N EWLY vested, smoothly tailored, burnt brown, ramrod-corsetted, stiff-gaited, he flashed his bars upon Camp Tyson. This gained him a barely furnished unpainted room in a fresh wooden barrack, on whose walls a previous occupant had pinned up graphics of nudes and chorus girls, which he now tore down and replaced with airplane portraits and a map of the world. He wrote Jill that a fine space remained for her, "now that all the messy girls deshabillé are gone." He also received his new dog-tags, on which the Army had inscribed 0-1043313 and he has substituted "Non-sectarian" for "Catholic;" further he has named his father next of kin rather than his mother, because, as he says, "he's less likely to go into hysterics if I try unsuccessfully to hit the little man who wasn't there."
He wants her to become a camp follower:
Remember how we lived the first months of our love, moving lock, stock & barrel every week? Well, I think our life in the army would be something like that, footloose hours and many hours of separation when you'd be on your own, quick moves with little baggage, grabbing some things on the run, others at a snail's pace, all very much in the 20th century pattern. Join me and see the country, I say. Cure your neuroses by the super-neurosis-induction method. Knowing you as I do, I'd say you'd like it a lot... Well, Butch, I'll be seeing you...
He doesn't see much of his old friends. The segregation of officers from men is both functional and social; they live apart, make incompatible friends. And some of them have to attend to their wives. Hank Danenberg has married and brought his bride to camp; she is a diminutive, smart and sufficiently attractive Jewish nurse from Buffalo; they drove down in his car for about $50 and live in a room in Paris for $6.00 a week. Gigliotti has dovecoted his cute Irish wife from Pennsylvania in Paris, too. The Lieutenant across the hall is becoming a friend now, a curly thick-black-haired officer called Pinkerton. They play poker, eat at the Officer's Club, see movies, and read. He writes long letters, and peruses her long letters, but he is not up to killing time.
Last night was really the time to write you when the air had the coolness of fall and the clouds were hustling by in thick clusters. Instead I waited until now [the morning] and spent the evening poring over some materials I have here on tactics and psychology. I'm in the process of drawing up an extensive, rough outline on the subjects of leadership, discipline and morale... The morning has dawned very cold, around 35 degrees, and the hot coffee and pot-bellied stove in the mess hall felt very nice. The news seemed rather cheery, too, with the Russians holding very well at Stalingrad.
He jokes about the self-censorship to which they are exhorted. "There is xxxxxxx of xxxxx around here, leading me to believe future global strategy moves into channels other than xxxxxxx. Don't relate this bit of information, even, to anyone. Can't be too careful. An astute spy system puts everything together like a jig-saw [puzzle]." Though assiduous scanners of the events-manifold, they have no idea of how much the Army, backed up by the Free Press, was withholding from them. The opening of a Second Front in France is already a perennial concern: the Soviets are in a desperate situation; they are battling 240 Axis Divisions while the Allies in North Africa occupy 15 of them. (Of course, the Allies in Asia are engaging a score of Japanese Divisions.)
As she remarks,
I think I should lay off newspapers altogether, if it weren't for my job. There is little comfort that a democrat, using the term generically, can take from the trend of the times. Despite W[endell] Willkie, our Russian allies do not love us. This country's strategy is apparently more and more coming under the control of the military instead of the political (i.e. New Deal commissariat], & I really think that all the Army wants to do is to build up the hugest, and consequently, most unmaneuverable, unsupplyable land force of all time, with the consequence of obliterating Hitler on his own ground being forever negated.
She is becoming paranoid about draft-dodgers and amazed at the contradictory ways of obtaining officers' commissions in the Armed Forces:
I ate at the Commons. [Hutchinson Commons of the University of Chicago.] It's amazing how many young men are still around - and also some very young ones, about Ed's age. [His Brother of 15.] However, some of them may be boys taking C.A.P. training before induction into the Navy Air Forces. Such was the case with an old office boy from Science Research, who I also met at Int. House while cooking for Beatty. My gosh, they sure are taking some awful specimens if he's one of them.
And those were the words of Barney Hodes today too. One of his assistant counsels got a commission, Lt. j.g. & has been waddling around the office in a uniform. Hodes says that he is the most incompetent guy he ever knew - he even filed a suit once in the wrong court! And just got his commission in a breeze, it seems. Hodes says he, Hodes, nearly dropped dead when he heard of it & tho he's glad to get rid of him, he despairs for the Navy.
The political campaign takes a turn for the worse:
And as for politics - the New Deal Democrats are taking & going to take an awful licking. Including Mr. McKeough, I fear. And I must tell you this in private because you are my husband & should share these confidences, I'm beginning to think our candidate is a dope. He's no brainstorm to begin with. And he has come forth with absolutely no promises of positive policy since the campaign began. Stand by the President is the watchword - and the only word, unfortunately. But you vote for him anyway, see!
I hope letters to soldiers in the U.S. aren't censorable cause if they are, somebody's baby is going to be in the brig. And I am your baby, aren't I?
I do love you so much...
He dutifully votes by mail, weeks ahead of time:
I voted two days ago, mostly for men about whom I knew nothing, confirming my long-standing favoritism for the short ballot. By the time you get this letter, all that could be done will have been done. Then, like us, you'll be singing, "Praise the Lord, and pass the Ammunition." Whatever the result, it won't materially change the course of mankind which, as you know, is destined to end up in the bosom of the just and merciful Almighty anyhow. I voted "yes" on all the propositions for reasons known only to myself.
Their friend -- hers more than his -- Johnny Hess, has received his commission at the Tank Corps OCS and hears that his outfit may be going overseas soon. Johnny had been two years in the army and was still training, saying now that he is finally learning what he needs to know; she forwards her letter from him. It replicates Our Boy's experience, past, present and future:
..I arrived at this northern New York joint without the faintest idea of where to go, what to do, who to see or any of the general data that one ordinarily has in mind when arriving at a destination for which one has trained for months. I didn't know a damn soul, which was o.k. with me because I didn't come here for improvement of my social standing, or even for the lark. When I found the right place to report to, I strode in and began an era of signing papers, vouchers, identifications, and all that has lasted to this day, even though I've been here a month. I got here at noon on a Thursday and on 3:30 Friday morning an ill-tempered leprechaun woke me up and told me to join my company, which was then in the field on a tactical problem. After a day's journey in a light tank, in a jeep, and on foot I found my company in bivouac, reported to the commander and had pointed out to me five well-camouflaged, giant "medium" tanks and was told that was the first platoon and that I was in command of the first platoon and that we attacked at dawn the next day. I said yes sir, which is what you're supposed to say. As if all that wasn't dazing enough to my whirling and horribly inadequate mind, they decided to move us into attack position that night, which meant a blackout drive. That was at once one of the most exciting and confused and frightening events of my life. I was supposed to know what I was doing, and I gave some orders, all right, and generally managed to come through alive, but the sensation of riding in the turret of a lunging, bellowing, fire-farting steel monster, at the head of four others just like it, not able to see a god damned thing, me in upper New York State in a 30-ton tank with a crash helmet, goggles, and a 45 pistol to glamorize my costume, and with a map I couldn't see to guide me to an attack I didn't understand .. leading some 30 men I didn't know ... The uniqueness of all that has thinned now, and after a month of it (almost all of it in the field -- I've been here on the post on a relatively few days and nights) I'm accepting it as if it were normal and getting along reasonably well. Right now they've made me supply officer, which ordinarily is only an extra- curricular duty, but since this division is moving out for maneuvers the 26th of this month, all property of the company (and there's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of it .. each tank, for instance, costing the taxpayers 70,000 rocks) must be inventoried, booked, and accounted for with the proper figures, forms, documents, etc. It's a job I relish not one bit, having always felt that bookkeeping and property accounting was definitely not my line, but it must be done, and now I'm sitting around the supply room pretending I'm straightening things out, while the rest of the company continues its work in the field . . . In general it has been vastly informative .. I've learned more here than in my previous 15 months in the army .. and rather exciting, too. I can easily see, though, that constant repetition of even the best of it would wear badly. My company commander was a first sergeant for some 15 years before graduating from the first OCS class at Knox, and his unpleasantness, unimaginative insensibility, and loud-mouthed, ignorant "toughness" bear out that record in more than real tradition. I think if he hadn't been a first sergeant, or an army man, for so long, he might have been a pretty good guy, .. and I don't find him too hard to get along with as it is. I think he's fairly able, and won't mind having him as boss for combat. It may even be a break.
When we present ourselves to German or Jap gunners I don't know. As far as I can find out we go to Tennessee on from 4 to 6 weeks maneuvers beginning, as I said, September 26th. We are told we will not return to Pine Camp, but are given no further information, the implication, I suppose, being that we will shoot off to a port of embarkation. Maybe and maybe not. I don't much care. The outfit is a good one, and the boys are generally capable and trained and tough. And I feel almost ashamed that we have done so much loud talking and boasting here in America and have let others fight the war for us.
I have no idea where to send this. I don't remember your address on 60th. I'll have to send it to the folks, and have them send it to Al's folks and have them send it on to you. I imagine Al gets out of his jail pretty soon now, and should be ready to assume the titanic social responsibilities of a 2nd Lt. Please pass on my very best to him and try to soothe what angry moods he has stored up for me for being an absolutely worthless correspondent. To show him that I'm penitent, I'll write to him from a slit trench somewhere in Tennessee, with a stick, soot, and some birch bark if I can find them. Let me know when he graduates from School so that I can acknowledge the event somehow.
But the Army is adept at keeping friends apart. With whooping joy, Lieutenant Alfred J. De Grazia, Jr., 0-1043313, obeys new special orders to quit Tennessee and haul-ass down to Tex-ass, where a great ensemble of forces is in training at Fort Bliss, close to El Paso and across from Juarez, Old Mexico. There, a comfortable old Cavalry post has been encumbered by an air field and training base, a mechanized new cavalry, and an anti-aircraft automatic weapons center, all in wooden G.I. design.
He is pleased to be assigned a tent, on the far edge of the vast base, elevated to where he can view the planes taking off and landing, the sunrises and sunsets as they create gorgeous orange and purple mountaintops in the distance, and some of his happiest literary efforts are spent describing the concommitants, such as:
Needless to say, dearest, how much I miss you. Numerous small animals share my couch, but it still is not the same as sleeping with one I love. Even though they cause me considerably less bodily wear than you around the face and neck. The most monstrous looking creature crawled in with me last night and I could have sworn the DTs were on me. I killed him outright but this morning encountered another monstrous-looking one in the sink. It was a different species and I can't understand how two totally different insects could both appear equally wicked. Anyhow, this one was having a lot of trouble, poor fellow, since he was all wet & couldn't get any traction. At lunchtime he was still there trying to dry off, but I removed him to terra firma and he ambled off to frighten innocent babes and women.
And more of nature in the raw a few nights later:
Monday night
My dear love,
You may not believe it but at any moment my whole establishment may come tumbling down on my ears as I write you. A wind, rain and thunder storm is raging overhead, much in the manner of the fabled battle between Wind & Sol. The wind is saying "I'll blow his tent down!" The rain is jolting it down furiously, and the thunder is trying to shake it down. All in all, they're doing a damned good job. I've done everything I can, and they can go to hell, however. I've put all my belongings on shelves & table, removed my clothing to the center of the room, and climbed up on the bed myself. The tent roof & sides are whipping away frantically and I've stuffed my bedding roll against a crack in the door flap thru which the rain had driven halfway across the tent floor. Last night an only slightly worse storm almost blew away my home and I'm getting damned sick of this supposedly gentle clime. Just about all the other officers have quarters in town, but I really like to stay out here even though the wild winds blow occasionally...
The larger environment, says he, is "funny."
Just now my life down here is a funny affair. El Paso is a great soldiers' city, and the bachelor officers, in whose unhappy ranks I fall by accident of politics, follow certain established patterns of behavior. When I finish work at night, I usually go into town for dinner, preceded by a drink or so. We naturally settle on certain hotels and bars and I generally see my friends over and over again at the same bars and lobbies. Incidentally, I was sitting and chatting with a couple of officers in the Hotel Cortez lobby yesterday before dinner and who should appear but Pasquale Di Cicco and Gloria Vanderbilt. He is in Cavalry intelligence, a corporal waiting to go to OCS, and a strikingly handsome fellow. All the hotel's girls are mad about him. Gloria is what you would call a "stunning" creature, exquisitely groomed and very shapely.
Well, we gathered ourselves together when a couple more arrived and had a round of beers at the Hilton Hotel and then had dinner. The streets were thronged last night, every man with an eye out for likely prospects. You are going to be chased to death, darling, when you get down here. There is no scarcity of women but there is a sort of continentalism about the country that makes every man's eyes loose in their sockets. I think you're going to enjoy spending some time here. The enlisted men seem to have the edge on the officers as far as the women are concerned, e.g. Di Cicco and wife, and the officers, most of them, fume and cuss against the restrictions that separate them from the ranks. The reason is that a lot of the enlisted men have been around for a long time.
I'm writing this letter from the rooms of three officers in El Paso. We're going to Mexico to see a bull fight this afternoon. This evening I must prepare a lecture on methods of combatting air- borne troops (paratroops and transport-landed troops) to deliver to the officers' class. We take turns delivering lessons...
Must go.
Love as always,
Al
[in the margin, in a different handwriting]:
Dear Jill, Just a line to let you know that Al has been enjoying himself (in the right way). Bye Now. Fred
(That was Dougherty. Now Eubank wants to say hello:)
Hello from me to you. I hope it is as good here when you get here as now. An apartment awaits you. Hope to see you soon.
After exploring Juarez, he promised her trips to Mexico, deep into the country, too. Though it had a couple of nice night clubs, Juarez was largely an ugly town of junk jewelry shops, lowly beer joints, and whorehouses. His companion was an aging captain whose intentions were always more or less pornographic but whose behavior was naive. It was no problem to steer him away from the primrose path, though he got quite high on Tequila. The Lieutenant thought he had a great idea for Christmas presents, to wit, purchase many of the great variety of cute little bottles of whiskey, liqueurs and cordials made in Mexico and send them to their friends. He bought 6 little black bottles of coffee-chocolate liqueur. He offered to send them to her, an offer she ignored. He drank them and that was the end of that genre of drink for him.
He crossed the border on a Sunday to witness a bull fight across the border. Bullfighting was forbidden in America. He paid for a cheap seat, in the sunlight; the seats were divided into those in sole and those in sombra, the sunny ones costing less than the shady ones. The show was gay and gaudy, full of epaulets and bespangled horses, with Spanish-garbed señoritas in army jeeps adding a "hands across the border" touch. The affair was bloody: four raging bulls were killed, two by an accomplished matador and two by a not so accomplished Mexican general on a beautiful, spirited horse. Our Hero sat next to one of the "peones" on a busman's holiday -- the "peones" being the men with capes who enrage the bull and let themselves be chased about the ring -- and listened to pointers about the sport as they sat in the hot sun, drinking weak beer & smoking Mexican cigarettes.
Lest we forget, there was more to the setting than señoritas and bulls, military training, for instance:
The day goes roughly like this: up at 6:15, orientation lecture to the men by a staff of lecturers at 7:00 (have to march them over). 8- 11:30 artillery drill or teaching men a variety of subjects, foot drill sometimes, rifle drill at other times; battery administrative business interspersed throughout. Afternoon the same thing, usually ended by retreat parade at 5:20. Then there are personal problems. A few men aren't in the game at all; they're recalcitrant and non- attentive. One poor old guy of 45 told me his troubles today. He was drafted from a very rural area in Missouri and left "ten acres of wheat, 20 acres of corn, etc." to be harvested. The poor fellow was justifiably worried. A corporal sent him to me to discipline because he couldn't keep in step, but the old guy just couldn't lift his feet fast enough. He was only a plodding farmer. Another old man in my platoon saw 5 major battles in Wd. War I and is back for more. I have a young corporal who is a crackerjack and my candidate for top honors. We four officers have a chap as batman (orderly) who is perfect for the job. He loves his work and really keeps the home fires in shape. Lucky for you your housekeeping never made an impression on me or he would seem an adequate substitute.
I get magnificent food at the battalion officers' mess across the street - i.e. magnificent in quality, quantity and type. Good fresh tomatoes, corn, potatoes, steak, bread & butter, cherry pie and cocoa for dinner today, e.g.
Tonight I took over another officers' job so he could get home to his wife, and visited the library for a while. I've brought a book home and will read a while before turning in. The searchlights (also referred to as the moonlight cavalry) (and incidentally our 1st sgt Camaretta, calls the cavalry contemptuously, the "shit-kickers") (P.S. I agree) are making a pretty pattern in the sky tonight.
He really likes his job. He commands a platoon that operates four 40mm automatic cannons and the same number of .50 cal. machineguns. Still, he is attracted to the new airborne formations. He is among the dozen officers who volunteer, attracted by the "bang up outfits, armed to the teeth with grenades, tommy guns, pistols, machine guns and knee spikes for close-in dirty work." When he did not receive a transfer, he cocked an eye at the Air Corps. He admits he is a Seversky fan: "Victory Through Air Power." (However, in urging the book upon her, he grants that "the author's bias is sometimes too crude and blind.")
She lends him the requisite moral support, not without qualms.
Darling--
Monday
I feel like a heel not writing you the past day or so, but I have been a) busy (well, that's no excuse) and b) sort of stopped by the necessity of helping you decide between airborne troops and flight training. But then your letter came this morning telling me you had applied for flight training, so it seems to be all decided.
I hate to sound like a milk and water wife, but anything you do is O.K. with me. Trusting as I do in a destiny that will probably permit you to live a hundred years or at least to cause my prior demise beneath the wheels of my own bicycle, I don't worry much about what is euphemistically called the future. And I am not the least bit jealous of the competition I'm going to get from your flight instructor. And as for moving around, why, that's fun. (Heh, heh).
Meanwhile, his parents are exposing unknowingly how mankind ought to be letting out its aggressions:
Yesterday, while I was home, your maw & paw went mushroom hunting in Glen Park. They came home with 3 huge shopping bags full of mushrooms - cauliflower & the small kind - and also a bag of watercress. We've been eating mushrooms ever since, & your mother is exhausted from canning them. Your dad gets such a kick out of "hunting." We ought to get him a farm some day -- or install him on ours.
He initiates an application for flight training but hears nothing farther.
Meanwhile, he grows ever happier with his own outfit, the 531st Anti-aircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion. His Battery is led by Captain Love, a soft-spoken Georgian, proper in deed and word, conscientious and sober, ready to listen but also to command. The other platoons were commanded by Lt. Roach, a hearty open- countenanced northern urban type and Lt. Davidson, small, quiet, sweet-smiling, giving Our Man somewhat the impression of a Scotsman. All three were among the founding cadre of the Battalion. The Battalion Commander was a Kansas farmer-businessman, roly- poly, mild-mannered, his Executive Officer, Major Long, a robust friendly fast-moving Californian. Several have their wives nearby and they are glad to know that the Lieutenant's wife is due to arrive before Thanksgiving: they are planning a feast at their own Officers' Mess, which is housed in a small building next to the Enlisted Men's Messhall.
The Enlisted Men are something else again. The draftees come from the Great Plains and South West. The cadre, and hence the non-coms, are regular army men, early cast-offs of the Great Depression, a rough, cynical, ready crew, careful of their own interests and masters of the art of pleasing officers who do not understand them. They rarely used the second person in speaking to an officer; instead they employed the antiquated third person: "Sir, if the Lieutenant wishes, the men can be assembled for the First Aid Lecture." First Sergeant Camerata strolled about twirling a whistle, with a removed look upon his swarthy visage, exemplifying the ancient Chinese sage who said "Do nothing and all will be done."
The Lieutenant's Platoon Sergeant, Burdine, come out of the border-state hills some years gone by, pretty-faced, small and careful of eye, waited houndlike for his cues from the new Lieutenant. When he saw he had an officer who was tough on the men -- or so it seemed -- he began to put more pressure into their training and inspections. His platoon won first prize of the battalion for hits scored in the next firings, but the Lieutenant was the first to confess, this was none of my doing, which is to his credit, because it was true.
He and Lt. Roach maneuvered their platoons against each other, changing commands at mid-point to allow peculiarities to manifest themselves. They practiced ground warfare and camouflage. With the one pursuing the other, he discovered that ten minutes was enough for his platoon to swing about, take cover, deceive, and receive the pursuing "enemy" with cannon and machinegun fire pointblank. Considering that their pieces were truck-drawn, not self-propelled, the elapsed time seems in retrospect scarcely credible.
He was an energetic officer, perhaps too active, too ready to innovate, too ready to engage. He thought officers, in addition to their special superiorities of staff and line, should be able to achieve within reason what they asked of their men (this would be an enduring puzzle for him, for most thinking officers and men, in fact); I am speaking of small matters, as well as large: He was leading his men through an obstacle course one day, permitting the weaker ones at one stage to climb a pole rather than jumping up to catch a horizontal bar and swing over it; he had been taking the tricks in turn, but this time he couldn't hold onto the bar without pulling his trick shoulder out of joint, but kept trying, not willing to admit he had a bad shoulder, until his non-coms yelled at him to climb the pole, which he reluctantly did. They were embarrassed more than he; they did not want an officer getting mixed up with all the nonsense that an enlisted man had to go through. Further there were among them those who refused this and other tricks themselves. They were afraid he would make them qualify for his idea of heroics.
Or, on one dark night when he was Officer of the Guard, he claimed to be dissatisfied with the vigilance and training of the guards, and, taking Sgt. Berdini with him, went about sneaking in or crashing in upon their posts, testing their nerves and wits. This was going too far. It could lead to accidents, even though the men carried unloaded guns. Perhaps Sergeant Berdini, who was a coarse gossip, related the adventure to First Sergeant Camerata, who mentioned it to the Captain in his offhanded manner. At any rate, Captain Love heard of it and mildly reproved the Lieutenant. Like a smart dog, the Lieutenant took criticism seriously; there was no more of this.
Sgt. Berdini, if he were the informer, had his come-uppance. He was the three-stripe gunnery sergeant of the platoon. The pieces were firing at a towed sleeve. There was lots of racket and smoke. The Sergeant was in direct command of the cannon and machineguns, standing directly back of them as they blasted away. The Lieutenant stood a few yards behind the Sergeant and the guns. He shouted to the Sergeant to cease firing; he wanted to realign a gun. The Sergeant shouted, no sir. The Lieutenant shouted again. The Sergeant was turning from the guns to the officer and back. He did nothing. The Lieutenant turned to Captain Love, who was standing within earshot and witnessed the action. "Sir," called the Lieutenant, "The Sergeant refuses the command." "I heard," replied the Captain. "Stand aside, Sergeant, " he said. The Sergeant obeyed. The Lieutenant took over. The firing was ended. Nothing more was said on any side. The next morning, in the orders of the day, Sgt. Berdini was demoted to Private.
The Lieutenant felt sorry for him. The Sergeant reminded him of Jimmy Durante. He had a good heart. Therefore, when the Sergeant, now Private, approached him on the Battery grounds several days later and said he was sorry about causing the trouble and wanted him to know that he did not take the matter personally, the Lieutenant was glad to shake hands and become friendly once more. The old regulars were used to the ups and downs of their ranks; a fight, a drunken binge, AWOL, backtalk, a sloppy barracks -- and they would be broken. Only to get their stripes back later on: they were the security blanket of the officers, a link with the tradition of how things should be done and the crazyquilt new army. Berdini was soon enough promoted to his old rank. His long hitches and devotion to the Army made it embarrassing to keep him among the raw recruits.
He was irrepressible. "Did the Lieutenant hear what happened to the gopher who was sick of Texas?" "No, what happened?" "He dug a hole and kept digging until he finally came up in New Mexico. But a squaw was squatting over his hole and pissing. `Damm, he said, I'm still in Texas. Burnt grass and stagnant water!'" You had to laugh.
Something rather worse happened to the Lieutenant when their brigade went off on several days of maneuvers. The Lieutenant had his mind fixed upon ground artillery, perhaps wisely, even more wise than the leading generals, drawing in his mind in effect two curves, one depicting the decline in the Japanese, German and Italian air fleets, the other picturing the exponential rise in Allied aircraft production and fielding. There was no doubt of the result, to occur shortly, and before his outfit could be committed: there would be few enemy airplanes to shoot at from the ground. So he, faster than anyone else he knew about, studied the ground-fire capabilities of his equipment.
He couldn't wait to try them out. When loosed onto the open range with his guns and an "enemy battalion," advancing and expected soon to come within range, he had his guns emplaced, and muzzles levelled for ground fire. The "enemy" advanced; he ordered fire. An umpire came up, Major Strong, the Battalion's Executive
Officer, wearing his white armband and riding a jeep, shouting, "What in the world are you doing?" "Sir," said the Lieutenant, "The enemy is advancing and I have ordered my guns depressed for ground firing." "But those are friendly forces," exclaimed the Major. The Lieutenant had just realized the fact for himself. He ordered the guns elevated and changed the command to an aircraft alert. Since he had not suffered defeat by the "enemy," he did not lose points in the maneuvers, but forever after he was sensitized to the deadliness of "friendly fire."
Back at base, he was an obliging stay-at-home most evenings, such that his fellow officers with wives in town treasured him, for he would take up their duties as Officer of the Day, inspecting the Guard from time to time and settling such crises as would arise, a sick man, a quarrel, an accident, a midnight arrival. The free ride would end for them when Jill arrived and he was, not without prompting, advising about her wardrobe.
People here are wearing San Francisco clothes, not too heavy during the warm days, not beach clothing at all or resort clothing, but warm coats at night. Your green outfit is just the thing. G. V. [Gloria Vanderbilt], when I've seen her, looked a little too formal, high heels and long hair and expensive wraps. You'll be able to wear sweaters very well. But I don't see why you are concerned. You'll do very well with your present wardrobe.
He puts his mind now to stabling his filly upon arrival. A tent? No. A trailer? No. An apartment? Where in this crowded land and for what period of time? A rooming house? Demeaning. A hotel? Yes, perhaps a hotel. But what hotel? El Paso may not be a one- horse town, but it's a one-Hotel town in the view of a Northern City Slicker. The only hotel worthy of the name is the Cortez, so he approaches the desk there and requests a room. No rooms available. Not quite. There is the Bridal Suite. It is at the top of the Hotel. Pat di Cicco and his wife Gloria just vacated it; he had to check in to officer candidates' school elsewhere. I'll take it, says our man. (He has mentally calculated the thirty-day cost at their total income for the month minus a few dollars. It's no more than she deserves; she has it over Gloria V. any way you look at it.)
She arrives on schedule. The airport, well... The uniforms, well... El Paso, well... Himself, buddy boy, my man, ready to go, here we go! The Hotel Cortez, O.K. What's this? The Bridal Suite? Don't worry, sweetheart, it's O.K. (Actually, it was nothing but a large room and anteroom, and bathroom, drably and darkly furnished, but what a great view, and quiet, and you should have seen the other rooms!) Nothing doing. "Oh, Al," she exclaimed a few times despairingly," by which he inferred that he had not quite managed the coup of the year.
Still, they performed the bridal act with unvirginal finesse and adumbrations. And the next morning, after he went off to his battalion, she began a search of the environs for something suitable, comfortable, likeable, affordable. She found it, and on the third day they dumped her suitcases into a typical humble rancho of the great Southwest of America, a rambling affair descended from a mismating of a chicken coop with an adobe hut, and graduated in material status as the inhabitants of the region accumulated aspirations and wealth. The ramble was halted at a dissection that extended into a room and bath; this was for Jill and Al; the rest was occupied by the washed-out watery-blue-eyed landlady and her likewise little girl, her Army husband being long gone to far places. Jill loved it. She liked its scraggly yard, its view of the mountains far off, its unpretentious I-ask-nothing-of-you, don't-bother-with-the-dishes-or-anything-else, would-you-mind-Sissy-while-I-go-shopping, your-man-reminds-me-of my-man conglomerated boredom. She could have spent the whole war there in quiet happiness, turning a hand as a waitress in a local diner, or a scribe at the post hospital, if given the chance or the need.
No need, no chance. Within weeks came the order for the Battalion to go nowhere, more precisely, to head for someplace referred to as "Desert Maneuvers," across the Arizona into California, somewhere south of Death Valley in the Mohave Desert, where they would find the Sixth Armored Division if they looked hard enough. She packed her grip and headed for Russian Hill in San Francisco; that's where her brother Paul and his wife Ann Whittington sailed and danced the while. He, the Lieutenant, stuffed his bag, collected his platoon, and cut into the convoy that headed toward Parker, Arizona. How he loved to convoy: "O.K. Let's get the show on the road!" And out the vehicles towing their cannon would pull, roaring onto the highway from the sod, then purring and finding their distance, stretching out like an old-time wagon train, always in the sweet air of the southwestern dawn, interspersed with whiffs of gasoline exhaust.
When they arrived in nowhere, they set up pyramidal tents by the score. There was a set pattern, a veritable town plan, here the tents of "A" Battery, here its park for guns and vehicles, here its office tents, here its officers' tent, and so on to the conjunction of "A" with "B" Battery and so on to the full 531st Battalion, thence to the Brigade pattern, then the Regiment and the Division. The whole spread its parts uniformly over a great stretch of desert, never (almost never) a light to be seen at night, never a campfire. As he wrote to Jill in San Francisco:
The division encamped fulfills that bustling picture Tolstoy describes very well. The encampment is enormous but with the enormity of a mount of ants. There are thousands of details, yet all is swallowed up in vast space. One striking difference for your imagination. Tolstoy writes of the numerous fires. But nowadays "blackout" is a vital word, and every encampment is constructed to exist without lights that are apparent. So only occasional searchlights or truck lights play about the darkness and no materials are available for campfires, even if the soldiers thought of lighting them.
Every Monday at dawn the Division would strike out on maneuvers that would end with a return to its encampment on Friday night. The site, the conditions and the training were chosen and formed to emulate the kind of desert warfare that was occurring even then in North Africa, where the Italians, British, Australians, New Zealanders, and Germans had been chasing each other back and forth since 1940, and where, at the moment when the Lieutenant's Platoon arrived in the desert, the British Eighth Army has defeated the Axis forces at El Alamein. American and British armies have just disembarked at several points extending from Casablanca in Morocco to Bone in Algeria and are clearing the last of sporadic resistance from French troops loyal to the Petain Government in Vichy. Meanwhile, new German forces are pouring into Tunis. Unless he could make it over there soon, there would not be much need for desert training in itself.
One important gap, he could realize, existed in the training. There was no air force, whether friend or foe. Two of the most important elements of modern warfare were missing in the mock war: friendly planes to reconnoiter and bomb the enemy panzers and troops, and the planes that gather intelligence from the air and dive- bomb your installations and columns. The accompanying ground-air coordination could not be practiced, either. The same was true at Fort Bliss where there were a great many planes that could properly train with the troops. Southern California was also loaded with aircraft in training and readiness. When on maneuvers, the anti- aircraft batteries had to practice against sleeves instead of live targets. The shock and surprise of the piloted plane descending upon you from nowhere are inimitable; they were missing from the otherwise elaborate simulation of the desert campaign.
Nevertheless it was probably the best training that the Army afforded, and he liked all of it except the part that kept his wife far away, first in San Francisco, then with their old friends from University, Bill and June King, who lived in Hollywood. Bill worked for Walt Disney, helping to draw an infinite series of cartoons on winning the war; his studio was the greatest single workshop of domestic propaganda. The Lieutenant's nearest geographical reference was an ugly desert stop called Rice; you got there by hitchhiking on some passing truck; a train labored through there around midnight on Friday and could be caught up with at a trot, whence, after it halted at Palm Springs, a bus could be found that ultimately arrived at the Greyhound Station in Los Angeles sometime Saturday morning. Then a taxi could deliver you to June's Hollywood ranchhouse and your lover. After a few hours of food, sex and talk, considerately arranged by June, the first in her large kitchen, then in the spare room, finally in the living room, all has been done, the Other Life has been renewed, and it was time to start back, reversing the order of travel. On Christmas, the Command indulged him with an extra day. Other soldiers had the same idea and the trips were not only complicated but also crowded, forever being delayed. On his third trip, busing in from Palm Springs, a drunken soldier lost control of himself, and started up a continual stream of invective directed at the world, suggestive remarks to a pair of women behind the Lieutenant, and anti-authoritative generalities that might even have been taken personally by the Lieutenant, since no other officer was around. He turned and told the man to shut up. To no effect. As the bus pulled into the station, he stood up and called out, "All military personnel stay where you are! All civilians please disembark." No problem. The bus driver sat by, the civilians descended in good order, the soldiers sat where they were. "All military personnel will disembark now, except that Man there, pointing!" No problem. The military descended in orderly file and disappeared as fast as they could. To the last of them, he said, "Send the first M.P. you meet over here double time, get it? You, come with me!" he ordered the man. "You are under arrest!" "The soldier made no attempt to escape. He began to plead innocence, "All I was doing was sitting there looking out of the window." He whined and protested like a character out of Dickens. "Never mind that! Stand where you are!" he was warned. The M.P.s came up and saluted. This man was causing an obscene drunken disturbance, they were told, "I want him in jail." "We can't keep him, sir, unless you come and prefer charges." "O.K. Here is my phone number, call me in an hour." Away they went, and he arrived late at the Hollywood cottage. The M.P.'s phoned as they had promised. "I will not prefer charges," he told them, "especially if you let him cool his heels for a couple of hours." The incident was closed. The man would hardly have time to get drunk again before having to return to his Post.
Less was left of the Lieutenant's brief leave, for that matter. Was it worth the trouble, he asked himself; he thought so. Yes, I know, the world is blowing into smithereens, people are dying every minute, what matters a small breach of discipline, who am I to establish order and justice? He had as many problems with moral choice as the next man, more so, since he was inclined to philosophize. There was this to be said about moral responsibility, Army and civilian: civil life had practically given up the concept of noblesse oblige, while the Army had held on to it, though less and less; an officer, any officer, was responsible for a soldier, any soldier, in the absence of the immediately responsible commander. In the faded memories of the medieval estates and the old common law of citizen's arrest could be located the notion, but now almost never the practice.
On the way back to his encampment, the sorrow of parting was counterattacked by the military vision only when he left Rice in the pre-dawn. Then, in the gloom surrounding the road could be perceived through the headlights of the car the first elements of the Sixth Armored Division, blacked out, of course, unlike the taxicab, ghostlike. As the sky lightened, more and more reconnaissance cars could be seen, half-tracks, and then he could hear and smell the foul snorts of the steeds of war. The tanks began to show up and spread over the dunes -- as far as the eye could see, which was farther with every minute of dawning. He knew the order of battle, he knew the order of march, he knew that his own battalion was in the rearguard, practically the last unit to move. He had time to arrive at his tent by the dirt path, pull off his clothes, dress in camouflaged fatigues and arm himself, and find his platoon, with its trucks beginning to warm up, its cannons hitched to them since Saturday.
He was now Executive Officer and, lo!, there came his Battery Commander, portly Captain Dorset, waddling out of the morning mist, receiving salutes. Captain Love had been promoted to Battalion Exec, a good choice by the Colonel. Dorset had come in new to the battalion and battery; he was from Maryland, with a commission from college, and promotions somewhere in irrelevant commands. The Lieutenant and, by a first consensus all around, the others of the battery, hadn't liked him, thought him a panty-waist, with his fat and his porky pouting face.
He felt better about Dorset now. Dorset had shown guts and decency. When the Battery took off on a long hot march, the Lieutenant and the others joked that he was in poor shape and couldn't make it, huffing and puffing, red-faced, through the sand. But he stuck it out. That was one thing. Also, despite his sulky face, he was fair-minded and did not pick on anyone. That was remarked.
And he let it be known that he was not anti-semitic, that he had some Jewish in him along the line. It might seem strange: why should this come up? It came up incidentally and without the Lieutenant's prompting. He just said he didn't like anti-semitism and that was it. But it came by way of comment on the running noisy quarrel between the Battalion Medical Doctor, working out of his ambulance, happily named "The Butcher Shop," and the Battalion Dentist, with a covered truck of chairs and infernal devices. The one was named Belosky, the other Berman, both of them lieutenants, the first a full-voiced large baritone, dark and handsome, of Polish-Italian descent, the second heavy-set, of round soft features and round glasses, tenor-voiced, of Polish-Jewish origin. The voices are mentioned because Lt. Belosky would frequently start up an argument with Berman, who would vigorously respond, and usually the argument would end with the two loudly calling each other, respectively, a dumb Polack and a dumb Jew. No matter what the source of conflict, it would end up the same way, whether a missing analgesic or a hand at cards.
Our Lieutenant would endure these scenes as did the other officers of the battalion, craftily lending respect to Berman's assertions where otherwise Belosky might think himself ahead. He was content that his fellow officers did not take sides. Yet it was remarkable that no one tried forcefully to put an end to the nonsense, especially to the strident assertions of Belosky, that usually started up the fracas. Perhaps they thought little of the annoyance, and no one wanted to squelch anybody. Perhaps there was this, which was important: that Americans, being such strong individualists, do not regard such defamatory exchanges as collective debates, involving the community, but as personal disputes between two men, with nothing larger at stake. The Medic developed no following whatsoever, a fact supporting this theory.
Anyhow there was a lot of cantankerous interaction, what with the sandstorms, the boredom, the drinking, and the aggressive card games that were set up each evening in one or another of their pyramidal tents. We find Our Man describing the scene to his Sweetheart:
Last night the B Btry officers' tent was full of card players and I was inveigled into losing some money. They were playing a lot of odd games where skill is no good to anyone. I rarely lose at straight poker but lost some heart-breaking hands last night at a game called, fittingly enough, "Son of a Bitch". I had intended to read and write letters, including one to John, but will do that today instead. About 10 o'clock we stopped the game for a few minutes to eat some kosher salami Berman has brought back with him from Chicago.
He did not mention that sometimes, inspired by alcohol or not, an officer would take a shot with his automatic at one of the bolder of the several desert rats that would scamper in and out. A dangerous shot. Nor was it nice. But it was better than playing Russian Roulette.
The nights are freezing out here and by 1 a.m. we were huddled shivering around the candles and lamp that lit the card game. When I did turn in, the bedding roll stuffed with two blankets and two quilts was just enough to keep me warm. Some of the men are buying sleeping bags for about $9.50 and they swear by them. I just hate to purchase anything so bulky. I wear the army woolen underwear constantly, for though the days are bright and sunny, there is a tang to them which creeps through a cotton suit, especially when riding in an open car.
Sleeping bags? A premonition of things to come. The Lieutenant's most congenial friend in the Battalion was the Chaplain, a Methodist, who believed in the Social Gospel. So did the Lieutenant. And he became a kind of spiritual consultant:
The chaplain's going into LA tomorrow to purchase some records from the Chaplain's Fund, a slush fund the army gives the chaplains to make religion more comforting. I've given him some names & numbers of symphonies and other music, including the recordings of the Red Army Chorus, to buy, both of us being in a conspiracy to not cater to the lowest common denominator of tastes.
His wife in Hollywood, whether influenced by Sunset Boulevard or the venal Christmas Spirit or simple stark need, was also thinking of purchases to come:
I window-shopped extensively & have come to the following conclusions:
Daddy, I want a brand-new:
yellow thin wool scarf
" cotton sweater
Pretty dress
" hat
Mules (bedroom slippers)
Cotton quilted housecoat
Could also use:
Compact (not really)
Bubble bath (not really)
No camera. Just lost interest.
What do you want?
He must not have been reading her letters with his customary literal rigor. Nor was he near to where these things were sold. So when the time came, and it seemed as if he might get to her by Christmas, he pondered the question of gifts, visited the undersupplied Desert PX, and walked out $9.50 poorer but with just what she (he) needed: a Sleeping Bag! Perfect for the Camp Follower. And she was such an Outdoor Girl! It could even hold the two of them in tight embrace the whole night through! He carried it with him when the time came to make the harrowing voyage to Hollywood. He said to her, look what I've brought for you, Merry Christmas, and she did what was quite foreign to her nature: she burst into tears. It was extraordinary, that sleeping bag; it was never used, almost forever, but he encountered it whenever a move was to be made, looming in his baggage and hers like the hull of a boat turned turtle. And then finally it was worn until dissolved into a frayed rag, in circumstances that can await the telling.
He was happy enough himself in his thick blanket roll that he spread on the desert floor when night fell. He liked especially to be detailed to reconnoiter for the Battalion. Then he might leave in the evening and sleep alone under the immense desert sky, careful to find a furrow or obstacle that a tank or vehicle would not dip into or climb over. Nighttime traffic in the desert was heavy, off the road, and poly-directional. Stories of rattlesnakes crawling in to share the warmth abounded; not much could be done about them, except to move over and give them room.
Then came the light of morning over the dunes, ever more gorgeous, resketching daily the sharp rough edges of low mountain ridges by filling in a background and foreground for them composed of oranges, reds, yellows, finally blues, and tan sands, punctuated by a cactus or a Joshua tree; then, unless the movement of vehicles was destroying the limpidity of the air, a brilliant sun arose, to be experienced happily at its coolest during these days of its nadir. It would be hot as hell by springtime.
He was thoroughly at home in his environment -- military and natural. He had been nominated for First Lieutenant. He felt that the future was proper, too; the Sixth Armored Division was ready to go; it could go only to where he wanted to go, to North Africa. An order came in that fortified one's expectations: Go through your rosters and consider any soldiers who might have evidenced sympathies for the enemy and would not be fully trustworthy; when such are found, process them for discharge from the Armed Forces. The order excited a certain amount of soul-searching and casting about for likely spies or deserters. Battery "A" finally was able to focus its suspicions upon an ugly blonde farm boy from North Dakota who had been heard to say that the War was unnecessary and, anyhow, we had no business to be wasting ourselves overseas. The Lieutenant was looked up to on such matters, as he should have been. What do you think about Private Fred Hermann? He pondered. He talked with Hermann. Hermann smiled secretively and shook his head when he was asked whether he believed in the war. He was embarrassed at the attention he was receiving. He was one of the sloppiest soldiers in the Battery. For its part, the Battalion should probably evidence a serious effort at fulfilling the terms of the order: at least one man in a thousand should be unpatriotic. So it was determined that Private Hermann should be processed for discharge. He departed for home, looking a little embarrassed, but with the same secretive smile.
The days of the Lieutenant, too, were numbered. Mysterious forces in Washington, D.C., were at work. On the 16th of January, 1943, a Special Order 16 of the War Department appeared in the Battalion mails. It was most impressive, printed, no less, rather than mimeographed. A Copy was especially marked for 2nd Lt. Alfred J. de Grazia, Jr., 0-1043313 and a single line encircled in Paragraph 10
read cryptically "rel'd 531 CA & det to 2 Sig Rad Serv Section (Psychological Warfare Unit, Camp Ritchie, Md.)" At the end came, "By Order of the Secretary of War, G.C.Marshall, Chief of Staff." The Headquarters officers and men of the 531st stood stock-still in their sandy shoes and stared fascinated at the document. It was like the Hand of the Lord reaching down and tapping you on the shoulder, saying "You are Called!" They acted as if it said "You are Chosen." Since no one knew what it was all about, not the least the Lieutenant, they could regard him with awe. The Colonel told him that he might depart off any time he pleased.
Whatever it was, he felt ready for it. The clarion calling him to a challenging new duty, however, had to be harmonized with personal interests; he was getting the habits of an Army Regular. He fell to contriving means of taking along his frau and of laying over in Chicago en route. She looked up the trains, although he intended to drive a fictitious or maybe real automobile at an unreal 35 miles an hour (the formal recommended speed limit for cars) from the Mohave Desert to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, even should the Axis be enabled thereby to surrender days later. She duly reports:
Well, here are some statistics. The Southern Pacific route through San Francisco, which takes approximately 41 hours from there, adds up to $224.54 for two persons. That includes the 15 dollars extra fare per person for going on a streamliner, also a roomette which is the minimum satisfactory accommodation for two persons. Presumably, we would not enjoy sleeping in two separate berths or together in one lower berth. Tack on about $15 for meals, drinks and tips for two. That adds up to about 241 dollars for the trip to Chicago. The Santa Fe Superchief, which leaves from here, is the same price. Sweet monopoly. That takes 41 hours straight through. The airlines come to $231 for two persons, with no extras, of course. (Our employees positively do not accept gratuities.) Oh yes, except baggage transfer, and I do not know how much that is. The City of San Francisco leaves every three days, and the Superchief sails on Tuesdays and Fridays. So there!
So they went by train on the City of San Francisco, up the sunny California Coast to the Golden Gate, across the sky-high snowy Sierra Nevadas, along the marvelous gorges rushing across the Rockies and swooping down upon the Great Plains leading into Chicago, where all trains stopped, and then, after embracing the Home Folks and Friends, proceeded on their familiar streamliner, the President, to the Capital of the Free World. And never regretted it ever after.
The Taste of War
Texas and the Mohave Desert