Okay. So you had a lot of leaves?
Well yeah, three day passes to go to Zurich and Heidelberg, and seeing my friend in Manheim. It sounds like we’re free to do a lot of stuff, but that’s all. It wasn’t really the case. Those that lived off post had to be there for a morning call when we were. So, we would get up, go have breakfast, then by a certain time we would be called out to formation and told what the day’s activities would be. And then we were on duty until night, until five o’clock or so. Sometimes later than that.
And some of the guys would get a pass then and go downtown and drink. I did not do that. A couple times maybe. And every time I felt like I was getting too much to drink, I called a cab. Well, there was usually cabs outside. And had them take me back because I just didn’t want that to happen. The day I was promoted to Specialist Third Class, which is equivalent to Sergeant … I knew I was going to get promoted on a Saturday morning and I bought a bottle of whiskey and when we got done at noon, I didn’t go eat. I just started having drinks with the guys.
And I don’t remember this, but big, long hallway with rooms on both sides in it, both ends were the bathrooms. The last thing I remembered was I was in my room, but they told me I went down to the bathroom, fell, hit my head on a latrine. They called the dispensary down at the down in. They came up
with an ambulance, got me, took me down here, and the medical officer on duty, which was one of our doctors, put a couple or three stitches in my head. And this was Saturday.
I woke up Sunday morning, I had no idea what happened. And after I made Sergeant, then I got moved to a room with another Sergeant. His name was Sergeant Woodley. And Sergeant Woodley had been in the Korean War, and he was a Prisoner of War for 39 months. And so, he had a lot of back pay plus prisoner pay, and he drank it all up.
So, every payday he’d go over to the NCO club and get in a game of craps, and he’d buy a bottle of whiskey and keep giving these guys whiskey. He just got so drunk. He didn’t get … He could still walk and do everything. So, he’d go over, get these other guys really dead drunk, and win their paychecks. Well, of
course, they couldn’t go home to their wives without their money. They paid you in cash in the Army.
So, when I moved in with him, first payday come, and he came in the room about one o’clock in the morning. And I woke up, and I turned over and spoke to him, and he threw this wad money at me, said, “Hold this for me until in the morning.” And then I heard the other Sergeants out walking up and down the hallway. I thought, “Uh-oh, one of them was going to come in and try to get this money.” I didn’t go back to sleep.
So, the next night he went back and he lost all the money back. But the one Sergeant, Sergeant Bell, two pay days in a row, he took all his money. And Sergeant Bell had a wife and kids down, and finally she started coming up and getting his money before he went to the NCO club. And the same with Sergeant
Mitchell.
But that was an experience. Well, the whole tour and in Germany was. It was good for me. And a tour of duty in the Army got me back on track as to where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. But in the Army at that time we had the draft. And you get drafted for two years. And I think, like I said, I was not
going to be drafted. But when when you’re drafted, your serial number is U.S. Something. When you enlist, your serial number is R.A. Something, Regular Army.
About the summer of ’56, and all these guys that were getting out in August like I was, they got their orders and they were out of there, and the reason why is because they were going to be sent up to Bremerhaven and get on a trip transport. My orders didn’t come down. And for the Regular Army people,
the R.A.’s, I found out later they anticipate you re-enlisting and they’re not going to send you away until they’re absolutely sure you’re not going to reenlist.
Well, they twisted my arm every way. But I was scheduled to get married and the reason I went in the Army was to get the GI bill to go to college, so there was no way I was going to reenlist. In fact, they said they would send me to Officer’s Training School. I turned that down. Anyhow, when I finally got my orders, it was to fly home. So I went by truck up to the Air Force base by Manheim and got on a military air transportations plane there and flew from there to Prestwick, Scotland. I didn’t see anything there. They just refueled. I don’t even remember us getting off the airplane. We refueled and
took off flying to Goose Bay, Labrador. Goose Bay Labrador.
On the way over the North Atlantic, the pilot comes back and says he put the plane on automatic, and came back to talk to us. All of a sudden the plane started … Let me tell you, he took off like a bat out of hell, and if you really want to know what a bat and out of hell is like, that was what he … There was a copilot up there and I’m not sure what he was doing.
Anyhow, they got the plane. Well, this as August, and we got to Goose Bay Labrador, and the snow was piled up about three stories because they kept this runway open all the time. And we did get off the plane there. It was cold and lots and lots of snow still there. And we flew from Goose Bay Labrador to some place in New Jersey, an Air Force base. And there, they put us on another plane, and I think it was a charter plane to go to Fort … Or to Chicago. We got off at, not O’Hare but at Midway, and that’s on the South part of it. And we had buses … Or bused there, and there was a bunch of us, and took us upto Fort Sheridan, which is up by Evanston.
The flight from New Jersey to Chicago was through thunder storms. And the thunder storms didn’t bother me. It was the cold because they didn’t have the plane heated or anything. It was just … But anyhow, we got to Fort Sheridan and I was there a few days. And I got out and they ticket to go up the Des Moines, and I got home. So, that’s my military experience.
You weren’t able to see anyone, contact anyone, any of your military …
No. This fellow, Billy Dexter, who I met at Fort Riley. We went through basic training and Brooke Army Medical Center together, and then he went to Denver and I saw him in … Because he was in the hospital up by Manheim. I went up there once and I tried to contact because I had met his girlfriend.
She came to the train station at Kansas City when we were going from Fort Riley to Camp Pickett, and she was really a sweet thing. And then he kind of got out of hand. He broke off their relationship, and she had come then over to Germany when he was over there, and they got together again and ended up getting
married. And as far as I know, he went to college, and I’m not sure where. He was from Independence, Missouri. And he ended up … I think he was a chemist in Indianapolis for some company there.
I finally got a hold of his grandfather down in Missouri, and he gave me his telephone number in Indianapolis, and I called it several times and never got an answer, never got an answer. Back then, they didn’t have answering machines, so I wasn’t able to leave a message. And so I thought, “Well I either
got the wrong number or something. I don’t know.” So I never did find out what happened to him.
Okay. Well that’s all I have.
Okay. Just one more thing.
Okay.
I told you about the incident in the bar dance hall with the black soldiers. In Camp Pickett, I went out one night, and in our group there was a black soldier. Before we took our passes, the Sergeants told us, When
you go into Blackstone, you white guys can go here. He’s got to go there.” See, I never thought about that. I mean we had our problems in Des Moines, but not like that. I had black students in my classes from the time I was in seventh grade through. And then at Drake. And I had no comprehension of that. Then, when we got to Texas, although I wasn’t with … I didn’t have any black students in my training, so I didn’t have any friends in my barracks or anything that were black. So the times we went into San Antonio,which is only maybe once or twice, but San Antonio at that time was segregated. But it wasn’t then when I got to Washington. So, that was a lesson I learned. Not too good of a lesson, but exposure I had in the Medical Corps. They put all the conscientious objectors. So most of them were … I can’t … Seventh Day
Adventists, but we had some others.
The Seventh Day Adventists would serve, but they wouldn’t carry weapons, so they were all put in the medical. We had some others that were conscientious objectors that were not Seventh Day Adventists that were real kooks. One of them set up in Fort Louis, Washington… Set up an altar in the boiler room, the furnace room of the barrack, and he went in there every time he could. And they fought at everything the whole way. But the Seventh Day Adventist did not. They just asked to have Saturday off because that as their Sabbath.
So, that’s the story.