Soldier*: (*Rifleman by Training, Clerk-Typist by Accident. in North Africa, Italy, and Austria)

By Wallace J. Gordon

Over 11,200,000 men and women served in the United States Army during World War II.

An estimated 5,200,000 of those men and women were in actual combat of one form or another.

And over 880,000 of them became casualties.

The other 6,000,000 or so were in the same Army. At the same time. In the same war. Like those in combat we lost girls, lost friends, and lost 3 or 4 years of our life. We trained just as hard. Got just as homesick. Worried and ached and grumbled just as much.

We were radar operators and cryptography specialists and MP's. Medics and buglers and mechanics. Truck drivers and cooks and clerks and everything else.

But there was one big difference: we were the lucky ones. The ones that didnt get shot at. It was still the same war, but the shooting was aimed at somebody else.

Yes, we were the lucky ones.

And a lot of us still feel guilty about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 1, 2003
• ISBN: 9781403331540

Wallace J. Gordon

Where do writers come from and how do they get that way? Good question. With a lot of answers. Wallace J. Gordon has been writing for a living for something like forever – fifty-five years and counting – and after piling up mountains of rejection slips for short stories and a novel, he made a successful and satisfying detour into the advertising business, writing ads and commercials for clients ranging from Coco-Cola and Dodge to the neighborhood bank. However, after almost forty years of the advertising wars, he decided enough was enough, and is now writing books for himself, his wife and kids, and anyone else who happens to stumble across them. ANOTHER KIND OF WRITER, 1946, shows you how and when and where it all began, and is one of six memoirs he has written and is publishing. So far. You are cordially invited to come along for journey ...

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Soldier*

(*Rifleman by Training, Clerk-Typist by Accident. In North Africa, Italy, and Austria)

By

Wallace J. Gordon

© 2002 by Wallace J. Gordon. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4033-3154-5 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-4033-3154-0 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4033-3155-3 (Paperback)

1stBooks-rev. 08/09/02

Contents

PROLOGUE

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

ORAN, ALGERIA

CAMP GRANT

CAMP ROBINSON,

CAMP YOUNG

CAMP SHELBY

MURIEL

FORT MEADE

U.S.S. GEORGE McCLELLAN

H.M.S. SAMARIA,

MANCIANO

CASA LAPPI

PONTE EGOLA

ROME

CASERTA

SALZBURG

VIENNA

SHRIVENHAM

LONDON

EAU CLAIRE AGAIN

For Ann. Because she’s Ann.

PROLOGUE

I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about the war. The big one, World War II. Almost sixty years ago, for crying out loud.

I was there, along with the other over 11,200,000 men and women who served in the U.S. army. Who served in a hundred different specialties and guises and shapes and sizes. Some for a few days, some for a few months, some for a few years.

Almost half of those men and women were in actual combat of one form or another. And over 880,000 of them became casualties.

The other six million or so were in the same army. At the same time. In the same war. We trained just as hard, got just as homesick, worried and ached and grumbled just as much. We were radar operators and cryptography specialists and MP’s. Medics and buglers and mechanics. Truck drivers and cooks and clerks and everything else the army needed or thought it needed.

But there was one big difference: we were in the war, but we weren’t in actual combat. Nobody was shooting at us. Trying to kill us. Trying to snuff out our young lives before they’d barely gotten started.

It was those other men and women who did the actual fighting. And to say they were the ones who won the war is the understatement of the century. Obvious. Something for which we’ll always be grateful. And something about which we’ll always feel a little guilty, because we weren’t under fire with them.

But that’s the way it was. For one reason or another, the rest of us weren’t chosen to do the shooting. Probably just luck, but that’s the way it happened. We were there, too, but we had a different job to do. Hundreds of different jobs. And whether we did them in Omaha, Nebraska, or on Omaha Beach, Normandy, we did our part to get the war over the right way.

We were lucky. But we were there. And we can tell our grandkids that we helped.

So I guess I’ve finally figured out how I feel about the war. Took me almost sixty years, but I think I finally got there.

I feel lucky that I was part of it.

I feel proud that I did my job well.

I feel a little guilty—even after all these years—that I wasn’t in actual combat.

I feel grateful to all the guys and gals who were. Especially to the ones who didn’t make it home.

But most importantly of all, I’m just glad that we were there, too. All six million of us.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

All of the dates, places and organizations mentioned in this memoir are historically accurate, and all the events described actually happened.

Even most of the names, especially of the major players, are correct, except for a very few that have been changed to protect the person’s privacy. When the names of some of the minor players slipped behind the mists of memory, I came as close as I could to reproducing them as accurately as possible.

However, I’m sure none of us are capable of remembering, word for word, every conversation of fifty years ago. We can, however, when the events are important to us, remember the tone, substance and content of those conversations; we can remember how we felt, how we reacted, and what resulted from them. We can also accurately reproduce those words and feelings when we put our mind to it.

That’s what I’ve done in this memoir. I hope you enjoy it.

One last thought: the words and events that are not included here are also accurate and also happened. However, we’ll talk about them later.

P.S. Several years after the war, for reasons explained elsewhere (another book, one of several), I legally changed my name to Wallace J. Gordon, and that’s who I’ve been for many years. During the years of this book, however, I was still Wallace J. Loftsgordon. So that’s the way I wrote it.

ORAN, ALGERIA

Twenty days at sea.

Day #20. Saturday, October 23, 1943. The day we sailed into the harbor at Oran. Five hundred GI’s aboard the Liberty Ship U.S.S. George S. McClellan. Including me, Private Wallace J. Loftsgordon, barely nineteen years old and formerly of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Once again it had been a morning filled with rumors:

Today’s the day!

By midnight we’ll be sleeping in the desert!

Casbah, here we come!

By noon the rumors had become more specific:

We’re going to the Big Red! The 1st Division!

I heard we’re heading for a place called Arzew! Wherever the hell that is.

Bullcrap! We’re bailing out the French Foreign Legion!

By 1300 hours land was in sight:

See? What’d I tell you?

Is that Algiers or Oran or what?

I wish I was back home in Nebraska.

And by 1500 hours we were resting quietly at anchor in the harbor at Oran. We were so far out we couldn’t see anything that clearly identified the city, but the rumors were emphatic: it was Oran. Oran, Algeria, North Africa. End of trip, end of voyage, beginning of war. Everybody out of the pool. Hup, twop, threep, fourp.

Africa.

There it was. Whatever it was, there it was. Exciting or frightening, good or bad, life or death, there it was.

Just sitting there waiting for us.

My first reaction was barely controlled awe. Remember, I was all of nineteen. Plus about five weeks. And now, having just discovered the Rock of Gibraltar a few days ago, I was about to discover my first foreign country. Me, Wally Loftsgordon from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. My first new continent. My first other side of the world.

From where I was sitting it looked beautiful. The harbor was a giant half-circle, land sweeping out on both sides of us. We were close enough to see individual buildings, separate white boxes sparkling in the sunlight at the water’s edge, the individual boxes fading quickly into clean white steps that marched up the hills beyond. The farther they marched the higher they got, and by the time the steps began to blur into each other they had become sunny white hills stretching wide on both sides of us. We could see the streets cutting through the whiteness and they looked clean and neat and cool and fringed with green. The overall impression was one of vivid colors—bright blue water, bright white houses, bright blue sky, bright green trees, bright red flowers.

It was beautiful.

At 1500 hours. And at 1600 hours. And at 1700 hours.

But by 1800 hours it was beginning to get a little monotonous. It was still beautiful, even more so if possible in the golden light of the late afternoon sun, but how long can you sit in the middle of a harbor looking at the scenery? Especially when you’ve been cooped up in a rusty tub for twenty days and nights? With escape just a few hundred yards away, your feet begin to get itchy after a few hours. Itchy and impatient and eager to move.

1830.

1845.

1900 hours.

The ship finally started moving slowly toward shore. We couldn’t tell if we were moving under our own power or if the tug behind us was pushing us in, but we didn’t care. One way or the other we were going to get there, and that meant off, O-f-f, OFF!

1930 hours.

Our gear was packed. We were ready to go. The ship tied up at a crumbling stone pier sticking out into the harbor. Non-coms ran around yelling orders. Winches clanked into action. Whistles blew. Loudspeakers squawked. All 500 of us milled around trying to find our assigned stations for disembarking.

A convoy of army trucks rumbled up the pier and stopped beside the ship. They looked tired and dusty and like they’d been through a war or something.

Hey, I thought suddenly. Maybe they have been through a war. This is where it is, remember?

1945 hours.

More whistles. More squawks. More non-coms. How the devil can it take so long just to get off a dumb ship?

Okay, let’s go!

Down the gangplank. The same one we’d climbed up twenty days ago on the other side of the world.

Move it, move it, move it!

Silently cursing the same non-coms we’d cursed twenty days ago.

Lift that thing, soldier!

Sweating under the same heavy-heavier-heaviest barracks bag we’d sweated under twenty days ago.

Into the truck, soldier!

Climbing into the same kind of army truck we’d climbed into twenty days ago. Same dusty smell, same slivery seat, same banged shins.

Get up there, soldier!

Dammit, you think we’re a bunch of sheep or something?

2000 hours.

The trucks were moving. It was almost dark but the trucks were finally moving. Slowly at first, then faster, faster, faster, until finally the open trucks seemed to be speeding through the streets of Oran. We probably weren’t going that fast, but it seemed like it because the streets were so narrow and crowded. Faces and buildings streamed past; we couldn’t see much in the semi-darkness but we could see enough to know that everything wasn’t quite the clean white beauty it had seemed to be from the middle of the harbor. The wind was in our face and we were careening around corners but we could still see enough and smell enough, and what we could smell was worse than what we could see. It wasn’t so much that it smelled bad as that it smelled different. Hot. Stuffy. Acrid. Musty. And smelly. Like a garbage can or a city dump or a badly ventilated public toilet.

On second thought, it wasn’t so much that it smelled different as that it smelled bad. Really bad. And a lot of the smell seemed to be coming from the gutters on each side of the street. Like they were open sewers or something.

2030 hours.

We were out of Oran speeding through the Algerian countryside. We could see even less, but what we saw looked a lot better. White farmhouses. Planted fields. Trees bordering the road. Olive trees, lemon trees, orange trees, palm trees. Fences and herds and an occasional Arab and his dog. The signposts at the crossroads were in both French and Arabic and most of them also had hand-painted temporary signs tacked to them:

3rd Bn Hq.

127th QM Co.

8th Repl Dep.

Past more fields. Around more corners. Through a small village. And on every corner, the signs:

114th Motor Pool.

97th Sig Hq.

8th Repl Dep.

Under more trees. Past more farmhouses. Through another small village. And still the signs:

19th HW Co.

C Co.

8th Repl Dep.

They all kept changing except that last one. 8th Repl Dep. Whatever that was.

Then suddenly the next sign was three times as big as the last one:

8th Repl Dep.

We rumbled through a gate. The trucks stopped. We were there.

Dismount!

We climbed out of the trucks. Tired, weary, our bottoms sore from bouncing on the North African bumps.

Fall in!

It sounded suspiciously like we were home. At least for the moment. And at the 8th Repl Dep. apparently, although we still didn’t know what it was or where it was or why it was. But whatever it was, it looked open for business. There were tents all around us, plenty of GI’s in evidence, and all the other trappings of an army camp. A little different from the other camps we’d seen—more temporary looking, a little muddier, a little simpler—but with all the familiar earmarks.

Fall in, you bastards! On the double!

All the familiar earmarks.

Goddammit, will you guys fall in?!

We were home, all right

ON THE DOUBLE!

Welcome to Africa, kids.

Yeah, some welcome. It started raining a few hours after we got off those trucks and it didn’t really stop for weeks. At least that’s the way it seemed. It rained and it rained and it rained.

The place? The 8th Replacement Depot, U.S. Army.

The address? APO 398. Near Canastel, Algeria. Give or take a few puddles.

The purpose? Staging area for casuals. Which means? Waiting room for replacements.

What are replacements? The guys who go to combat outfits to replace casualties.

What are casualties? The guys who get shot. Wounded. Killed. Oh.

Well, I’d asked for it, so now I had it. I was one breath away from combat and beginning to wonder if this had been such a hot idea after all. Maybe I should have settled for OCS when they’d offered it to me after basic training. Still, I hadn’t wanted to be an officer then and I still didn’t want to be one. But I didn’t want to get killed, either. On the other hand, who said I’m going to get killed? Stuff like that just happened to other guys. I wanted to help win the war and now I was going to get a chance to do it. If I just watched my step...

So I worried a little and fretted a little and even swore a little; your vocabulary picks up some interesting coloration in the army. Especially when you get overseas, you’re marooned in an ocean of mud, and it’s still raining. But eventually you settle down and go about your business. Most of which is waiting for something to happen, a little of which is training to make sure you’ll be ready when it does happen, and all of which is pretty boring.

So we sat and waited. Me and all the other guys in the 8th Repple Depple, as we began calling it. Just sitting and waiting for our number to be called. All six or seven thousand of us. Sitting and waiting and wishing we weren’t hearing quite so much about casualties and air raids and patrols getting ambushed and things like that.

Sitting and waiting.

The most frustrating thing about a replacement depot is that the whole thing is just a big canvas hotel. A thousand or so tents, each of them holding five or six guys, and practically all of the guys in constant motion. Except you. They were shipping in or shipping out at all hours of the day and night. Coming and going. Hello and goodbye. You never knew who your roommates were going to be from one hour to the next. One of them might change, two of them might change, all of them might change.

Coming and going. Hello and goodbye. The whole thing was a walking traffic jam. A big funnel collecting guys from all directions and squirting them where they were needed. Two to this outfit, twelve to that outfit, a hundred and fifty to another outfit. New meat for the meat grinder. New heads for the headhunters. New bulls-eyes for the targets.

I guess you can’t have a war without guys to shoot at, can you?

Coming and going.

Hello and goodbye.

And still I sat there, miserable in the rain, trying to dodge the puddles, wondering what I was doing and why I was doing it and how I’d ever ended up in this miserable valley of mud...

CAMP GRANT

That morning it was Tuesday, March 23, 1943. And by the end of the day it was another world, another time, another life. It was still March 23, but that’s about the only thing that stayed the same.

I’ve often thought I was born that day, but I guess it would be more accurate to say that was the day I grew up. The day I stopped being a kid and became a man. Whatever I call it, it was the day everything important really began. March 23,1943.

The day I reported for duty in the United States Army.

The train ride seemed endless. It had begun just after dawn, we’d zigzagged over two-thirds of the state of Wisconsin, and were beginning to rumble through stations that belonged to towns in Illinois. Every few hours we’d stopped to pick up more draftees, more new soldiers on their way to a khaki destination that no one would reveal to us, and we were all getting cranky and tired. It didn’t even help that Verne Janke, one of my best friends, had been drafted with me and was somewhere on the same train; I hadn’t seen him since we’d pulled out of Eau Claire.

The first flush of excitement had worn off long ago, the We’re on our way! had been replaced by When in the devil will we get there? and about the only illusions that still remained were all those innocent certainties that we were on some magnificent quest, that we were going to march into battle side by side with thousands of our buddies, and that we’d win this war and save our country sometime in the next few weeks. Or next few months, at the most.

The memories of all the goodbyes were still fresh. The faces of Mom and Ted, my stepdad; Cleo, Harvey and Marie, my sisters and brother; and especially, Muriel, my girl, were all still clear and shining, undimmed even by the tears in Muriel’s eyes and the ones Mom quickly wiped away. It would take more than an endless train ride and some dry, cold sandwiches to make those precious faces fade. But more was exactly what the army had in store for me...

The army and I did not get off to a good start together.

I wanted to talk about winning the war, and the army wanted to talk about gonorrhea.

That’s right: gonorrhea.

Oh, I didn’t catch it or anything quite that dumb. I saw a film about it. In living color, and I do mean living. That’s what the great U.S. Army did to me my first twenty minutes in camp. Tumbled me off a troop train, stood me in line and yelled at me for a couple of minutes, then marched me into a theater to watch a movie about VD.

All of this happened at a drizzly place named Camp Grant, Illinois, a few miles outside of Rockford and a few centuries from civilian life. It was one of those reception centers where they go through the first stages of uncivilizing you before shipping you off to another camp for your basic training. They cut off your hair, give you a pile of uniforms and equipment, and rush you through a bunch of

11

tests. Then they show you movies on VD and military courtesy and This Is The Enemy and why you should buy War Bonds. The whole thing is basically an abridged shock treatment designed to knock off whatever smooth edges you might have acquired in civilian life.

It started about ten seconds after we fell off the troop train we’d been on since just after dawn. It was now a quarter to eleven that night, and we hadn’t had anything to eat since a box lunch at noon.

A tall all-business sergeant got in the first licks.

"All right, men—form a single line in front of the car you were riding in. Let’s move it along, now. Step sharply. Straighten up those lines. Move it!"

We mumbled and stumbled and bumped into each other and finally formed a vaguely straight line. We must have look pretty gamey; we were wrinkled and tired and wearing everything from raincoats to sheepskins to lumberjack shirts. Each of us had a few belongings in an overnight case or a small zipper bag.

Snap it up—you can make a better line that that. Straighten it out! Come on, let’s move it!

My stomach grumbled.

Me, too, muttered the guy beside me. When do we eat?

What was that? the sergeant said icily. He glared in my direction.

Some inner wisdom told me I didn’t know what he was talking about. Or even who he was talking to. I busily looked innocent, pretending to be absorbed in something over his right shoulder. The guy beside me cleared his throat a little, then thought better of it.

Well? demanded the sergeant.

Silence. For a long minute.

That’s better, he yelled. His glare relaxed a little. I’m Sergeant Crocker. Your mother and father and guardian angel for the next few days. And don’t ever forget it. He paused to let that sink in for a moment. Now listen carefully—you’re going to learn something important. He walked slowly down the line, stopping a few feet from me.

What’s your name, soldier? he asked, looking directly at me.

Loftsgordon, sir. Wallace Loftsgordon.

Don’t call me ‘sir,’ soldier. Only officers are called ‘sir’. I’m a non-commissioned officer. Call me ‘Sergeant’.

Yes, sir. I mean, yes, sergeant.

All right, Loftsgordon—drop that bag and step two paces forward.

I dropped my bag and stepped two paces forward.

Now the rest of you men watch Loftsgordon carefully, he said, resuming his walk down the line. He looked each man directly in the eye as he passed him. He wasn’t exactly unpleasant about it, but he didn’t leave much room for any Dale Carnegie nonsense.

Lesson #1 in this man’s army is how to stand at attention, he said crisply. "You have to stand at attention to get paid or get chewed out or get just about anything else worth getting. And it’s not really

all that tough. Just watch Loftsgordon; he’s going to show us how to do it."

I gulped.

He wheeled around and started walking back up the line toward

me.

All right, Loftsgordon, now pay attention, he said, looking briefly at me, then back at each man as he passed him. Now when I call you men to attention—and I’ll do it like this: Tennnnnnnnnnnsssssss-HUT!—when I call you men to attention, I want you to snap your heels together—shoulders back—stomach in—chest out—chin in—hands at your side. Got that? Heels together—shoulders back—stomach in—chest out—chin in—hands at your side.

He stopped in front of me.

"Okay, Loftsgordon, let’s show them how to do it. Loftsgordon: Tennnnnnsssss-HUT!"

I snapped to attention. Sort of. Let’s see—heels together, chin in—

Okay, Loftsgordon, suck in that gut, he said patiently. That’s better. Hands at your side. Let your thumbs hang along the seam of your trousers. He looked me up and down. Eyes straight ahead—don’t watch me. He walked around me slowly. Angle your toes a little. About a thirty-degree angle. Okay, not bad. Not bad at all.

He walked back out in front of the group. Okay, men, that’s the way we do it in the army. Take a good look at Loftsgordon, because now we’re all going to do it. At ease, Loftsgordon.

I didn’t move.

That means relax, Loftsgordon. Feet apart, hands behind your back.

I relaxed. But not too much. And I wasn’t falling for that hands behind your back business.

Okay, step back into ranks, Loftsgordon.

I stepped back into ranks.

All right, men, let’s see if we can all do it together now. Nice and snappy like Loftsgordon did it. Drop your bags and let’s look alive. Detail: Tennnnnnnnssss-iTLT!

We snapped to attention. With exactly the sort of precision and dedication you’d expect from a bunch of tired, hungry civilians. When it’s almost midnight.

Come on, come on, come on, said our friendly sergeant. Shape it up, you clowns.

We shaped it up. A little. With more of the same precision and dedication.

Ye gods, I’ve seen better formations from a bunch of Girl Scouts, he said in exasperation. Come on, get those shoulders back! Back, back, back! And pull in those guts!

We pushed those shoulders back a little and pulled in those guts a little. With our last remaining dollop of that same precision and dedication.

Sergeant Crocker looked at us with what can only be described as acute distaste. I think he even shuddered a little.

Balls, he muttered to his shoes. I should have gone into the Navy. Then he looked up at us and shrugged. All right, fall out, he barked. Follow me.

He wheeled and started walking briskly toward a bunch of long barracks a few hundred yards away, hut, two, three, four, with us straggling wearily behind him. He looked like a one-man parade being followed by a confused mob. When he got to the third barracks, he took a sharp column right and led us into a cavernous room. There was an endless line of double-decker bunks on each side of a center aisle.

This is your barracks, men. Barracks #11. Remember that number. Everybody grab a bunk, leave your stuff on it, and follow me.

Maybe we’ll eat, I thought hopefully. Hah. We grabbed a bunk, threw our bags onto it, and followed him. Right into a nearby theater and the Technicolor extravaganza starring gonorrhea in all its glory.

Like the sergeant said, balls.

However, even gonorrhea can’t last forever. Twenty minutes later the screen flickered and went black, the house lights came up, and we all looked at each other in horror. Which is a pretty natural reaction after you’ve been assaulted by eight-foot high genitals in glorious Technicolor. Eight-foot high diseased genitals, at that.

Follow me, men! boomed our faithful sergeant, charging up the aisle and heading for the door.

I looked at my watch. 11:48. Man, were we going to eat or weren’t we?

We weren’t.

Follow me, men! he boomed again, and back to the barracks we went.

Lights out in twenty minutes, he announced when we got there. Latrine’s at the end of the barracks. Showers and john, then hit the sack. You’ve got a full day tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep.

Get a good night’s sleep.

Sure.

Just about the time I finally managed to drop off, some maniac started blowing a bugle in my ear.

Up and at ‘em! boomed our friendly neighborhood sergeant, snapping on the lights and charging cheerfully down the aisle. "Ten minutes ‘til reveille. Let’s shake it up! Everybody out in the company street in ten minutes! Alert, dressed and on your toes! Let’s move it, move it, move it!"

He stopped in front of my bunk. I was half sitting up, looking around sleepily, trying to figure out what had hit me. What the devil was all the noise about? And the lights were blinding, yet I had a vague feeling it was still dark outside.

I was right on both counts. The lights were blinding, and it was still dark outside.

Come on, men—reveille at 0530. That’s nine minutes from now!

5:30? I thought incredulously. In the morning?

Sergeant Crocker looked at me.

Morning, Loftsgordon, he said with a grin. Welcome to the army.

I replied with a catchy remark. Something like Mmmmmmmph or Wruummmmmph. It might even have been

Ruzzlemmmmmmuuuppppl.

Up, up, up! continued our friendly neighborhood sergeant. Does he have to say everything three times? I wondered sleepily. "Only eight and a half minutes ‘til reveille! Let’s hit the latrine and get out in the company street! Move it, move it, move it!"

One way or another we managed to move it, move it, move it out into the company street, were prodded and pushed by our optimistic sergeant into something vaguely resembling a reveille formation, and beheld our very first U.S. of A. Army roll call and reveille.

As far as I was concerned, I was perfectly willing to have it be my very last.

Winning a war is one thing. Standing around in the dark and listening to some guy yell at you is something else again. Especially when everyone else in the world is still in bed, warm and snugly and cozy. And it didn’t help at all that there was a nasty cold drizzle whipping around the corner of the barracks.

Sir, detail all present and accounted for, somebody was saying to somebody else.

I peered sleepily through the dark and drizzle, trying to see what was going on. Our sergeant was saluting some stranger with little gold bars on his jacket.

That must be an officer, I thought vaguely, as the stranger returned the sergeant’s salute.

Mumble, mumble, mumble, the stranger said to the sergeant.

Yes, sir, snapped the sergeant. He did something clever with his feet and suddenly he was facing us again instead of the stranger.

Detail, at ease, he said briskly. Since we were all pretty much at ease already, we didn’t pay too much attention to him.

Men, this is Lieutenant Jackson, he said. Your acting company commander. If you have anything you want to talk to him about, see me and I’ll arrange it. He glanced at the lieutenant. Is there anything else you want to tell the men, sir?

No, carry on, sergeant, the lieutenant said. Follow the normal schedule. I’ll be in the orderly room if you need me. Everybody saluted everybody else again and then the lieutenant vanished as abruptly as he’d appeared. Probably on his way back to bed.

Okay, men, the sergeant said. Breakfast at 0615 in the mess hall. I’ll show you where it is. By then I want you washed and shaved, with bunks made and the barracks policed up. First thing we’ll do after breakfast is go over to the supply building and get you some uniforms. Then you can get out of those civvies and start looking like soldiers. Any questions?

Yeah, I thought sleepily. How do I transfer out of this dumb outfit? 6:15? Good Lord.

"Okay. Detail: Tennnnnnnnnnnsss-HUT!"

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

Detail: Dissssss-missed!

More shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

Follow me, men, Sergeant Crocker said, heading back into the barracks. Let’s get this place squared away.

And that’s the way it went for the next three days. Sergeant Crocker hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he was going to be our mother and father and guardian angel during our stay at Camp Grant. He was with us continuously, day and night. Showed us everything from how to make our beds to how to salute an officer. Follow me, men! he’d boom, and go charging off on the next phase of our welcome-to-the-army shock treatment.

Breakfast was a blur—cold toast, runny oatmeal, and something yellow that tasted vaguely like eggs—and then the sergeant was at it again.

Follow me, men!

Into the big olive-drab supply building. We plodded patiently through what seemed like an endless line.

Next? barked the supply sergeant to the corporal beside him.

Loftsgordon, Wallace J.

Sizes?

Shoes: 8 ½. Shirt: 14 ½-32. Trousers—

As the corporal read off the sizes from the clipboard in his hand, other assistants piled the articles mentioned on the counter in front of me.

-28-29. Hat: 7 1/8. Field jacket: 38. Socks: 10. Handkerchiefs. Helmut liner. Barracks bags—

The list went on and on, and the pile grew higher and higher. Eventually we’d all been through the line.

Follow me, men! boomed Sergeant Crocker and away we went, still a one-man parade followed by a befuddled mob, every member now half-hidden by a pile of gear as big as he was.

Back to the barracks, pile everything on your bunk, and he was at it again.

Okay, men, let’s get out of those civvies. Uniform of the day is fatigues—

Fatigues. That must be those funny green overalls.

—and field jacket.

Field jacket. That’s the neat little windbreaker. Only decent thing in the whole pile.

Move it along now—we’re due at the dispensary in ten minutes.

Olive-drab underwear, for God’s sakes. Don’t these guys stop at anything? And these shoes. They feel three sizes too big and ten pounds too heavy. And the fatigues—stiff and heavy and rustly... Yeah, okay, Sarge—we’ll quit bitching and get into our uniforms. But why does everything feel like it’s too big? How the hell do you wear this floppy hat? And what’s a helmet liner for?

Follow me, men!

Into the dispensary, another olive-drab building, the inside all white and glass and gleaming and hospital-smelling.

You won’t even feel it, he assured us cheerfully as he led us through the double line of medics standing in front of the long tables.

Zap! Zap! Zap! Two medics on each side of you. Three shots and a vaccination. Hey, for crying out loud—

Follow me, men!

Into the big auditorium like a high school study hall. Rubbing your sore arms where the needles still stung. Rows of tables and chairs. The Army General Classification Test, the intelligence and aptitude tests that would follow you through your whole military career, maybe even determine that career, with a score the army would consider your IQ. Then mechanical aptitude tests. Radio operator tests. Psychological tests. And half a dozen other kinds of tests, all spread over several days and all vital to the army’s apparent determination to make sure that the guy who should be a cook ends up as a tank gunner. And the guy who should be an accountant ends up as a baker. And the guy who should be a rifleman ends up as a supply clerk.

Follow me, men!

Into the mess hall for lunch. Or breakfast or dinner or whatever meal was next. Into the wonderful world of army cooking. Dried eggs. Canned milk. Spam. Hard biscuits. The sourest canned grapefruit juice in captivity. And our first encounter with that legendary army favorite, chipped beef in gravy on toast, the ever-popular shit on a shingle.

Follow me, men!

And that’s the way it went for three, almost four days. There were a million things to do, not much time in which to do them, and Sergeant Crocker perpetually leading us at a gallop. Actually, he was

a pretty decent guy in between the gallops; it was just that he didn’t have much time to be sociable. And by comparison he was practically angelic—everybody else we came into contact with was giving us shots or throwing equipment at us or terrifying us with the ins and outs of military law. The whole thing was a hazy blur and by the end of the third day we were all ready for a Section Eight. Needless to say, our opinion of the army was at an all-time low.

Probably purely by accident, however—I’m sure the army didn’t plan it that way—two shining bright spots appeared in those first three days. The first happened the second night we were there; we’d had a full day and Sergeant Crocker decided we needed a little recreation, so he showed us where the PX was and turned us loose for a couple of hours. The PX was a combination general store, beer hall, and social club, filled with everything from all kinds of things to buy to all kinds of beer to drink.

And it was all done in the army’s inimitable style. The beer hall part, for instance, had pinball machines and a juke box and enough tables for half a regiment. All surrounded by all the beer any army could drink.

As I was standing inside the door, trying to decide what to do next, my old friend Janke suddenly appeared. Turned out he was in the barracks next to mine, was just as tired of the frantic pace as I was, and felt we definitely should celebrate our reunion with a beer.

Sounded reasonable to me, so that’s what we did. But instead of camping in the beer hall for the rest of the evening, like most of the guys did, Janke and I took our beer for a walk, sipping its icy coldness

as we wandered through the PX, checking out its offerings. And we discovered quite a revelation; the PX carried just about anything a GI could want, short of a pretty girl—everything from magazines to medical supplies, from candy to extra underwear, from souvenirs to mounds of things to eat. Cookies, crackers, chips, ice cream—

The ice cream stopped us in our tracks. This was the army, Mr. Jones, and they didn’t fool around. They didn’t offer you ice cream in cones, or sundaes, or anything like that; the army served its ice cream in pints or quarts, thank you. Which will you have, a pint or a quart?

And like everything else in the PX, it was a terrific bargain. Half the price of ice cream in the civilian world, maybe less. Janke and I looked at each other, tossed away our beer, and we each bought a pint and headed back to the barracks to eat the whole thing. Mine was butter pecan, and it was the best-tasting ice cream I’d ever eaten. Also the first time I’d ever eaten a whole pint by myself. We perched on our bunks, grinning from ear to ear, blissfully unaware of anything or any army, happily drowning in rich, creamy ice cream.

The next night was just as good in a completely different way. I was called out of our last lecture of the afternoon, and when I got out into the hall, a tall sergeant with stripes running halfway up his arm was waiting for me.

You Loftsgordon? he asked. He looked awfully serious.

Yes, sir, I answered hastily. I mean, yes, sergeant, I amended. Jeez, how many rules can a guy remember in a couple of days?

Your Form 66 says you play the trumpet. Is that right?

I nodded. This was getting stranger by the minute.

Good, he said. How’d you like to sit in with the best dance band in the army?

I couldn’t believe it. How would I like it? How would I like having a million dollars?

We’re playing for a dance at the officer’s club tonight, he went on, and our third trumpet man just got assigned to an emergency troop movement. We could get along without a third trumpet, I suppose, but we’d really rather not. Can you sight-read pretty well?

Yeah, pretty well, I answered. I told him how long I’d been playing, and about my experience with Jan Dennis and the City Band.

It wasn’t Glenn Miller, I said, "but it wasn’t bad. We played a lot of stock arrangements. Everything from Trumpet Blues to One O’Clock Jump."

Hmmm... Well, that’s not exactly the same league most of our guys came from, but let’s give it a shot, he said. That is, if you’d like to.

I’d love it, I said. But I began having second thoughts as he told me a little more about the band. It was an eighteen-piece outfit, built around five guys from Woody Herman’s Second Herd who had all been drafted together. The rest of the guys all had comparable experience and all of them had played with one major orchestra or another.

In short, every last one of them was head and shoulders above anyone I’d ever played with.

Jeez, I hope I don’t screw you guys up, I said doubtfully. You’re pretty far over my head...

Well, let’s give it a shot, he said. You might have fun. And it beats sitting around the barracks. I’m the lead trumpet, and I’ll get there an hour early so we can run over some of the parts together. Okay?

Okay, I said, still wondering if I was going to make a fool of myself. He told me when and where to meet him, and he took off while I went back to my lecture. And I didn’t hear a word the lecturer was saying...

Turned out I needn’t have worried. And I did have fun. In fact, I spent half the night setting there with my mouth open in awe as those marvelous musicians did their thing. About half the time the third trumpet part wasn’t playing, and when it was, it was fairly simple harmony with the first two trumpets. As he promised, the sergeant—his name was Nicholson—ran over the few really tough parts with me, and by the time we’d played them a couple of times, I was handling them okay. And I was familiar with a lot of the other arrangements, so it all worked out fine. I had the thrill of playing with the kind of musicians I’d only heard on records, and they had their third trumpet. Worked out fine for both of us.

Sergeant Nicholson had cleared everything with Sergeant Crocker, so when I finally got back to the barracks a little after midnight I was spared any lectures or diatribes. Crocker was waiting up for me, though; he wasn’t going to bed until all his charges were tucked in.

Was it worth the hassle? he asked, motioning me to be quiet and not wake up the barracks.

I just grinned and nodded.

Better hit the sack, then, he said quietly. Reveille at 0530.

I groaned quietly and hit the sack.

Yep, reveille was at 0530 and another day of Follow me, men! got underway a few minutes later. It was our fourth day in a row, and now even the blur was getting blurry. Rushing all over the camp from one thing to another, after spending most of the night with the band, wasn’t exactly conducive to clear thinking, and by dinner time I was about ready for the base hospital. Any place where I could get a little sleep—

Then suddenly things brightened up. It was after dinner, about seven o’clock, and we were all sitting around the barracks wondering what new horror Sergeant Crocker was about to spring on us. I was trying to stay awake and comparing girl friends with the guy in the next bunk when the sergeant walked in.

Here comes old ‘Follow me’, I muttered. Head for the foxholes.

Sergeant Crocker promptly crossed me up. Instead of leading his usual charge down the company street, he walked to the bunk next to mine and sat down.

You guys will never believe this, he said, as the guys crowded around him, but I’ve got a little good news for a change. You’re about to make your escape. Most of you will be shipping out tonight or tomorrow.

We stifled a small cheer. Hot damn! Out of the ratrace and into the army. Now maybe we’d get around to doing a little soldiering for a change. Look out, Adolf—here comes the first team!

In fact, the sergeant said, some of your orders might come through in the next couple of hours. So hold down the celebrations. Stick close to the barracks, keep your gear packed, and keep an ear peeled for the public address system. You can relax for the rest of the evening; the PX or the movie is okay, but don’t go anyplace else. Okay? Any questions?

All of a sudden everybody had a question.

Where are we going, sergeant? I asked. Can you tell us?

I haven’t the foggiest idea, he answered. Besides, that’s classified information. I couldn’t tell you even if I knew. There are a million different places you could be sent for your basic training. My last group ended up split between Texas, Virginia, and New Jersey.

Texas? somebody muttered. I’ll write my Congressman.

You mean we might be sent to a bunch of different places? asked a guy from Chicago. Petrocelli, I think his name was. How about Cicero? You got any camps near Cicero?

Not that I know of, Petrocelli, the sergeant said. But by tomorrow, who can tell? Things are moving fast in this man’s army. Yeah, you might be sent to several different places. Or you might all go to the same place. Depends on a lot of things.

Like what, Sarge? asked one the other fellows from Eau Claire. He’d been a year ahead of me in school and I knew him only slightly. Andy Swenson. He was a tall, blond kid from the East Side. Not too bright, but a nice guy.

Like what, Swenson? Like what the army happens to need this week, for one thing. That’s partly how they’ll decide whether your basic training is Infantry or Artillery or Signal Corps or any one of a dozen other things. Hell, you might end up going to Cooks and Bakers school or something.

Hey, they wouldn’t do that, would they? Petrocelli asked, with a worried frown. Jeez, if I wanted to be a cook I could have stayed in Cicero. My old man runs a diner, for God’s sakes.

How do I know, Petrocelli? Listen, I just work here.

Yeah, but you’re a sergeant. They’ll listen to you.

Sergeant Crocker laughed. Petrocelli, if the army ever starts listening to sergeants, the war will be over in six weeks. Then what would we do with all the colonels we’ve got sitting around?

I’ll tell you what you can do with them, one of the guys muttered.

Easy, pal, the sergeant cautioned. You’re not out of here yet.

Hey, sarge, tell us a little about basic training, another of the guys asked. He was an older fellow, married with kids. Charley Harris or something like that; after three days the names all began to run together.

What do you want to know about it, Harris? the sergeant asked.

Oh, I don’t know. Everything, I guess. I’m a little worried about it. Is it really as tough as everyone says?

Well, it’s not going to be the easiest three months you’ve ever spent, Crocker said thoughtfully. On the other hand, if you hustle and keep your nose clean, I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble.

What kind of stuff will we have to do? Harris wanted to know. He really looked worried.

Relax, Harris, you’ll knock ‘em dead, Sergeant Crocker said, standing up. Listen, fellows, I’m due back at the orderly room. Remember to keep an ear peeled for the public address system. The movie or the PX, but no place else. Your orders could come through any time now. Okay?

Okay, we mumbled in unison, each of us still preoccupied with his own thoughts about shipping out. I looked around the barracks, wondering if the other guys felt the same way I did. Excitement and uncertainty were chasing each other around in my stomach, and I felt a little like I used to just before a big test in school. Or a trumpet solo. Or the opening kickoff of a football game.

"Hey, Wally?’

It was Andy Swenson. He sat down on my bunk beside me.

"Hi, Andy. Big night, huh?’

Yeah, jeez. You think we’ll really ship out?

Beats me, but you heard the sergeant.

Yeah, jeez. Kind of scary, ain’t it?

Well, I guess anything new is a little scary. And this is sure something new.

Yeah, jeez. Ain’t exactly like being back in Eau Claire, is it?

Not exactly. Of course, that’s not all bad, you know.

Jeez, I’d just as soon be back there. You mean to tell me you’re enjoying all this?

"Well, not exactly enjoying it. But it’s what’s going on, so I’m kind of glad I’m