Fiscal Year End, Army Style

I guess I have to toot my own horn a little to set this story up, but that's OK, we're friends, right?

On my return from Vietnam I was assigned to the post Finance Office at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. I was a Specialist Fifth Class (SP5, E-5) and basically just a drone there, with several companies to pay, but I was *good* at it.

Elsewhere in the office there was a calculations unit consisting of three lower ranking enlisted men and one civilian woman, Miriam. Morale was at rock bottom in that unit, which was run by a Staff Sergeant who knew nothing at all about managing people. The unit was behind in its work, and several months in a row he kept everone there at night for a few days at the end of the month in order to get the work done in time to meet payroll. Each month they got deeper in the hole and the overtime started a little earlier than it had the month before.

I don't know exactly what triggered his removal, but I can well imagine that there were fears by "the management" that the month would come when we would not be in a position to pay all the troops because of unfinished work. In any case, he was removed and put on the "staff" (a black hole for non-performing NCOs) of the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the Finance Office.

At the beginning of my third or fourth month there I was asked to take charge of the calculations unit.

I knew everyone there just well enough to say hello to, so the first thing I did was get us all together in an isolated area, ask them a few questions about themselves, and tell them my plan:

"I don't know why you're behind, and I don't want to know. I do know that there are more than enough people here to accomplish the work, so here's the deal: There will be no more overtime. Also, starting this week and continuing on a weekly basis, one of you will get a half day off. You can work it out among yourselves who it will be each week and what half day it will be, but I need to know the schedule when you've settled on it. This will continue as long as we make progress on the backlog, and when we have caught up it will continue as long as we don't fall behind again."

This was well received and perhaps ten days prior to month's end there was no backlog and never a moment when there was any doubt about the work being done. In fact, when a clerk from another area was out for any reason, I was able to send one of my people to that area to take up the slack.

It is human nature that people generally resent this - doing other people's work - so I never let them spend more than half a day at one of these positions, and during those times I checked on them frequently to see how they were doing and to answer questions. I also explained to my people that if we didn't do this we'd have a different kind of problem: people sitting around doing nothing and getting a half day a month off as a reward, stirring up resentment in the rest of the office. Eventually we'd have to end the half days off.

Things went swimmingly for two months, and then I had a cup of coffee with the supervisor of the office's civilian employees, and he took that opportunity to tell me that someone - some civilian - had complained about Miriam getting half days off. Sheesh. I had to explain to her that I could no longer give her that time, and she understood and took it very well.

Presumably on the strength of this performance, I was sent before a batallion promotion board and made Staff Sergeant (SSG, E-6). That set up the conditions for a major problem.

NEXT: I'll Do It, But . . .

Discharged

My departure from the Army was SNAFUed beginning about a month before the actual occurrence. It's not easy to know where to begin, so I'll begin well before that.

Around September of 1967 I bought a 1968 Plymouth Belvedere (In all the time that has passed from then until now, I have only seen one other on the road). In October, the driver of an Army two and a half ton truck ran a stop sign on post (Fort Huachuca, Arizona) and my brave little Belvedere t-boned the truck at about 25 miles per hour.

I was on my way to the mess hall for lunch when this happened - it will amaze most of you, I'm sure, to know that this little tidbit was important.

I had the car towed to an off-post repair shop, which I visited for a
conversation with the owner. I told him about the accident and that the Army would be reimbursing me for the damages, and I would not be able to pay him for the repairs until that time. He very kindly agreed to this.

I rented a car (for which the Army would also reimburse me) for a month or so, and then got my car back. I filed a claim for reimbursement for the repairs and the rental car.

Fast forward to the middle of April, 1968. Procedure at that time was that the Personnel Office was supposed to make up clearance papers for me, indicating all the various offices I was to visit and make sure everything related to me was wrapped up before my discharge. This was to be done thirty days before my discharge date, May 16, 1968.

It took several calls to personnel to convince them that I was not going to reenlist. I was a Staff Sergeant (E-6 for you non-Army military) with nearly ten years of service and they just didn't want to believe it. I finally got my clearance papers with about three weeks to go.

OK, got through that, and arrived at the big day. I went to the Personnel office to pick up my discharge papers and certificate, only to find that they had screwed this up too. Absolutely nothing had been done. I wound up sitting in front of the desk of some private who had never made up discharge papers for anyone.

I watched him like a hawk. At some point I caught him typing a letter notifying the Commanding General of the Army's reserve forces in Massachusetts, that "The following obligated reservist . . . ." I informed him that my 9 years, 8 months, 5 days of active duty more than fulfilled my obligation, and this sort of letter should not be sent. He went off to verify this with a Second Lieutenant who was the Personnel Officer or Assistant Personnel Officer or something. The letter was aborted and the private began fumbling through the rest of the process.

At some point I became impatient and I asked him, "Would you like me to do that?" Without a word he got up and I replaced him. Two minutes later I walked over to the Lieutenant to get signatures on the certificate and the papers.

"What are you doing with that? You're not supposed to have that until I sign it?"

"Lieutenant, your clerk didn't know how to complete these forms so I offered to help him."

For some reason this displeased him and he said, "You know, I can keep you here until midnight."

"Yes sir, but come midnight I'll be gone and you'll still be here."

He signed, I left, and I was nearly done with the Army. There was still the matter of the money I was owed. This was nearly forty years ago and my memory is not to be trusted, but I believe the total was about $1,200.00, of which $300 would be mine - for the rental car bill (which I had paid).

After a couple of weeks in Phoenix, about which more in another post, I headed for my home town, Beverly, Massachusetts, a couple thousand miles away, with $20.00 in my pocket, figuring that I might actually make it, and if I ran out of gas money then I could find some sort of one day job.

I drove straight through, stopping once at a rest area to catch some sleep, eating nothing, drinking only water. The best thing that happened was finding that gas was only eighteen cents a gallon in Kansas and filling up just before leaving that state.

I had to get off the Massachusetts Turnpike. I had nearly a full tank of gas when I reached it, but no money at all for tolls. So it was secondary highways and local roads for the last several hours. I reached Peabody, Massachusetts, a few miles from home, with an empty gas tank and nineteen cents in my pocket. I pumped the gas into the tank, the station attendant came out, I handed him the nineteen cents, and he looked at me and said, "Good luck." I got into the car and noted that the nineteen cent purchase hadn't caused the fuel gauge needle to move one iota.

I made it home - a two day drive - looking, as my mother put it, like "the last survivor from World War II."

Several months later I got a telephone call from the owner of the auto repair shop in Sierra Vista, Arizona. He said he had called the appropriate office (I no longer remember what that was) in Washington, D.C., and had been told by some lieutenant that yes, I had been reimbursed. I assured him that I had not, got the lieutenant's phone number from him, and told him that I would call him back in a few minutes.

I called the lieutenant, who had no explanation for having told anyone that I had been reimbursed when in fact I had not. This claim was nearly a year old, and the holdup was - scout's honor - that they wanted to know why I was driving my car at the time of the accident. Was I going to another office, was I going off duty, or what? They needed this information in order to allocate the expenditure correctly. I had taken the precaution of leaving this information with the JAG (Judge Advocate General) office at Fort Huachuca, which precaution obviously did me no good.

I'm afraid I rather lit into him at that point. I told him I'd been going to the mess hall for lunch, and that I wanted that money very soon, and that if I didn't get it he'd be explaining why to Ted Kennedy, one of "my" (Massachusetts) Senators.

I called the owner of the repair shop, and told him that the lieutenant had confessed that I had not been reimbursed. I said I expected to get the check in a week or so and that I would send it to him immediately, and I thanked him for his patience.

A week or so later I received the check, made out (definitely not in accordance with Army regulations) to both the repair shop and me. This must have been the lieutenant's petty revenge, but it didn't really bother me. I signed the check, sent it to the repair shop owner, he cashed it, and sent me the $300.00 or so that wasn't his.

Fort Huachuca Annoyances

• THE NEXT JOHN WAYNE - NOT!
  
  It was very late, perhaps 2:30 in the morning, and I was driving to the barracks. I had entered the post at Huachuca City and had several miles of desert to cross. In the middle of it there was an intersection with stop signs, possibly a four-way stop, but I don't remember. In any case, this really was desert, and you could see a lit match from a mile away. There were no headlights anywhere in sight, and my stop at the intersection was a "Hollywood stop," a matter of slowing down to two or three miles per hour and rolling through the intersection, then accelerating without ever coming to a complete stop.
  
  Incredibly, astonishingly, a Military Police cruiser lit me up as soon as I crossed the intersection. At this hour? In the middle of the Goddamn desert?
  
  I stopped the car, grabbed my registration, and got out, fishing for my license. A brandy new Second Lieutenant with a mile long flashlight got out of the cruiser and swaggered - actually swaggered - toward me as if he were John Wayne.
  
  Lieutenant: "Where'dja getcher license, Hollywood?"
  
  Donnie: "No sir. Is that where you get your dialogue?"
  
  Behind him two enlisted MPs exited the cruiser, one of them holding his palms outward as if to say, "Sorry. We tried to talk him out of it."
  
  Lieutenant: "Don't get smart with me, Sergeant."
  
  Donnie: "Lieutenant, let's do a deal. You treat me with respect and I'll treat you with respect."
  
  I was a Staff Sergeant with nearly ten years of service, my previous assignment having been Vietnam, and I was not going to take that crap from any 21 year old whose total experience consisted of ninety days in an Officer Candidate School, and especially not from one whose idea of military heroics was hiding behind desert brush at 2:30 in the morning to catch someone blowing off a stop sign, and then trying to bully him.
  
  He wrote me up in silence and we parted. I got a demerit on my post driving record, which was of no consequence as I was only weeks away from leaving the Army.
  
  
• YOU CAN CATCH MORE FLIES WITH HONEY . . . .
  
  I had about eight months left in the Army and wanted to buy a new car. I went to the post Credit Union, informed them that I intended to leave the Army soon, and asked if that would create a problem regarding an automobile loan. I was told that it would not as long as my payment record was good at the time of my discharge.
  
  I bought the car, financing it through that credit union and left the Army eight months later, as announced. First however, there was the matter of clearance. Standard then (and perhaps now) was for someone being reassigned to another organization or being discharged to be given a set of "clearance papers" along with copies of the orders transferring or discharging the member at some point in the near future. These clearance papers consisted of the identification of various departments, sections, etc., which might have a vested interest in knowing that the member was leaving, such as Supply, Medical Records, yada yada yada, and yes, the post Credit Union.
  
  As an NCO I could initial most of these myself, simply representing that I had cleared the various areas. Several, however, were more sensitive, and had to be initialed by someone in each area. One of these was the Credit Union. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the Credit Union to be greeted by hostility and threats from two people, a clerk of some kind and a brand new Credit Union Manager. What did I think I was doing, getting out of the Army while owing them money? We can prevent your discharge until you pay this loan off. (There's a bluff if ever there was one.)
  
  I found the woman I had talked to and asked her to join the conversation. I asked her if she recalled telling me that as long as I had made my payments I would have no problem with the Credit Union regarding being discharged during the period of my loan. She did, and what's more she said that she told me that because it is the Credit Union's policy. That deflated my two antagonists and I was on my way after giving them the address of my intended new residence.
  
  But this really rankled, and for several months I made no payments, waiting for the first correspondence from this manager/moron. It came, and in keeping with his style it contained more threats - they would "keep track of me," they would "harrass (sic) me," etc.
  
  I replied, reminding him of his previous attempt to bully me and of the Credit Union's commitment that my impending discharge would have no effect on my loan, would create no problem. I requested (umm, well, to be fair, perhaps I demanded) an explanation.
  
  Several weeks went by and I received a letter from his boss, saying that I had made my point, that he regretted any inconvenience, and that he would be grateful if I were to make my monthly payments.
  
  And I did, beginning with a lump sum for the several months that I had skipped.

It's a Small Army

I was a payroll clerk in the Army's Personnel Office in Grafenwoehr, Germany. "My" area, the payroll area, was the smaller of two connected, large, open office areas, the other containing the Personnel Officer, NCOIC, and several personnel clerks.

I heard the door to the Personnel Office open, and looked over. It was winter, and the new arrival was wearing a parka. From the back, very little of him could be seen. I did hear the Personnel Officer ask him, "Who are you?" His reply was, "I'm your new Sergeant Major."

Someone had led him astray, whether intentionally or unintentionally I do not know. The post had a perfectly good Sergeant Major who had no plans or orders to relinquish the position. The new arrival was, in fact, to become the First Sergeant of a company in Hohenfels, Germany, an isolated part of the Seventh Army Training Center.

He was processed by the NCOIC and brought in to payroll. We were introduced - he was First Sergeant Sam Donley - and I took possession of his payroll records, cleared up a couple of items, and that was it.

Perhaps a year later a figure in a parka (this is key because there were no insignia and there was no name tag) appeared in my office saying he had a couple of questions about "my pay."

"Sure thing. And you are . . . ?"

"Why wouldn't you know who I am?"

"Let's turn it around. Why would I? I have the payroll records for more than 500 people. I have met perhaps 100 of them more than once, and many of them I've never met at all."

This seemed to placate him, he reintroduced himself, and we resolved whatever issues were bothering him.

Fast forward to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, five years later. Two companies' "Orderly Rooms" (basically company headquarters, usually containing the Company Commander, First Sergeant, and Company Clerk) shared a building. I was assigned to one of the companies and the First Sergeant of the other was - yup - Sam Donley. I had hardly known him, had only met him the two times described above, and had talked to him on the phone a couple of times about payroll issues regarding soldiers in his company in Hohenfels, but we figured to be in close proximity to each other for perhaps the next year and a half, and it seemed to me that the appropriate thing to do was to stop in and say hello.

I did. He was sitting at his desk and I introduced myself as "your payroll clerk in Grafenwoehr when you were in Hohenfels. Just thought I'd say hello." Although I doubt that he actually remembered me, he smiled, stood up, walked over to me, shook my hand and said, "Oh, yes. How are you?"

We chatted for a couple of minutes and my impression that he was somewhat pedantic was reinforced when we were interrupted by a Sergeant First Class for whom Sam had some instructions. When he finished issuing them the SFC began speaking: "In other words, you want me . . . " - "What's wrong with my words?"

Something made Sam ask me if I played duplicate bridge, and he was very pleased to learn that I did. There was a weekly session held at the Sambo's in Sierra Vista, right outside the post. It was sanctioned by the North American Bridge League and I think I recall learning that Sam had started it. I agreed to show up at the next one, we shook hands, and I exited.

Sam and I became friends, not particularly intimate friends, but at least friendly. We were probably the two best players at the weekly event and we usually won when we played together. But we weren't partners very often, as the attendance was fairly small and we made ourselves available as partners to others in order to encourage attendence.

I guess I'm rambling here, as I don't have any point to make or any particular exit line. Sam popped into my head and I thought I'd write about him. Two more related thoughts:

• This was the first time I had made myself available as a partner to players who were consistently weaker than I, and I learned a lot. One incident springs to mind - I was playing with an Army Captain who was very unsure of himself regarding bridge. In fact, we were partnered as the result of his wife asking me to play with him because she felt that a good result would make him more liable to attend the event frequently.
  
  Early on, he opened a hand's bidding with "One heart." I had great heart support and a wildly distributional hand. I jumped to six hearts and he was visibly shaken. He played the hand as if he were walking the plank and went down one in an ice cold contract. Nearly everyone else bid and made six hearts with the hand. But this was not his fault - it was due to my inexperience. What I should have done was drag him through a series of forcing bids. In other circumstances the sequence of bids would make no sense but in this case it would have given him time to realize that he was going to be playing in a slam contract, however reluctantly. Given that time to adjust, he would probably not have blundered due to a case of nerves.
  
  
• The weekly bridge reinforced my decision to leave the Army. I was about a year and a half away from discharge and had been a GI more than eight years. It wouldn't have been a bad life for me except that there were so many rules regarding personal behavior. I chafed under being told what time to get up, what time to go to bed, what to wear, where I was and was not allowed to go, and - most particularly - with whom I might and might not socialize.
  
  Some of the players at the weekly event were commissioned officers and/or their wives, and I came to know and like some of them. However, this was the only occasion on which I could socialize with them, as I was enlisted, not commissioned. I understood and agreed with the logic behind this, but it still annoyed me.
  
  In the event, I was promoted to Staff Sergeant perhaps a year before my enlistment was up, but I did follow through with my determination to reenter civilian life.