Induction day arrived and My Mother, Father, and Nancy drove me to the induction center in Atlanta. Hugs and kisses all around and I went in. We set around in normal army fashion for a while and then they swore us in. I was officially in the army. Hours more of waiting and they loaded us on the bus to Fort Jackson, SC. That was before expressways and the bus had to go through every little town with a 25 mph speed limit in GA and SC. After a long drive we finally arrived at Fort Jackson.
I saw that a movie and the PX was near where they stopped our bus. I thought that would be convenient to our new home of a few days. The army times such things so that you arrive in the middle of the night as we did. They got us off of the bus and lined us up. We were taught the basics of marching and they "marched" us into the supply room to draw bedding. At about 3 am, we started learning the army way to make up a bunk. Long story, bounce a quarter, hospital corners with perfect 45 degree corners, etc. When they were satisfied with everyone's bed making they let us tear the bunks down and go to sleep at maybe 4 am.
It was a short night as they turned on the lights and came through yelling and blowing a whistle. The sergeant was yelling things like "OFF AND ON" and "RISE AND SHINE" to the top of his lungs. It was maybe 5:30 am and one of my fellow soldiers yelled at the sergeant "Hey, you better get to bed because tomorrow is going to be a big day." The sergeant yelled some choice words at him and got him up instantly and braced him at attention.
I looked both ways down the rows of bunks and saw a bunch of cussing sleepy guys and I wondered if maybe I didn't make such a good decision. I was 17, what did I know.
We quickly dressed, made the bed, and fell out in the fire break. They marched us around in the dark a while, yelled some more, called us every bad name in the book, told us how dumb we were (Probably right, there), Told us we were the worse looking bunch of recruits they had ever seen, and other things to made us feel really wanted like "drop and give me 10" (means do 10 push ups).
They finally marched us to the chow hall. In front of the door was an iron pipe mounted across two posts and you had to do some pull ups before you went in the door for breakfast. If you didn't do them well enough they got you out of the line. They did finally let those guys eat later. We found out that they didn't eat all the powdered eggs during WWII as they still had some left for us.
Alright, after "chow" (see, I was already using real army words) they marched us down to draw clothing and then we were moved out to the fire break behind our barracks to mark all our cloths and then we were allowed to change into a uniform. They called us back in formation and told us we were going to get the "Flying Five." Huh, five fingers or maybe something worse. We found that that was a $5 advance on our monthly pay of $79. Wasn't that nice of them. I guessed that was so we could go to a movie or get a coke or something. Wrong again. They marched us to the PX (Post Exchange) to buy stuff for a foot locker display that the commander desired that we have. (I cheated and took the extra time to buy a beautiful satin pillow cover for my sweetheart while I was at the PX. It was very romantic with tanks and cannons embroidered on it and fringe all around. She still has it and remembers what the verse on it said.)
There was a tray in the top of our foot locker that was only used to hold the "display" of toilet equipment that was never to be used. Razor, brush, soap, towel, wash cloth. tooth brush, tooth powder, etc. We were then taught how to make the display. How far from what to what, etc.
Okay, we still had a little money left, maybe they will let us go back to the PX and get a coke or go to that movie. Nope, they marched us to the barber shop. Elvis was popular then and the duck tail haircut was common. Everyone lined up in single file and went in the door. The line moved fairly well and I thought that they probably had a lot of barbers working in there. Wrong again, they were just quick barbers. You can cut hair quickly if you put the electric clippers up to someones head and turn the chair until they are skinned bald. One guy with an Elvis style haircut got in the chair beside me and the barber asked him "Son, would you like to keep some of that hair?" The guy said that, YES, he would. The barber smiled and buzzed him to the skin but he caught a handful of the guys hair and handed it to him and said "here you go". I'm sure that that barber used that joke many times every day.
After we paid at the barber shop we still had just a little of that $5 left. By then I had given up on that coke. It was just as well because next we "fell in" (Don't ya just love these army words?) and marched down to order our name tapes to sew on our uniform. $5 all gone now. Luckily, I had brought some money but some of the guys were broke. It didn't make much difference because we were not allowed out of the company area that day.
A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.
George S. Patton
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