YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW

Uncle Sam drafted me just as WW II ended. Their timing was perfect. Read about my good fortune.
02/26/2016

YOU’RE IN THE ARMY NOW

As required by law, I registered for the draft on my eighteenth birthday, June 8, 1945, passed my physical, and was classified “One-A.” My induction notice instructed me to report for military service on September 11. Japan surrendered a week earlier. It didn’t matter. I still had to enter military service.

Initially, our government established September 15, 1945, as the official end of hostilities with Japan. Anyone in service by then became eligible for the benefits of the G. I. Bill. This included me, by a margin of four days, much to my good fortune. Later, I believe the benefits were extended to anyone in service by the end of 1945.

My mother wept when a bus carried me and perhaps thirty other young men off to the Newark Armory to be inducted into the army, convinced I would starve to death rather than eat their grub. At the time, my diet consisted mostly of candy and ice cream. My army records reveal that they had sworn in a baby-faced teen-aged boy who had never shaved and who weighed 135 pounds while standing 5’- 7” tall.

After our induction, in which we swore allegiance to our country, a train took us to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, perhaps sixty miles away. It had been a major induction center during the war, but now functioned more as a severance base. Thousands of returning veterans filled the place, waiting impatiently to be discharged. I witnessed an officer, a very old guy whose uniform seemed of WW I vintage, addressing an assembly of troops. When he finished, the men responded by shouting in unison, "48, 49, 50: Some shit!" Then, to a man, they broke ranks and walked away, leaving the officer open-mouthed. He realized he no longer had command of these grizzled vets, who couldn’t wait to return to civilian life.

Regardless of the mass insubordination I had seen and heard, it behooved me to obey every order. However, I had learned an important rule of military conduct while watching wartime movies the previous three years. Never volunteer. In many such films, the dialogue ran along these lines: A sergeant would say, “I need help with my paper work today. Are there any volunteers?” Envisioning a soft duty assignment, a few rubes would raise their hands. In short order, they would be marched off to police the grounds, picking up cigarette butts. I had no intention of being suckered that way.

On my fifth day of active duty, my resolve was tested. After working a 12-hour KP shift, I trudged back to the barracks, tired and worn out. Minutes after collapsing on my bunk, a sergeant ordered everyone outside. We lined up dutifully. Then, he marched us to a different mess hall to begin another 12-hour shift. Our lamentations and complaints were not persuasive. We were stuck there for the night.

The movies had it right. This mess hall harbored hundreds of spuds, mounds of other vegetables, and innumerable chickens, all needing preparation. Hours droned by as I went about performing culinary tasks. About 10 p. m. a cook asked, “Do any of you men have short order cooking experience?” At that moment, my paws were stuck in a pot with numberless naked birds. Many dreary hours loomed ahead. I looked around at my co-workers. No one raised a hand.

“I do.” I uttered this lie with complete conviction. To this point in life, boiling water was the limit of my kitchen expertise. Before my statement could be withdrawn or amended, the cook had me don an apron and led me over to a gas grill, a huge rectangle, perhaps three feet wide and five feet long.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Nothin,’ for now. You may have to prepare some food later on.”

That seemed like all the instructions an experienced cook could reasonably ask for, and I sat down on a nearby chair to await my fate. Hours passed as I twiddled my thumbs, snickering, priding myself for taking such a bold step, goldbricking, big time. Then a stranger appeared.

“Are you the short-order cook?" he demanded to know.

“Yes,” I said, this time without conviction.

“I need some ham-and-egg sandwiches for some work crews that are going to be up all night. I need ‘em right away.”

My mind flashed as the process unfolded. Light the grill gas burner. Get out the bread, the eggs, and the ham. Once the grill is hot, put on a piece of ham. Flip it over. Break and fry an egg. Place the ham on a slice of bread. Turn the egg over. Pick it up and place it on the ham. Put the other bread slice on top. This is easy to do. I am a cook.

“How many do you want,” I thought to ask.

“A hundred,” he responded without laughing.

“How many?”

“I said a hundred. We’ve got lots of men working tonight.”

This time my mind did not flash. My lights went out. Grimly, I began to assemble the ingredients. My God, I had never seen so many eggs. Mounds and mounds of ham came out of the locker. Loaves of bread were stacked up. Not knowing what to do first, I began doing everything at once. Eggs smoked; ham burned; bread slices toasted to a crisp black. I would not call the odor all this emitted as pleasant. It smelled as if a small family farm had caught fire.

Next, I assembled this array of burnt offerings into sandwiches at a frantic pace. The results were a catastrophe, a scene that could have inspired the “I Love Lucy” skit, the one in which she and Ethel vainly try to match the speed of the conveyor belt that delivers cakes for them to box. After the first dozen or so, I tossed the eggs and ham on the blackened bread with reckless abandon. The poor soldier who had to deliver these sandwiches could not believe his eyes.  Too shocked to say anything, he stood perfectly still, stunned by my performance.

In time, after managing to get all one hundred into bags, the delivery boy went on his way. If any poor slob ate one of these concoctions, chances are he would have added to our war dead. In all likelihood, that soldier did not have the courage to deliver this food to the troops. He probably went AWOL, and may still be lost in a bottomless Jersey meadow, perhaps now in company with Jimmy Hoffa.

After cleaning off the grill and putting the remaining food items away, I retired to my chair. Cooking is not that bad. A sharply shouted “Ten-hut” command brought me to my feet. A Colonel entered the mess hall. What in the hell is this high-ranking officer doing here at three in the morning?

This officer walked straight toward me. “Let me see your hands,” he demanded.

God, maybe he ate one of my sandwiches.

I put them out, palm up. He held them, looked at them intently, and then turned them over.

“Your nails are filthy,” he spat out. “Go wash them!”

I went to the sink and soaped them up good.

“Let me see,” he again demanded.

Up went my lily-whites for another close inspection.

Not satisfied, he yelled “They’re still not clean enough for a cook. This time, scrub ‘em!”

It took four cycles to satisfy this gent. He left me ready to serve my fellow man with purity, but the rest of my KP hours passed in idleness, as no one else appeared in need of my cooking expertise.

In the morning, I staggered back to my barracks, exhausted from the effort of remaining awake for more than 24 hours straight, and threw myself down on my cot. A terrible voice shouted out, “Everyone out of the barrack and line up.”

Lord, please don’t put me on KP again. God heard my plea. Instead, the order came to gather our belongings. I marched to a rail siding and boarded a troop train that carried me off to some unknown destination to begin my basic training.

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Here's a formal picture taken of me while in basic training, September 1945.