To me, war was something I saw in the movies or in television sitcoms. What little I did know, or fear, was taught me in my history classes. When selective service got reinstated, I was in a total panic. What if I were drafted? How would I survive basic training and what would I do if I had to hold and shoot a gun? I wanted to bolt out of town the day I had to sign up at the post office – how much was it to move to Canada? My predicament made it so clear, that, yet again, I could not have been more different from both my father and grandfather.
Pa and my brother Ralph came up to see me at Fort Devens, where I was for two weeks before flying to Georgia for basic training. The Korean War was going strong. It was Pa’s first time at Devens since he spent six months there during WWI. Ralph was discharged a few months before my induction. I was to miss his wedding because of my time in the service - it would have taken three days to get home and the cost was prohibitive. What were the two of them thinking of this kid going off to war?
Sometime in the night of that first week in the army, we heard a scream and that’s how I found out who was designated a C.Q., which stood for company quarters or call to quarters. It’s the CQs job to make bed checks. The man who made the commotion thought someone was stealing his money.
At the end of the second week, we were bused to Logan Airport and during that time, I never met anyone I grew up with. But that night, working behind a restaurant counter alone was a very petite girl in high heels. It was Barbara Gillis and we went to the Mary C. Burke School together until the sixth grade. I never called her and this was to be my first plane ride. I was not looking forward to leaving the ground.
We thought we were all going directly to Korea but it was to basic training where they taught us to shoot and kill. It was hard and intense and the men who had to learn heavy weapons spent a month or more in training. We were sent to the signal corps school at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for six months.
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| My father at Fort Hood - 1955 |
Six months? When I was in sixth grade, I went, unwillingly, to camp for a whole week that seemed like an eternity. To this day, I’m not sure where it was but it felt like a lifetime to get there and mail call mid week was my happiest time. Survive basic training and the desert landscape of war? I could barely make it through seven days without the slings and arrows of my peers directed at me.
Monmouth was no picnic. Classes all morning, parade marching practice every afternoon, passing in review every Saturday. It took hours and seemed as if every man in America was there. Kitchen Police (KP) and guard duty every two weeks from six to nine. I always got pots and pans that never burned on the bottom no matter what the cooks made because they lined the bottom with sliced white bread that absorbed the grease. Nevertheless, sometimes, the inspection officer would declare the trays greasy, so before breakfast started, we had to rewash them. They used to take us out of class to pull KP and we’d miss the lessons.
With all the water, I had a large wart on my right hand finger and it opened up like a flower. I had to go on sick call where a doctor stuck a needle through my finger and cut it out. I had a buck slip for no duty for a few days.
My friends at that summer camp were few and far between. There was the fat kid, Robert, an outcast like me and my former best friend from grammar school, David, who one day just stopped talking to me. I missed him, but after high school, I never saw him again.
Someone was calling me on the parade grounds. It was a guy from Chelsea, Kilroy was his last name, I couldn’t remember his first. I think he was a school teacher and that was the extent of our conversation. When I went to look him up a few days later, he had shipped out.
I’ve never been an outdoors kind of person. Give me a cocktail and a swimming pool under a hot blazing sun and I am the happiest person on the face of the earth. My friends came to Palm Springs once and hiked up one of the many mountain trails. After posting several pictures of the day online, another friend asked why I was not in any of the shots. The reply was simple. “A hike? Tella?”
In the early morning of August 1953, with full field packs, entrenching tools (folding shovels) and extra boots, we started on our 12 mile hike. It was a clear bright day on a dusty dirt road through the woods of Fort Gordon, Georgia. The second we started, it became scorching hot. If someone fell out, we were told, we were not to stop and help them. Someone following behind in a vehicle would pick them up. Men did fall, one who was known to have seizures, I was told, was swallowing his tongue. He was about thirty yards up front. Out of the blue, a helicopter landed to retrieve him. The line stopped for a time and the dust was chocking and blinding.
We continued on, exhausted and finally we reached an area where we were told to pick a partner and set up pup tents. Someone taps me on the shoulder and said he wanted me to be his partner. He was not too tall and soft spoken and his name was Vincent DelCatto from Brooklyn and it turns out he was runner up for a weightlifting title of New York City. What I remember most is being tired, hungry and dirty. But I never fell out.
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| All dressed up - 1955. There's no mistaking we're related. |
I can pinpoint the exact time when my dislike of gym class began. I was an overweight kid in the sixth grade and running the 100-yard dash was always my worst fear. Without fail, I was the last one to finish, wheezing, nauseous and ready to faint. It was humiliating to see my classmates’ faces and feel the awful sympathy from my P.E. teacher. It is a feeling that never left me.
I can’t remember how wide or how long the Infiltration Course was, but it was set up like a rifle range. The back end was ten feet deep so the bullets would go over your head. The whole area was covered with mesh wire. Since it was almost in your face, I suspect it was 12 to 15 inches high. On the front end were mounted three light machine guns and I remember the area was mostly sand. There were two dry runs and one wet (live amo). While I was waiting my turn to go through, I notice the rounds were hitting the mound behind me. Every third or fifth were tracers and you could see the red glow of the round.
When it was my turn, I put my rifle in front horizontally and with my elbows, thrust myself forward. Forgetting the rounds and small charge that would set off, I never stopped. Halfway through was a large soldier, frozen scared near the rocks and I kept going. When I came out, you had to yell kill and stab a straw dummy affixed to a post. The big soldier there did not like the way I said, “kill,” and had me go back and do it all again. I thrust the dummy so hard; I couldn’t pull the bayonet out. The sergeant came over, put his foot on the dummy and pulled. Without saying a word, he handed me my rifle and I went on my way. The only wounds I had was where the sand ran up my sleeves and took the skin off my elbows.
The memory of that 100 yard dash followed me to high school, where the gym classes were expanded to include all sorts of ridiculous games. Once, we had gymnastics for an entire four week span. Really? The pummel horse? Climbing a rope? Perform the vault? I thought they were insane and two times a week, I searched for excuses to get out of class. My gym instructor was a former athlete, and I remember watching him do a rings routine that seemed superhuman. I’m sure it was horrific for him to have me in his class. As the days went by, he mercifully overlooked me when it was my turn.
One afternoon, I discovered a snake about two feet long in my sleeping bag. It left the bag and went under the tent edge where I cut it in half with my shovel and buried it. Some mornings we could see deer tracks by our pup tents, but I never saw one making them. On one of the jumps that I did not see, a sergeant’s chute did not open and a private caught his line and they came down together. He was promoted on the spot.
Two weeks before we were set to leave, they had us remove and clean the stoves. It was cold and we froze our asses off. We had been in the field for six months with no time off and they gave us a weekend free during maneuvers. We hitch hiked 60 miles to Raleigh North Carolina. And it was, I think, Mothers Day. The town was quiet and everything was closed. We couldn’t get back to camp quick enough.
Food was never lacking in my life. Even during that week at camp, I never missed a meal. It got me through the myriad of outdoor activities that were set up for us and breakfast was always my favorite meal. But there was never any Capn’ Crunch, which at the time, was my all-time favorite cereal.
Every weekend, the non commissioned officers would back up their cars to the mess hall and would steal a little of everything. If you were late for breakfast on Monday morning, they would run out of food. Condensed Milk in a can was the cream for our coffee. It wasn’t until months later when we traveled that we learned how well the Navy and Air Force ate. We couldn’t believe it. They didn’t call us doggy for nothing.
During my junior high days, I was tormented by a boy named Frank. He was taller than me, a dark Italian who lived in South Medford, a part of town that was home to many of my tormentors. One day, I could not take it any longer and I shoved him to the ground and he fell among the bushes. I don’t know if it was out of fear or out of the sheer frustration of being bullied, but I had had enough. I remember he was paid by another boy to be his protector, but he never bothered me again.
We were told we had to pay three dollars each to pay for two floor polishers. If we didn’t, then we would have to buff the floors on our hands and knees. One look and you could tell the machines were extremely old. So, we paid. How high up the larceny went, I’ll never know, but every two months, it was a pretty good take.
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