Installment # 48

After the 8-week basic training course, most of the men stayed in Fort Dix for Advanced Infantry Training (AIT).  I was sent to Trainee Leadership School first, and served as a platoon leader when I eventually got to AIT.  Unfortunately, that meant losing contact with virtually all of the guys I knew from Basic Training.  It also delayed my arrival at Jump School in Fort Benning, Georgia, until May of that year (1962).  It was really hot!  A month or two earlier would have been much better.  More on that later.

I was only 18 and looked about 14 when I accepted the assignment as platoon leader at AIT.  Regardless, I told everyone I was 22 in hopes of gaining some acceptance as their leader.  I had a New York State driver’s license which I had previously doctored up to show my birthday as February 29, 1940, instead of 1944.  I had done that so the bartenders would serve me.  The legal drinking age in New York at that time was 18, so I was passing for 20 when I was 16.  Actually, the bartenders just wanted to be able to protest their innocence if they were accused of serving a minor.  They really didn’t care if I was 12, as long as I could pay for my beer and maybe attract other young people to their clubs. I don’t know whether any of the trainees ever believed I was 22, but I stuck to my story.  I don’t remember how well or poorly I did as a platoon leader, but I got through it.  Common sense would indicate that they thought I was a joke.  The “Army way” was always a joke, so that fit.

I do recall that at the end of Trainee Leadership School we were asked to complete brief evaluations of each of the instructors.  I must have thought I would never see these instructors again, because I chose this opportunity to give vent to my petty prejudices – not racial, but intellectual.  In those days of the military draft, most of the people who were making a career out of the military (“Lifers” we called them) were noticeably lacking in literacy.  For example, one of the verbal instructions for completing the evaluations included: “If you think the man ain’t wuf a shit, you put down ‘ain’t wuf a shit.’”  I suppose growing up white on Long Island did nothing to prepare me for southern accents, or for the expressions of the black ghetto.  I still snicker over the use of “onliest” to mean “only.”  For example, “This man is the onliest one who followed the instructions.”

That, in turn, reminds me of the fellow who came staggering back to the barracks late one night literally bouncing off one wall, wobbling across and bouncing off the other wall, heading in the general direction of his bunk, announcing proudly that the bartender had said that he was “the onliest man to ever drink an octopus and an old tennis shoe in one night and walk away.”  I never knew, but I’m guessing that an octopus has equal parts of 8 different kinds of liquor.  Old tennis shoe?  No idea, but it sounds nearly fatal if swallowed. 

In my permanent airborne unit in Germany the sergeants liked to use the term “airborne” to indicate anything that was the best or the toughest, etc.  A favorite example of mine is how the instruction, “Get a good grip on it,” became, “Get you a good airborne holt to it.”  They were totally serious!  I remember in Basic Training how one of the sergeants with a heavy Spanish accent had us out on a cold, windy day learning to respond to marching orders.  Between his accent and the wind whipping past the microphone, we couldn’t understand much of what he was saying, and he didn’t seem to realize it.  He would bark a command and we would do a variety of things, depending on what each of us thought he meant.  It must have looked hilarious from where he was standing, although to him I’m sure it was more of a horror than a comedy. 

My favorite is when he barked what sounded like “Left Face!” and we all executed a left face.  He then proceeded to lecture us with: “Do not anticipate the command!”  He explained that what he had said was “Left Fish” and that we should not have executed anything.  It took us awhile to even understand the point he was trying to make, and I don’t think he ever understood that we weren’t anticipating the command; we were doing our best to understand it and do it.  I never forgot the incident, because it was so comical.  With his accent, he was the last person who should have been trying to make that point, and outdoors on a cold and windy day was the worst place to try to make it.  As I matured I realized that the sergeant was no doubt being evaluated on how well he conducted the training session, and he wasn’t doing very well.

The individuals who conducted the various training sessions were called “cadre,” and I think they were all sergeants or above.  The first level of sergeant (3 stripes) was E-5.  A private first class (PFC) was E-3 (1 stripe).  During my time in Germany an E-4 was called a Specialist, for some reason.  A corporal (2 stripes) was also an E-4, but I think the only way one became a corporal, at least during peace time, was to be busted down from an E-5.  I was a PFC for nearly all of my time in Germany, but finally was promoted to E-4 a few months before discharge.  I think it was worth $25 per month to be promoted to E-4, but I guess I was not much of a soldier: young, bad attitude, clueless, etc.  I could have used that money, though!  We were paid once per month in cash.  We would line up in alphabetical order, so I would be back at the end of the line with the Williams’ and Zimmerman’s of the world, hoping they didn’t run out of money before they got to me (they never did).  I used to watch the loan sharks milling around the exit door, collecting from the guys who owed them money as they came out the door.

I was pretty good about not running out of money too early in the month, and not borrowing to spend on things I didn’t need.  If I did need to borrow $10 or so, it would just be for a few days, from a friend who would not charge me interest.  The loan sharks charged some serious interest, and preyed upon guys who got themselves into a hole and couldn’t get out.  Of course, with interest, once you found yourself handing over most of your pay envelope on pay day, you had some 29 days to go with almost no money, so you were always in the hole and, with interest, it kept getting worse.  I suppose the guys who got themselves into such a mess were maybe guys with a gambling addiction or something, and no friends or relatives who could or would help them.

They also gave us medical injections in alphabetical order, so I would watch the guys exiting, holding their arms, blood dripping down in some cases, and appearing (probably pretending) to be in pain.  There were always a few guys who started to feel faint while waiting in line and would need to go sit down.  I think they felt too lousy to be embarrassed, but the rest of us would generally snicker and kid about them.  That is probably where I learned to handle shots, mentally.  They used to have us take our fatigue shirts off as we entered the door and proceed to the first pair of medics, standing one on each side of us.  For these mass-injection sessions they would use something that looked like guns, instead of needles, press them against our skin at the shoulder or triceps level, and shoot almost simultaneously on both sides.  We would then step up to the next pair of medics and receive another shot on each side.  There might be a third pair, depending on what the doctors had ordered. 

The guns looked less intimidating to me than the needles, but they hurt worse.  In my usual naiveté it didn’t occur to me to wonder how qualified or well-trained these so-called medics were.  Anyway, to this day I have no qualms about receiving shots.  Including all the dental work I have had done over the years, I have remarked on more than one occasion that if I had as many needles sticking out of me as have been stuck into me over the years, I would look like a porcupine. 

The cadre in basic training and in the military in general seemed to have one set formula for giving presentations or teaching: 1) Tell them what you are going to say; 2) say it; 3) tell them what you said.  It sounded organized, yet “squeezed” very little information into a lot of time.  The result seemed to be: “Now you can’t say I didn’t tell you.”  We learned to disassemble and reassemble our weapons; learned the names of all the parts, and when it came to maintaining our equipment, it seems that everything could benefit from putting a light coat of oil on it.  They were sticklers on not calling a rifle a “gun.”  If you were overheard doing so, you were ordered to stand in front of the group and with appropriate hand gestures recite: “This is my rifle; this is my gun.  This is for fighting; this is for fun.”  I have to admit, that was an effective deterrent to using the wrong nomenclature.

Something else I learned in Basic Training that helped me throughout my three years was to keep a low profile.  It started with learning the technique of turning my torso slightly away from the drill sergeant, so that he couldn’t read my name tag.  My name was a little intimidating, anyway, until one learned how simple it was to pronounce.  They were often looking for “volunteers” to perform some distasteful task or another, like dig a latrine or “police up” some debris on the parade grounds, or something.  They would simply call off some names they could see from name tags, say to step forward, then say “You men just volunteered to do…” whatever it was.  While the rest of us were inside out of the wind and cold, the “volunteers” were outside doing something and cursing their luck under their breath.  Another piece of advice I never forgot, probably because of the poetic way in which it was said was “If you ain’t gonna do shit, don’t say shit.”

In my day, in the early 1960s, our civilian government representatives had very little power to protect us from unfair treatment.  My basic conclusion, even at the time, was that the Army owned me; they could do whatever they wanted with me; I was basically powerless to do anything about it; and this would continue to be the case until I was officially discharged and became a private citizen again.  If in the interim I was court-martialed and thrown in jail for something (guilty or not) I could rot there forever.  That may not have been entirely true, depending on who my congressman was and what my parents were able to do to bring my case to his attention.  We learned early on that “GI” stands for “government issue.”  Not only were all our clothes and equipment government issue, we ourselves were considered “government issue.”  We were called GIs because they owned us.

Within the first few weeks that I was stationed in Germany we conducted some “war game” training against Denmark’s military, jumping into a drop zone in Denmark, regrouping, and pretending to be making an offensive against them.  I remember how my squad leader (an experienced corporal) and I (a green private) were marching along together when the sergeant muttered something to the corporal, whereupon he and I stopped and he had me digging a foxhole with my “entrenching tool,” as they called.  You try digging a hole wide enough and deep enough, with a portable, collapsible shovel, to serve as a foxhole of any real use!  I worked my butt off for hours on a mid summer’s day, every so often asking, “Is this good enough?”  Meanwhile a few dozen Danish civilians, mainly children, joined the corporal in watching me dig a hole for no apparent reason. 

Long story short, it was getting dark by the time someone from our unit found us and wanted to know what in the blankety-blank we were doing back here.  My experienced, ignorant, lifer squad leader said we were told to drop back for R&R, and he figured that meant “rear reserve,” or “rear reconnaissance,” or something, so we dug a foxhole.  (We nuthin’ - I dug a foxhole (for nothing)).  I couldn’t believe that anybody in the Army didn’t know that R&R meant “rest and relaxation,” or “rest and recuperation” or simply, “Take a break.”  Imagine what it would be like to be led in combat by a bunch of illiterate lifers!

To back up a few hours, I recall that we were reaching the drop zone in a formation of C-130s when the signal came to stand up and get ready to hook up to the static line.  The doors opened, which was always a literal breath of relief (fresh air), but then they closed again and we were told to sit back down.  We learned later that it was considered too windy and that they were considering calling off the jump.  But the Danish dignitaries and others assembled around the drop zone had been standing and waiting for an hour or so, so the decision was made to go ahead with the jump.  We made another pass, and this time we jumped.