AWOL in Philadelphia

In late January of 1959, I completed my second eight weeks of training. My first eight weeks had been infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and this was armored training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Upon graduation, we all got orders for our next assignments. One set of orders assigned three of us, Mike, Malon, and me, to a holding company at Fort Dix, New Jersey, awaiting flight assignment to the same company in Germany. (I had been in the Army one week longer than they, due to a case of pneumonia resulting in my missing a week of training and therefore being reassigned to their company, which was one week earlier in the cycle. Such attention to detail does the Army pay that this gave me seniority - my date of rank as a Private was a week prior to theirs - so *eye* was responsible for all our records and for our arrival at the holding company.)

We arrived, were assigned bunks, and stood formation with our Platoon Sergeant and the company's First Sergeant. The latter instructed us on the routine, which was pretty much that we were on our own except that rosters would be posted every day with the names of those responsible for policing the grounds and for other menial chores. His last words to us were, "There will be no passes, no leaves, and no bedchecks."

I decided I would go home (Beverly, Massachusetts) for a visit, and gave Mike and Malon my home phone number. They agreed to call me collect if anything came up that required my presence.

Nine days later Malon called. My name had come up on a duty roster. I was to be part of the detail cleaning up the area on the following day.

I returned to the company, pulled my detail, and headed for home again. This time, however, I was just about broke, and was going to have to hitchhike. Nobody wanted to pick me up for a couple of hours, however. I was about to give up when a gentleman stopped and said he was going to Philadelphia. I decided to take the ride, reasoning that I would have better luck getting a ride in that busy city.

Well, I didn't. I guess I gave up. I found out where the USO was and paid it a visit. But while I was there, something, I don't know what, made me call the company. I got Malon who expressed great relief that we were in touch and told me that we were flying out the next day. This was critical information. I was already AWOL, although that was unimportant provided that I didn't get into some other trouble, but if I missed the flight, the company to which I was supposed to report would drop me from the rolls - that is, declare me a deserter.

It was early evening and I was afraid to trust my hitchhiking luck. I explained the situation to one of the USO hostesses and asked her to call the Military Police. She said there were none in the area, but there were Air Police, the Air Force equivalent. I asked her to call them. She allowed me to listen on an extension as she told them there was an AWOL GI at the club who needed a ride to Fort Dix. They asked her not to tell me that she had called, and we smiled.

Soon two of them arrived. There were perhaps a half dozen servicemen in the club, and the APs announced that they wanted to see everyone's IDs. I walked over and told them I was the one they were looking for. Having determined that this was the case they escorted me to McGuire AFB, where I was booked, then drove me to my company at Fort Dix. My First Sergeant had to sign papers transferring custody from them to him.

When they left he turned to me, scowled, and asked, "Are you bucking for something?"

"No, Sarge. I found out that we're shipping tomorrow and I had the USO call the APs so I could get a ride back here."

After a pause, he scowled again and said, "Get out of here."

Right ho.

From Pool Shooter to Private

I was seventeen, had flunked every subject in the eleventh grade, and was wondering about the rest of my life. I decided that my biggest problem - apart from the fact that I was just a natural born jerk - was that I was running with a bad crowd. Now I hasten to add that I don't mean an evil crowd, just a crowd consisting of guys my age and older who had no ambition, had no desire to learn or get ahead, and were content to hang around the pool room and drink beer when they could get it. And I liked these people. I enjoyed hanging around the pool room. But what was I going to do? Try to get a job at Parker Brothers for twenty dollars a week? No, I had to break loose somehow.

The "somehow" turned out to be the Army. I decided to enlist. For reasons still unknown to me, I had always wanted to go to Germany, and I visited the local Army recruiting office to explore that possibility. I was told that the only way I could be guaranteed an assignment in Germany was to enlist for "Armor, Europe," and I opted in, at least in my mind.

My mother had to give written consent and getting that was like pulling teeth. However, with some nudging from my father and my vow to enlist anyway four months later, when I would be eighteen and would not need her consent, she surrendered.

I went to Boston for the required physical and several days later got a phone call from the recruiting NCO. He said that in order to enter any of the combat arms for the first time, a "class A" physical profile was required.

"And you have a crooked spine, flat feet, bad lungs, and a heart murmur, and you wear glasses."

"So I can't enlist 'Armor, Europe?'"

"Right."

"Okay, draft me when I'm twenty-three."

After a moment's silence: "Let's not be hasty. Let me see what I can do."

"Great."

Now this was just a bluff on my part, but it had no downside. I would still join the Army, but I really wanted to go to Germany.

A day or two later he called me again and told me that I now had a class A physical profile.

So . . . at seventeen years of age, five feet seven inches in height, and weighing one hundred fifteen pounds, I entered the military. I was sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey for eight weeks of basic infantry training. When I completed that despite a stint in the hospital due to pneumonia, I was five feet eight and a half inches tall and weighed one hundred fifty five pounds. Except for the gradual addition of another ten pounds, that's pretty much where I stayed for the next ten years. We're not gonna talk about now.

I was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for eight weeks of training on tanks. It was November, cold, damp, and muddy. I got pneumonia again, spent too long in the hospital, and was recycled into a second training company because I had missed so much training.

Eventually, I completed my training and three of us from my company were sent to Fort Dix, to a "holding company," a company to billet and manage large numbers of transients awaiting orders and shipment to Europe. About two weeks later we got orders - Headquarters Company, Seventh Army Training Center, in Vilseck, Germany.

Came the big day and we boarded a large plane, type unknown to me now but a propeller driven plane - jets were not in use for passenger service yet. We flew up to Gander, Newfoundland, over to Shannon, Ireland, and from there to Frankfurt, Germany. During the trip across the Atlantic, I noticed that the wings were actually darkening. I asked the stewardess (for that's what they were called in those days) about it and she told me that the silver paint on the plane's exterior was rusting. I asked her what they did about that and she told me, "Oh, we'll repaint it before we go back."

The three of us caught another plane to Nuremburg, then a train to Vilseck or somewhere very close to it, and joined our new outfit.