’ll slide under you,’ he said. We did, or tried to. It was not going well. In the end I fell over him, and together we opened the doors, stepping out as though all were just fine. The driver, and his wife, were watching warily as we approached.
‘You’re not the driver,’ he said.
‘Then who am I?’ John answered.
“It has to be him,’ I said, ‘because I can’t drive.’ The driver and his wife looked at each other. He got gingerly out of the car, looked to see no harm had been done, other than a scratch on his bumper. He returned to his place behind the wheel. They seemed happy to have no more than a head start away from us.
John drove the rest of the way home. He was quick to tell of our misadventure, but still not everyone believed. Another friend, Carl Ulanowicz (or spelling such as that) asked as we were returning from somewhere would I want to drive his car. It was an automatic, a 57 Chevrolet convertible. ‘No,’ I answered, but Carl insisted. ‘There’s nothing to it.’ And with that he pulled over.
He was right, of course. It was easier than had been standard shift. We were doing quite well. Ten, twenty miles flew by. Everyone was relaxing, except possibly John whose experience was recent enough to not encourage false illusions. As we neared the post, it seemed best to use a less regularly used gate, one that would require no slowing as we passed the MPs. Turning and slowing was a connection I had not made. We took most of the turn at a pretty fair clip, sliding around part of it, and overshooting the road on the passenger’s side heading us toward a pond – a tank in fact, this being Oklahoma. There was fortunately a metal stake at the edge of it – left perhaps by a long lost rodman. We ran into it, and stopped. Carl, as had John, became a believer. He drove the rest of the way home.
Some time later I drove to Baltimore with Harvey Hopkins, another friend. Harvey had heard enough about my skill to not ask across those many miles would I want to take a turn at the wheel.
****
The barracks in which we lived were three story buildings with stucco sides. Around each floor were terraces, or balconies. For one of the rare inspections, perhaps for the inspector general, a question was raised about how pigeons had been treating the porches. They could seem unsightly to someone looking for things out of order, for surfaces not sufficiently clean. Something had to be done. Screens could be erected, but they would be unsightly having to be unduly large and removable for changes in the weather. Besides, the inspection was coming on quickly. There was no time. It became someone’s job, though whose I never knew.
On the day of the inspection on each of the balconies was a neatly framed announcement: ‘This porch is off limits to birds.’ It sufficed.
****
One Sunday morning a call came over the loudspeaker. Sergeant Scroggins, who was in charge of the quarters for the weekend, said, ‘Fall out. Everyone out for an alert.’ No one moved. Most were still in bed. A few had wandered off to the shower; some had gone to breakfast; others were away. A few moments passed.
‘Fall out. This is not a drill,’ he said, ‘Everyone out, on the double.’ A bit more movement occurred. A few yelled back at the box. It was not working as a sleep-in day. At some time, for some reason, we had apparently been designated a strategic, tactical, rapid-response command – or something to that effect. That we possessed no guns, did not work together as combat units, had no centralized command, or none I knew of, seemed to have been overlooked.
Sergeant Scroggins appeared in the door. ‘This is serious. We’re shipping out. We got to get ready, so fall out. On the double.’ People stirred. Those still in bed arose. To the showers they went. I don’t recall where we were headed. Lebanon comes to mind, but it could have been anywhere, the source being a rumor. After showering people put on civilian, rather than military clothing, and left the building. It was too late for breakfast, unless people went to town or to the PX, which is what most did.
The squad room was nearly empty when a few moments later Sergeant Scroggins called again. ‘Stand down. The alert has been cancelled. Fall out, but stand by.’
It is as well no one went, that no one needed us in fact. It is best for them, for us, for world order that we knew enough to stand down, before others knew we should.
****
One of the courses was called FAGORC, Field Artillery General Officers Refresher Course. The students were generals, many from the National Guard or Reserve. Some were more enthusiastic than others, but all were generals and wanted to be sure that was understood. They were provided the same course as others, and were offered the same respect. They had the classes, did the field problems, had the same homework – but they were generals, and to some that seemed a significant difference.
As the culminating problem they would be firing on the target they had determined. It was done in most cycles of the program, but in this instance one of the teams included a more obstreperous officer, one who having had the course felt himself more an expert than was reasonable. He wanted to shoot in the direction he had determined, thought the gun would then be aimed at the post headquarters, just over the hill before us.
I suggested he might be wrong, that it might be best to wait, to consult with one of the instructors. He would, he said, rather shoot; and, he was a general. I did not doubt he was, but was less sure rank in every instance bestowed competence. I stood in front of the gun, saying I expected the instructor would soon be along, that he and his team might want to review their numbers while waiting. No, said the general. They had already talked about it, and shooting now would mean they were ahead of the other teams. They would be first, I was sure – but too they would all be off to prison soon thereafter, and I along with them.
We never got to the ordering stage, with the general ordering me out of the way and the firing crew into place, and his pulling then of the lanyard, followed shortly by smoke and flame. Over the rise came the best of all soldiers ever, Captain Sperrow, or so I remember it, sure that if a brave and determined effort were required it would be him doing so.
He saluted, and said, ‘Turn the gun around, sir. Shoot over there.’ Then he walked away.
Captain Sperrow was the soldier we so often hear of, the one people would willingly follow wherever he might lead. If he said to do something, it would be the right thing to do. Not doing would be foolish. He was not imposing in size, being as I recall rather thin, but he looked like a soldier. Each movement was decisive, no matter what it might be. He treated silly things as though they were silly, making one realize that if he thought something serious it would be, and he would handle it. There were other good officers, but in my mind he was always the best. I wonder sometimes what became of him, why he has not yet been named chief of staff. I wonder too where others have gone, what they are doing these days, and hoping they are pleased and satisfied with life as they find it.
****
Another job Cal and I were assigned was the painting of ridge poles, red and white striped structures, not unlike barber poles, but taller so they could be sighted on by surveyors, and perhaps others, at a distance. To get there we required a helicopter. It would fly us up, with our ladder lashed to the struts. Paint cans and brushes were stored aboard. Coming to a site, the copter would not hover, dropping us onto a hill to paint while clinging to the edge of some great monolith; but, they never turned off the engine, being ready to leave us and be away to wherever they went while we set up our ladder, so one could do the upper part as the other did the bottom.
One need not be overly neat when painting what no one is going to be close enough to consider in detail. If it looked like red and white stripes form ten miles away, that is what it was. As the day progressed, Cal may have remained neat in his approach but mine was more like slathering than brushing. Red ran into white, and white into read. I was as painted as were any of the poles, and the paint seemed to glow, to call attention to us, to indicate to anyone observing that the poles were up and about, flapping rather than standing.
The pilot was gracious, tolerant of our appearance and the appearance of our work. He did not complain about our painted selves sitting in his cockpit, perhaps because the paint had by then dried, our being higher placing us in a warmer, windier clime. On the way back he took us over the animal preserve and Mount Scott. He herded buffalo before us for a time, and showed us all that might be seen from this high above.
Recalling buffalo reminds me of story I was told, of a soldier from Brooklyn asking to see them and friends showing him instead the long-horned cattle. When they came to the buffalo, he asked what might these things be. Dinosaurs, they said. He was duly amazed.
****
Harry McCarley was from Alabama. He had brought to the service an additional skill. He could brew beer. He didn’t sell it, but made it for our use. Oklahoma was only a short time away from prohibition and bootleggers taking orders in the dark. The beer in bars, on or off the post, was 3.2, meaning one was more likely to drown from drinking it than to be otherwise affected if he tried to make up in volume what was missing in alcoholic content. At one time or another Harry had five and ten gallon jugs bubbling out across the prairie, bubbling their gases into any number of streams, lakes, ponds (or tanks if one were a native). It was bubbling too into the toilet tank of a friend whose wife had moved to town, entitling him to live off base. Some of the substances were more powerful that what should have contained them, and so there was an explosion or two; but in the end it was worth the wait. Learning to drink from a jug was a skill soon acquired, and it was passed around.
****
New equipment was emerging. The telurometer was a device for measuring distance. It sent a signal to another unit, which returned it. The time elapsed indicated the distance traveled. How it accounted for changes in elevation I never knew, but didn’t need to since it rarely worked as expected, especially when visitors came to see it. They were told what was happening and diagrams of what they would have seen had it been there to be seen. They were generally pleased. Too there was a jeep that would someday tell people the coordinates over which they were parked, as global positioning now does. In those days, however, it was more a concept than a fact and people were told what the jeep would show if had anything to report. Theodolites replaced the aiming circle, and advanced versions of the theodolite soon appeared. The army changed, but it was still an innocent time, with innocent experiences.
The Red Horde was not trudging across California. The Communist Menace was menacing elsewhere. There was no sense of danger, and most draftees were only passing through. As my two year commitment was ending a recruiter offered me Italy as a next posting, with return trips to New Mexico to fire the missile once a year. I gave it no thought, not really – at least not the return to New Mexico, and very soon not Italy either. No thank you, I said.
The army had served its purpose. I would see the neighborhood, and other aspects of life, differently because I’d been somewhere else. It wasn’t Germany. It didn’t have to be. I’d met people from other places, other cultures with other beliefs and values. It was worth it, at least at that time. As I see kids enlisting now, I wonder were I them would I look to the army in the same way. I doubt it, but somewhere, in some way there would have to be an experience that said what I knew so far was not all there was to know. What I had so far experienced, was only the beginning.
Derry, New Hampshire
June 24, 2004
June 24, 2004
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