FORT BRAGG 4

Kaiser

While we were working on rewiring the H-21's at Bragg, the army was testing a couple of Cessna side by side jet planes.  I don't know what the army wanted them for but they were around Simmons Field for a couple of weeks.  We had a guy in our team I will call "Jones" (Not his real name)..  Jones saw them park the "Jet Fuel" tanker near our truck one afternoon to leave it overnight.  He mentioned a couple of times about how great his Kaiser car would run on "Jet Fuel".  I thought that he was kidding.  He wasn't.  Sometime that afternoon, before we left to go back to the barracks, Jones swiped some "Jet Fuel" and put it in his Kaiser car.  Jones had someone else riding with him and they left first.  I was riding back in another car and Jones car made it a few hundred yards before stalling.  We stopped to see what his problem was and he told us that he had just added some "Jet Fuel" to his tank and it should be running great.  Well, "Jet Fuel" is basically kerosene but he didn't know that.  Again, ignorance is dangerous.  They took the rest of us back to the barracks and someone drove back to help Jones.  He had to drain the tank and the carburetor, buy more gas, and was not back until late that evening.

H-13

There was a lot going on at Bragg.  They were just starting to experiment on arming H-13 choppers with two 30 cal machine guns mounted to the skids.  They aimed roughly and watched the tracers to put the rounds on the target.
They had the first "Flying crane" chopper there for testing.  The crane had two pilots.  One facing forward as normal and another facing backward to operate the crane part.  The thing could lift a large tank or a "Pod" full of soldiers or equipment and drop it off quickly and go back for more.  From the looks of it they are still the same basic configuration now.

They had the army "Square dance" team there practicing. I guess it was the army equivalent of the Blue Angles. Well, sort of.  They had orange and white H-13 choppers with stripped rotors so that it looked like pinwheels spinning as they were flying.  No, it wasn't for looks.  It was so they could see each others rotor during their maneuvers.  They would do-se-do and spin around and do something like square dancing.  They must not have kept it long because I can't find anything on YouTube about it but I did find the link below.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/do-si-do-in-the-sky-the-u-s-army-helicopter-square-dance-team

I owned the world that hour as I rode over it. free of the earth, free of the mountains, free of the clouds, but how inseparably I was bound to them.
Charles Lindbergh 
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FORT BRAGG 3

We were at Bragg a few times and actually got to do some level 3 maintenance.  That was mainly swapping boxes and antennas.  a few of us were looking at the inside of an H-19 or H-34, I don't remember which.  One of the guys was climbing up the inside stairs from the cabin to the cockpit and he spotted a relief tube.  That was a flexible rubber or plastic tube with a funnel like thing on the end and mounted below the pilots seats.  Yes, that's exactly what it is for. That's why they call it a relief tube.   Anyway, the guy pulled it over to his face and was talking into the funnel like thing and saying things like testing, testing, etc.  He said that with all the electronic intercom stuff he wondered why they had to use a rubber hose to talk....... We were all laughing so hard that it took a few seconds to tell him what it was used for.  He climbed out and spit for 10 minutes.  Ignorance is dangerous. 

I was fortunate that while I was at Bragg I was able to fly home for the weekend a few times.  I would go to operations on Friday and see what, if anything, was going from there to Atlanta and what may be coming back on Sunday.  They had an L-19 (Bird dog) going Friday evening and returning on Sunday night.  The Birddog was a hopped up two place Cessna observation plane.  I have seen them put full flaps and lock the brakes, and rev the engine to red line and just about jump off of the runway hanging on the prop.

 You could fly, space available, on any military aircraft at that time if you were in class A uniform (Dress Uniform) .  Some of our guys in the radar platoon were helping them install G.C.A. (Ground Control Approach) radar at Simmons Field.  They were telling us that it was not going well and was not reliable. 

L-19 Birddog

I caught my flight with no problem and my Father picked me up at the Fulton County Airport 3rd Army flight detachment that night and brought me back on Sunday.  All went well until we had some fog and the pilot said that we may have to land at Fort Jackson.  He was on the radio and said , no problem because they had the G.C.A. up at Simmons now.  I didn't say what the radar guys had been telling us.  It was socked in pretty good and you couldn't see the lights on the ground.  I knew what the instruments did and was keeping track of what was happening.  We passed the marker beacons at the proper time and altitude but I didn't trust it.  The pilot pointed the nose down and followed the needle on the I.L.S. (Instrument Landing System).  The G.C.A. operator was telling him "your azimuth is good, your altitude is fine, stay on glide slope, blah, blah.  You couldn't see anything.  I was sort of, .....tense!  The operator calmly said "4 seconds till touchdown.  Take over manually".  I still didn't see anything but then we broke out of the fog and it was clear as a bell near the ground and we were over the end of the runway and landed with no problem.

We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.
Christian Nestell Bovee 
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FORT BRAGG 2

We had been working on the conversion for a couple of days when the warrant officer in charge came by the shop van one afternoon and asked us if we would like to take a training hop with them that night up to Raleigh Durham airport and back.  I said sure and Sgt Glasscock said that he thought that we all would like to go.  We were suppose to get chow and be back by 7 pm. Err, that's 19:00 hours in army time.  We all were back on time and waiting to board the chopper.

There was only one set of headphones in the back cabin and the engine was in the rear with two drive shafts and universal joints in the top of the cabin.  When it was running you could not hear the guy next to you scream at you.  Our Sgt had the headphones on and passed word to buckle up because we were ready to take off.  They revved up the engines and engaged the rotors and you could not hear yourself think.

Even though a chopper can take off vertically, they usually followed the same procedure as the fixed wing airplanes by rolling down the taxiway and using the runway to take off.  The pilot told our Sgt. on the intercom to tell everyone to stay buckled because they were going to give us a thrill by doing an auto-rotation.  (An auto-rotation is when there is an engine failure the pilot can keep the rotors spinning like a windmill by reversing the pitch of the rotors and while you drop like a rock and pulling positive pitch just before you become a greasy spot on the ground and, if done right, settle lightly to the ground. 

The Sgt passed down a motion of patting the belt and hooking his hands together and screaming to keep the belt on.  Klumb was on the end seat across from the door and he thought that it meant that it was okay to take off his belt.  As we were lifting off the sun was going down and Klumb wanted to take a picture of it from the air.  He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up by the door.  The door had a large Plexiglas panel in it and was designed to be easy to kick out in case of emergency.
 (Notice the Plexiglas panel in the door in the picture below.)

We were a few hundred feet in the air when the bottom dropped out.  Klumb was about half floating  in air and half dancing like a ballerina as we dropped.  We were afraid that 
Klumb  would hit the Plexiglas panel and go right through.  Luckily someone was able to grab him and pull him to a seat as we touched down and headed to Raleigh Durham.  Klumb kept his belt fastened all the way after that.  I don't know if he ever got that picture.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain 
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FORT BRAGG, NC

As I have said before, we didn't do much useful work when we were at Fort Mac and most of the time when we went somewhere we would go to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  We loaded up our shop van, power unit, and deuce and a half (2 1/2 ton) truck and headed out on our first TDY (temporary duty) trip to Ft Bragg to help convert H-21 Helicopters from VHF to UHF com radio systems.

H-21 Helicopter

We were working for a Warrant Officer (H-21 pilot) and with the chopper's manufacturer, Vertol, and with their tech reps on the installation.  I was working in the shop van with Chuck Hannen most of the time building junction boxes and wiring up cannon plugs to make the cables that would connect the equipment by using the wiring harnesses supplied by Vertol.  (Chuck later was my best man at our wedding.)  We had a few other guys with a couple in the ship running cables to the radio rack and a couple of others staging the components in the truck.  I thought that we were working well and making good time but the army thought that we were behind schedule.  Obviously, the army's solution was to send our other avionics team up from Ft Mac to help.

Inside view of H-21.

The radio rack is on the left side just behind the pilots position.  As you can see in the picture at the left, there ain't much room.  One guy barely fits in the aisle and one other helping push the cables and lash them down are a crowd by themselves.  Of course, some brass hat behind a desk at 3rd Army HQ thought, One team, one month.  Two teams, half of a month.  The other guys came up and we got in each others way and we got farther behind.  (Also notice the luxurious seating in the chopper.  It doesn't recline but it will fold up to make room for cargo.)

It became obvious that that was not going to work.  Our team chief, Sgt Glasscock (Yes, that really was his name.), and the Warrant Officer in charge of us decided that we would work in shifts.  That is team "1" Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Team "2" on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  It worked great and we all had a 4 day weekend.  Everyone was happy and we finished in a reasonable amount of time.

“ There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.

One is by the sword, the other is by debt”

John Adams

FORT MAC 2

While I was stationed at Fort Mac, Nancy and I were married and Debbie and Donna were born.  They were 7 month preemies and we lost Donna.  Debbie spent her first 2 months in an Isolette in the hospital.  It had the temperature and humidity controlled.  We were waiting on her to weigh 5 pounds so we could bring her home.  

Dining out.

We played soldier once a year when we would go to Fort McClellan, Alabama for an army tactical training test.  We had to qualify with our weapons.  We had M1 carbines issued to us and this was the only time that we were able to shoot them although we did have the privilege of marching with them on a regular basis.

We didn't march with the bazooka.

We dined on "C" rations and also had some hot food.  The c rations had cigarettes in them and they were obviously left over from WWII since some had "Luckies go to war" on them and a green wrapper.  If you lit one of the cigarettes it would burn like a dynamite fuse.  As Sherman said, "War is Hell". 

Our cleverly camouflaged machine gun nest.

 I thought that I was about to get into trouble because some guy burned his tent up with this homemade stove he had inside it.  Well, it was cold in the foxholes that we dug and I showed some guys how to make a stove out of a tin can, dirt, and gasoline to heat a little coffee or to have some heat in the foxhole.  The gas tanks on the trucks had a little drain so it was easy to get some gas.  Soon, the foxholes were glowing at night and then the guy burned the tent.  Busted!  They called a formation and said for the ones with stoves to dump them in a trash can and they filled the can.  The CO was not happy and they were afraid that they would not have enough gas to get back to where they had to refuel one of the trucks.

A promise must never be broken.
Alexander Hamilton 
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EVEN MORE ARMY STUFF- FORT MAC

Army Deuce and a Half

The 589th had radar, radio, wire, and avionics teams and we all had vehicles in the motor pool.  As I said earlier, when we were at Ft Mac we did very little that was useful.  We had classes, marched, and did PM on our vehicles and test equipment.  We were in the motor pool doing PM on a very cold and windy morning.  I was in our shop van and was fairly comfortable and some of the guys were in the back of their trucks to get out of the weather.  We had a power unit in each team and some were running the unit for maintenance.

     

Shop Van

  The power units were basically a jeep engine connected to an alternator to make 110/220 volts for electrical power.  It was warm in the power unit trailer and ,one by one, guys got in and sat along the side of the engine to warm up.  The problem was that nobody had put down the support leg in the back.  All was well as long as the weight was all in the front.

PE-95 Power Unit

Somebody stuck their head inside the canvas flap of the trailer and said that the CO was coming!  Everyone headed to the back at the same time to get out and look busy when the trailer tipped back, dumped them all out in a pile, and dropped back down with a thud.  The CO was standing right there over them and knew just what had happened.  One guy, while lying flat on his back on the pavement, saluted and said "Good Morning Sir".  The CO said "carry on" and turned to the first sergeant, smiled, and said that we needed some safety classes.  The first sergeant got everybody back to "work".  As far as I know that was all that happened about it.

A few of us were standing around before a formation one day and a guy came up to talk to one of our sergeants.  He said that he had orders to go to Greenland and he had heard that the sarge had served there and asked him how the duty was.  The sarge told him "You're going to love it.  There are women behind every tree".  The guy smiled, turned, and walked away and the sarge quietly said "There aren't any trees". 

Not Us.  Just shows the Gideon.

As I have already said, we did a lot of retirement parades for the brass.  Fort McPherson was 3rd Army headquarters and there were always plenty of Colonels and Generals retiring.  I was chosen as the Gideon Bearer for the company.  That is that little flag on a pole with a spear point on the end that has the name of the company on it in case we forget our name while we are marching around.  I did get to march right at the front.  Well, you are marching in the right front of the company and the CO is suppose to be one pace to the left and three paces ahead.  

Ukrainian army.  Uh, not our outfit but I decided to leave it in.

One day we had a parade for some brass and as you go by the reviewing stand the CO gives the "Eyes right" command and the CO salutes for the company.  I raised the flag up on the "eyes" and dropped it straight out front on the "right" command like I was supposed to do.  I felt a couple of good bumps on the Gideon and looked out of the corner of my eye to see the CO was getting jabbed in the rump by the sharp point of my flagpole.  Oh well, I guess I'll never make E-5.

The CO was a good guy and knew it was his fault and he was in the wrong place.  I still made E-5 in less than 2 years in the army with a waver for time in grade.  My buddy, Weyman, spent 4 years in the navy and came out as an E-3. 

  (All pictures from the internet.)

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
Joseph Stalin  
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THE ARMY YEARS 10

If you think that all this army stuff is getting old, better leave now.  I hate to run off my many reader but there is a lot more army stuff to come.  When I started this Tome, I didn't realize how much stuff there was to tell.  Especially if you add in the made up stuff to the reality.  This will not be a chronologically arranged as I need to skip around from time to time.  Uh, like now....

Back to Basic Training time for a moment.  We had a guy who was from WEST, BY GOD, VIRGINIA.  That's the way he would always say it.  Anyway, he was called to the orderly room because he got an emergency phone call from home. ( We weren't allowed to have phone calls.)  That usually meant that a family member was sick, injured, or had just died and that was just what had happened.  His dog had died.  He asked to see the CO and requested a leave to go home because his dog had died and he was refused the leave.  (I guess the CO didn't like dogs.)  The next morning he was gone and we didn't see him anymore.  He had gone AWOL.  (Absent without leave.)

From Google.  Troops on the Rifle Range.

That reminds me of this other guy we had.  He wasn't in my barracks but we all heard the shot.  He was on the upstairs floor of the barracks and sat on his footlocker, put the muzzle if his M1 to his boot and purposely shot himself.  It was lucky that there wasn't anyone below him because the bullet went through the floor and into the downstairs floor.  We found out later that he had gotten a "Dear John" letter from his girl friend and thought that he could claim it was an accident and get to go home to patch things up with her.  Nope, he got to go to the hospital and then to the stockade (jail).  (I assume that destroying a GI boot was illegal.)  That was one thing that the army did well.  They had a tight control on the number of rounds issued and shot on the range so I don't know how he managed to steal a bullet.

CLICK HERE-Singing Jodies in the barracks. Not us. From Youtube.

Something else that may not be common knowledge are the "work songs" called "Jody Cadence".  They were originated during WWII by a black army sergeant to help troops stay in step and make the march easier.  Many of them were about a factious guy named Jody.  Jody was always back home, partying, driving your car, taking your job, and making time with your girl while you were slogging through the mud.  Some of that was sometimes true.  Many were R or X rated and were made up on the spot.  Some songs would fit perfectly like "Around her Neck she wore a yellow ribbon".  Also changing some words was sometimes done like "around her leg she wore a purple garter............"  I guess I'll stop there.

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry 
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THE ARMY YEARS 9

Life in Instructor Company B clicked along well and I soon got another stripe and was promoted to Specialist E-4 early.  NO MORE KP with my new rank.  (KP means kitchen police.  That means a long day of dirty jobs in the kitchen.)  The specialist rank was considered the equivalent of Corporal.  Students came and went until our input of students were cut off.  I was lucky that they decided to start the Avionics Platoon at that time, that I was able to get in it, and that it would be in Atlanta. 

It was known that my course was closing down.  There was  some jealousy among the troops that I have already touched on and one guy came into the barracks before evening chow and smiling said, "Hey Buff, You've got orders in the orderly room".   Another said that my deal had to end sometime and laughed at my misfortune of being shipped out.  I knew what was coming and said that I would go get my orders and see what where I was going.

I brought my orders back and tossed them on my bunk and went on to the latrine (Army word for bathroom).  I saw guys going over to peek at my orders as I went into the john.  When I came back they were asking how I pulled it off being transferred to Atlanta and nobody believed that it was just plain luck. 

Most of our last graduating class from the 284 Course and I went to Fort McPherson, GA.  We were put into the 589th Signal Company that was attached directly to the Third Army HQ.  We were to be 2 avionics squads (Teams).  Each team was assigned a 2 1/2 ton truck, a power unit and trailer, and a shop van.  We didn't really have any work at Fort Mac except doing PM on our vehicles and test equipment.  Oh yes, march for the retirement of about one General every Saturday.

We would go TDY (Temporary Duty) to many posts in the Third Army area and work on aircraft radio and related things there. I went to Fort Rucker, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Camp McCall, Fort Jackson, Fort McClellan, and Fort Bragg at one time or another.  I almost forgot NCO Academy at Fort Benning, GA.  (Non Commissioned Officers Academy.)

I found that my E4 rank that got me out of KP at Gordon, didn't help at Ft Mac because they had civilian mess hall  employees and here was no KP.  I also found that E4 and above pulled CQ duty.  That was answering the phone and handling things in the orderly room during the night and weekends.  One of the important jobs the CQ did was to make the rounds of the company area and call the Post Fire Department at midnight and report that there were no fires in the company area.  I guess, if there were any fires that you should wait until midnight to report them.

The company was given a large room to be used as a day room that had been used for storage.  They got some wooden pallets from somewhere and we broke them down to be used as 4 foot high paneling. We nailed them to the wall and they looked pretty good after it was finished.

One guy whacked his thumb pretty bad and it was getting blue.  They sent him to the hospital for treatment.  He came back with his thumb bandaged and carrying a form for the CO to fill out and return to the hospital.  It had various entries to be made and one was "Action taken to prevent another occurrence of this accident."  The CO left that line blank and sent it back only to have the guy bring it back again.  The CO put something like it was just an accident and, sure enough, the guy brought it back again.  The CO said a few choice words and wrote that the company had been given a direct order to not hit themselves with a hammer.  Yep, That satisfied the folks at the hospital.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson 
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THE ARMY YEARS 8

Me in my office at the Avionics course.

I have been over the schools and being chosen as an instructor.  Being close to home allowed Dave and I to go home most weekends.  I was asked a few times what kind of political influence I had to get stationed so close to home.  Just lucky.  Some guys wanted to go to Europe or Asia but I couldn't remember any reason for me to go anywhere.  After all, that was the reason for my planning and volunteering for instructor.

Some of the guys must have resented Dave and I going home many weekends.  I say that because we once got back about 2 am from a trip home and found both of our bunks stacked three high.  Not any problem, really, just climb up and go to bed.  We did have to remember the next morning not to just swing out of bed.  After chow we unstacked the bunks and were back to normal.

I had a flat tire on my 47 Ford as we were heading back one Sunday evening and I had it patched at a service station.  The attendant must have tightened the lug nuts with the weight of the car on them and left them a little loose.  We were driving back on Hwy 278 in Green County, GA and I noticed a grinding sound and felt it in the steering.  I slowed down and we were just inside the city limits of Greensboro, GA.  The left front of the car dropped down and there were sparks flying.

I managed to get it over on the shoulder of the road.  We got out and found that the left front wheel had came off and caught under the fender.  The lug bolts were cut off like they had been turned down on a lathe.  While we were standing there a police car came from the direction of town and he circled around and parked behind me with his red light on.  (Yes, they were red back then and not blue.)  

The officer looked the situation over and told me to get my hubcaps and spare tire off so they would not get stolen and he would get it towed in to the local Ford dealer the next morning and he gave us a ride into town.  He told us to try to hitch a ride to Gordon while he put my stuff up.  We had our thumbs up in the air as some cars with post stickers passed but no offers of a ride.  The officer locked my hubcaps and spare tire in the city hall and came back out to see how we were  making out getting a ride back to post.  He said not to worry that he could get us a ride.

Another car with a post sticker came by and he officer turned on his light and siren and stopped the guy.  The officer asked the guy if he knew what the speed limit was in town and the Guy nervously told him the correct speed.  The officer looked at him and he had his ticket book in his hand as he told him that he had a couple of guys who needed a ride back to Gordon and asked if he could take us.  The guy said "sure fellows, get in" and we were driven back to our barracks.

The cop did get the car towed in to the Ford dealer and fixed for me.  I thought that they would take advantage of a stranded soldier and I was expecting a big repair and towing bill and I had borrowed all the money that I could from my friends in the barracks.  I called the Ford dealer on Thursday to see if it was fixed and what the bill would be.  I was all ready to be cheated and when the dealer told me that they had towed the car, replaced the lug bolts, aligned the front end, fixed a slow leak in the spare, and road tested it.  It was ready. 

Shame on me for thinking the worse of folks!  I don't remember what the bill was but it was nothing compared to what it should have been.  Those good folks in Greensboro, Ga knew that I was a GI and took care of me instead of taking advantage of me.  When I picked the car up on Friday evening, I told them that I really appreciated their treatment.  I know that a few years later during Viet Nam Some members of the public were disrespectful of the military but I bet that was not true of the great folks in Greensboro.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams 
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THE ARMY YEARS 7

New Recruit

Winter uniform at end of Basic

Basic was over and we had graduated and were moving on to our next duty station.  Here are a few snapshots of some activities of Basic.

Dave and Rudy playing the same guitar.

Dave and Rudy were both excellent musicians and we were lucky to have both of them in our barracks.  Here they are both playing the same guitar at the same time.  I don't know where Rudy went but Dave came to Signal School at Fort Gordon when I did.

Dave and I

Rudy, Me, and Dave at a GI Party

.  

Shoe shinning was one of our main hobbies.

Notice the cool way of putting our hands under our belts.

Dave and I doing a GI Party on the floor.

THE ARMY YEARS 6

The last big event in Basic was a thing called "Bivouac".  That translates to mean an army sponsored camping trip in the December snow after a 15 mile hike in Kentucky.  At least we weren't bothered by mosquitoes and ticks.

We each had a shelter half tent that you buddy up with another guy and button the half's together to have a pup tent that will hold two guys.  I know we had it soft compared to many guys but it made our barracks look good.

By the time you finish basic you automatically dive for the ditch when you hear any gunshots.  We were walking along this dirt road in the snow at night when a machine gun started firing.  Everyone dove for the ditch and we heard someone scream and water splashing.  One poor guy had dove over the side of a bridge into a large creek.  We stopped and they got him out and wrapped him in blankets from an ambulance that followed us on long hikes.  He stripped down and got in the ambulance and was taken back to post.  He may have gotten cold for a short while but he slept warm that night back in the barracks. 

We finished basic, had our parade, packed up and headed out to our new station.  I was going to Fort Gordon and got to fly for my first time.  We had a DC-3 from Dutch Overseas Airways.  Never heard of them before or since but the flight was a great experience.

We landed at the Augusta, GA airport, Bush Field.  President Eisenhower's plane, The Columbine, was parked by where we got off while he played golf at Augusta National.  I guess it was a government area of the airport and you could see the civilian terminal from where we were.  They now call any plane the president fly's in "Air force One".

One guy from the Midwest was amazed to see that we had paved roads, telephones, and electric power in the south.  All he knew about the south was from some old movies.  We went to the "Receiving Company" for processing and then to our student companies.  I have already been over the schools before.  

Dave Rogers out of uniform.

I met Dave Rogers in Basic and we were both from Atlanta. He and a guy named Rudolph Thomas kept us entertained with their music and our barracks was usually full of guys from other platoons listening to the free concerts.  Dave was a good guitar player and singer and he thought he had it all planned.  Dave had volunteered for the draft and everything was supposed to be arranged for him to go to Special Services at Fort Mac in Atlanta.  Special Services was the unit that had the Band and other non soldier type stuff.  Dave was sent to Fort Gordon and Signal School with me.  He kept checking with the Special Services unit and they kept telling him that to be patient and they would get him in their unit.  Didn't happen.  Dave kept requesting a transfer and, I guess, the brass got tired of it and transferred him to Fort Bragg as a Link Trainer operator.  (A Link Trainer was the simulator used to practice instrument flying back then.)  Nancy and I spent an evening at an American Legion Post as Dave's guest and sat at the table with Dave, his wife Barbra, and Joe South when they were the entertainment.  Joe made it big and Dave did get a recording contract and made many albums.  He moved to Nashville after the army and was in music until his death a few years ago.

One of Dave's record albums.

Dave and I would go home to Atlanta any weekend that we could and we were both in the Instructor Company at the time.  Neither one of had any students the last hour of the day on a Friday and we decided to "Bug Out" and go home early.  The barracks were on one side of a huge parade field and the schools were on the other.  Anyone walking across could be spotted from a long way off.  I always carried a clipboard when we called it an early day.  We saw Colonel Rose, The Training Center Commander, ride up and tell his driver to stop.  He got out of the car and waited for us.  We didn't change our direction as some others who had gotten caught had done.  We walked right by him, saluted him, and said "Good afternoon Sir".  He returned the salute and said "Carry on men".  Had we changed direction we would have been caught, or maybe it was the clipboard. 

If Dave had been a little more patient, he would have been able to transfer to Fort McPherson when I did at the start of the Avionics platoon. 

"That's not enough, Madam, we need a majority".  Supposed response to a woman who called out to him: Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person."  Adelai Stevenson

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THE ARMY YEARS 5

SMITH- The Legend  (Not his name).
I met a lot of great guys in the army.  One that stands out is Smith.  He was from Tennessee and had a EE degree when he was drafted.  He was a sharp guy, intelligence wise, but, I'm sorry to say, he was very uncoordinated.  He was a nice guy and tried hard but you could always see his head bobbing up over the formation as he tried to get in and stay in step with the rest of the company.  

They had what they called "Memory School" every evening after chow.  It was actually extra drilling for the guys who screwed up that day and Smith was usually present for something.

Our first marksmanship (shooting) training was with the M1 rifle.  Smith had a reputation by the time we fired live rounds with the M1 but he didn't shoot anybody.  Firing the carbine came next and it felt like a toy compared to the M1.  The carbine weighed 5.5 pounds and the M1 weighed in at 9.5 pounds. You could easily shoot it like a pistol.

After firing the carbine we were supposed to open the breech and prop it on our hip to be inspected for being empty before laying it on the post.  As Smith was standing there with the carbine on his hip and the barrel pointed just above the horizon, he began to turn one way and another.  The CO was in the tower behind the firing line and he yelled "SMITH, KEEP KEEP THAT WEAPON POINTED DOWNRANGE!  Smith turned and the muzzle of the carbine sort of swept the area behind the firing line and he said "SIR?"  The CO jumped out of the tower as the muzzle pointed in his direction and the range officer, not knowing what was going on, also jumped to the ground.  The tower was only about 6 feet above the ground but the CO fell in the dirt.  Yep, back to memory school!

Grenade training.  We threw dummy grenades to practice and then we threw the real thing.  Yep, the kind that kills you.  We were all lined up behind a wall and one guy at a time would go around the wall and into the "pit" that was a bunch of sand bags in a "U" shape with the thrower and range officer inside the U.  You were handed a concussion (flash-bang) grenade and a fragmentation grenade and told to put down the fragmentation grenade in a box and throw the flash-bang grenade first.  Being the army, it was all on command.

First "prepare to pull pin". (Getting ready to throw.)  "Pull pin".  (You pull the safety pin and the grenade was armed.)  "Throw".  You throw the grenade and try to hit inside a tank turret that they had for a target.  When you throw it you were suppose to watch and see where you hit and trust that the fuse was long enough before you duck down behind the wall.  Smith's first throw went okay with the flash-bang grenade.

On Smith's next throw with the fragmentation grade as he put his arm back for the throw he dropped the grenade in the pit.  The range officer told him to pick it up and throw it.  Smith instead jumped over the wall and left the range officer in the pit with the grenade ready to blow.  The range officer picked it up, threw it, and it hit in the tank turret before it went off.  Smith and the range officer were both lucky that day.  The rest of the grenade training went off well. 

In bayonet training we learned how to disarm a guy who is trying to stick a knife in you and how to stick a knife in him with it in your hand or on the end of a rifle.  As the recruiting poster said, "Join the army and learn a trade".  Thrust and parry, whack him with the rifle butt etc.  We got to try it on each other with the scabbard still on the bayonet, thank goodness.  The last part was to run down this course with a bayonet on our M1 and fight these dummies along a path in the woods.  They had wooden heads padded and mounted on big springs and holding wooden rifles with bayonets on the end of sticks.  We were to run through through the woods screaming at the top of our lungs, parry the bayonets, whack the dummy in the head with the butt of the rifle, and slash them across the chest or stab them with the bayonet.  I think I could kill the enemy every time if he just stood there like that and didn't fight back.

I was all through with the course and standing around as the rest of the guys ran down a hill with the last dummy at the end of the course.  Smith ran down the hill with a half hearted scream and bopped the head of the last dummy.  The CO was standing there watching and he yelled "SMITH, THAT MAN IS TRYING TO KILL YOU", "GO BACK UP THE HILL AND KNOCK HIS HEAD OFF THIS TIME".  Smith ran back up the hill and ran back down screaming "AAAAAAAAAAAAA" and hit the dummies head as hard as any of us had but the CO still wasn't happy and sent him back to do it again and said "Smith, break the rifle stock on that guy's head".  That was just what happened.  Smith ran back down the hill again and slammed the rifle but into the dummies head and the rifle stock broke at the small of the stock.  What could the CO say?  I think Smith was already in Memory School for something else anyway but he had done exactly what he was ordered to do.

I don't know where the army put Smith but he didn't go to signal school with us.  That would have been in his already chosen field where he would have been useful.

(Smith was not his real name)

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
Thomas Sowell Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_sowell.html#3l0PuM6wFU5lXDLp.99