My Military Training

I watched in May of 1970 a squad of the Connecticut National Guard standing across York Street in New Haven aim their rifles at an auto approaching them. The driver undoubtedly did not know that York Street and several other streets around downtown had been cordoned off and the National Guard activated to enforce the curfew to keep the demonstration supporting the seven Black Panthers being tried for murder from getting out of hand. I was in my car on Crown Street, stopped by a red light at its corner with York Street at 11:00 PM. I watched in horror, knowing from personal experience how ill-prepared the Guard was for combat and for civil unrest. I had been in the Guard several years before.

I remember well the first few minutes after I arrived at Fort Dix; the thin, ramrod-straight First Lieutenant assigned to our company told the group of us our freedom had ended when we walked through the front gate: we were to do what we were ordered to do and nothing else. I recognized this man as a neighbor years before when I was very young and thought it might entitle me to lasso an emolument or two. Reading my mind, he gave me a sardonic smile and said: “I’m gonna make your life a living hell. You’re gonna wish you’d never been born”. It became immediately clear I was about to be prepared for war, even though there was no war anywhere in which our national interest was at stake. I remember thinking of the gate before Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here”. Then, the Sergeant of our platoon asked us if anyone was planning to make a career of the Army. Raising my hand I stepped forward to report my grandfather had loved the Army and had fought in the Spanish-American War; his oldest son, my uncle, had fought in France in World War I; my father had been too old for World War II; as for me, I had studied military history in college and hoped to remain in the reserves to become an officer, maybe a General like Senator Barry Goldwater, who was a General in the Air National Guard. When asked about my military training, I mentioned marches around my home-town armory and in a Memorial Day parade. He was impressed enough to appoint me the acting sergeant and handed me a sergeant arm-band. I saw no reason to describe in detail that my marching experience had taken place during one National Guard meeting and in one parade. I assumed I had sufficient training for what looked so easy. As I recollect after nearly 50 years, my Boy Scout marches must have given me an unconscious nudge. My chief responsibility was to direct the marches of forty rookies. As soon as I opened my mouth, however, my inexperience became glaringly obvious. My tentative “attention” paled beside the “Ten Hut!” bellowed by the other acting sergeants. My tender “right, left, right, left…” contrasted with their aggressive “Hup, Haw, Hup, Haw…” More important, even then I had trouble remembering my right from my left. Marching beside a roadway on our left, I intended to command everyone turn to the right and march into an open field; instead I ordered them to turn left, and they moved into a lane of moving traffic. Fortunately, no one was injured. My mother appeared to scold me for my lack of concentration. Later, when we were marching in two columns beside a stone wall on the right, I wanted each of them to turn to the right, when they come to the end of the wall, and pass it by, but gave the command for everyone to turn to the right, which they did and marched into the wall. My mother again appeared shaking her finger at me and frowning. The next day, when I was at the infirmary to nurse a hemorrhoid, the exasperated Sergeant found someone to replace me. Because we were all strangers, I didn’t feel humiliated. I didn’t know until later that many of those strangers were Ivy League graduates, who must have wondered how I ever got out of eighth grade. I can’t remember what possessed me to do something so stupid and impulsive. I must have thought a successful, military record would have helped my political career, knowing Teddy Roosevelt made hay politically by riding up rough Cuban hills, with my grandfather there cheering, and Winston Churchill, having been shot in the Boar War, had returned home a hero. For me a wall had caught me by surprise and traffic.

My Fort Dix six-month term was divided into three two-month sections. The first was basic training, the second training in a second skill, the last internship in that second skill. During basic training, I became proficient in spit-shining boots; in pulling bunk blankets so tight a quarter dropped on them would bounce a foot; in firing and cleaning an M1 rifle; and in respecting officers by obeying commands. It meant exhausting afternoons on hands and knees policing cigarette butts, compensated by exhilarating joy of letters from my loved ones. My world involved the daily dozen in the rising sun; packing as lightly as possible for the ten mile marches in July on three hours sleep; lying on the scorching PRI (Practice Rifle Range) sand and removing the salt from evaporated perspiration on my eyelids to keep them from sealing shut while firing on targets; and crawling on my belly several hundred feet as bullets from machine-guns buzzed a foot above my head. When the tour had ended, I did not feel I had been through hell or even purgatory; rather it had the elements of a professional, preseason, football camp. And I was quite surprised how good the food had been: the Army had a need to keep its soldiers healthy. I was physically fit and appreciated the value of exercising. It certainly was worth it, although I wasn’t ready for an encore. For my second two-month period, since I did not know how to type, I choose “Clerk Typing Instruction” and typed throughout the duration. This ersatz, secretarial school proved to be highly beneficial to me: I became somewhat adept in a significant facility. Then, for my third two-month period, I was directed to a typing pool. When I arrived at the designated office, I was told to sit down, which I did, and waited the entire day for instructions. I did not make the same mistake the second day: I brought a book by Suzuki on Zen Buddhism, sat in the same seat and read for eight straight hours. I repeated the routine every day for the next two months. As I now think back, I vaguely remember sitting on the floor and not in a chair. Not one of the several soldiers in the office ever asked me to do anything or what I was doing there or why I was there. All the Regular Army guys were keeping themselves busy, probably to avoid being reassigned to a combat unit.

When my six-month tour ended, I never felt better in my life and knew how to type. Fort Dix provided me with those two, important enhancements for which I am very grateful. I also have fond memories of associating with several, thoroughly, wonderful young men. It was 1959, the Korean War had ended several years before, and all the recruits knew Indochina was somewhere on the other side of the globe. Although we were training for war, we knew we were not training for war. Except for a few skirmishers here and there across the globe, the world was at peace. Once, a disturbance in Southeast Asia caused an alert and all week-end leaves were canceled. There was an accompanying rumor we might be shipped overseas. My married, tent-companion became very worried. I was quite certain it was only a rumor, which it was; the alert was lifted in a day or two. My chief concern then was not armed conflict but political conflict.

I had not always been a candidate for the draft; my origin classification of “4F”excused from military service. Each 18 year old male had to report to his local draft board to be classified. In December 1952, I appeared with about 200 others on a certain day and sat at a desk in a large room to complete a questionnaire, including a section on sickness and disability. Soon after checking “yes” to the question if I ever worried and “yes” to another if I was ever nervous, my name was announced over the loud speaker: “Bill Rees, come to the front of the room”. I stood up while all the others stopped writing and watched me walk nervously to the front desk in dead silence. There, I was instructed to see a doctor in a small, adjourning room. Waiting with five hyperventilating teenagers, I thought I somehow made an error. Seven years later in basic training, when two dozen of us were sitting in our white skivvies on benches along the stark-white walls in a small room with a doctor in a white coat sticking needles in our arms, injecting us with a vaccine, a few of my colleagues moaned, fainted and slide off the benches onto the white floor. It seemed to me they answered those two questions incorrectly or they didn’t fully understand their nature. If needles had caused them to faint, what the hell would they have done if a grenade in combat had been tossed into their foxhole? The doctor asked me about being nervous. I told him I had just finished final chemistry exam and was so nervous I began to feel a little dizzy and my mind went blank for several minutes. He did not ask me what grade I had received nor did I volunteer that I had soon recovered and earned a very high grade. He asked about worrying, and I nodded my head. I could have told him my Celtic ancestors built dolmans in the Burren, in County Clare, to protect them when the sky fell in on them. He finished by asking if I would make a good soldier, and I replied that if I were in Korea, fighting in the freezing snow to capture Pork Chop Hill, with bombs exploding all around me, I would be in a heightened state of anxiety, which some would call panic, but added I thought everyone in that situation would have the same reaction. He thanked me and told me to go home. I was surprised but happy the inconvenience of the session was over and that my classification of “4F”, which arrived a few days later, would keep me from the hassle of filling out student deferment forms. At that time it was more important to me to be in a lab working on chemistry experiments than having to deal with the Army. After graduating from college and entering politics, my “4F” morphed from joke to thunder- stroke. I could imagine myself running for Congress or Mayor or whatever and my opponent asking me in a debate about my military experience and my campaign is suddenly sunk. I hurried to my local draft board to inquire what my classification meant. The clerk on duty asked if I had ever had a nervous breakdown. I said I hadn’t. Then, she read off its description: “Psychic Personality Inadequate”. I was astonished by the error and applied for reexamination. When I mentioned this to my friends, they told me my psychic personality was indeed inadequate.

Several weeks later, I returned to the same room with the same desks and to the same questionnaire and to the same, two questions and answered both “yes” again and with the same “Bill Rees” over the loudspeaker and was sent to see another doctor in a small adjourning room. I told him that I had a normal, human propensity to worry and on occasion was nervous and, if bombs were exploding around me in armed combat, I would experience panic but affirmed I would be as good a soldier as anyone else. The doctor told me to stop being “cute”, to go back to my desk, and answer both those questions “no”, which I did. My “yes” answers, however, had not been “cute” but honest. No normal person would answer “no” to them. It is natural to worry and to be frightened and sometimes very frightened. We try to control our feelings and emotions and can do so to a degree but not completely. Those who claim they do not worry and/or do not panic are mentally imbalanced; they’re the ones who should receive the “4F” frank, since they would not be able to recognize danger or would choose to ignore it. If surprised by German Panzers through the fog of falling snow, they’d be the first to die. Furthermore, I could have told the mind-set doctor both questions could be better worded: “Do you worry to the degree that your normal ability to function is compromised?”, and “Are you so nervous you could not be a good soldier?” My status was soon reclassified to “1A”, with its inherent possibility of my being drafted at any time for two years of active service, maybe in a foreign land. That would have been a colossal nuisance to me, as there was no immediate danger to our national security, and I was spending every waking moment building a political career. The alternative was to join the National Guard, even though it seemed to me to be a minute-men remnant, with its six- months of active duty, followed by five and a half years of weekly meetings, with monthly field maneuvers and an annual two-week tour of active duty. The other substitutes - fleeing to Canada or to a graduate school, even if I had had the money for the tuition, which I didn’t - were totally unacceptable.

The armory, of which grandfather had been the custodian many years before, was home to the weekly, nighttime meetings. In the few I attended, conducted by a newly, accredited Second Lieutenant, rambling on about some arcane, military subject, the boredom was excruciating. Being a salesman and needing to be available for nighttime appointments, I proposed instead a daytime shift for me instead. The Captain, who was a fulltime, short-order cook in a delicatessen, gave his approval. I called him “Chuck”. Each Tuesday morning I brought coffee and donuts to our noncom, Sergeant Al, and, after telling his a few jokes, I was allowed to leave. He was in the armory office every business day overseeing the equipment, weapons and the bank account. I rather liked the lad and periodically even lent him money when requested, which he always repaid. A few years later he vanished. A mutual friend told me his gambling debts compelled him to dip his sticky fingers in the company till.

Each year we were required to spend two weeks on active duty at Camp Drum. I always took the occasion to catch up on my reading. One morning I was selected to be the gunner of a truck for a parade not of marching solders but of trucks with solders. I was to stand behind the driver’s cabin, scan the sky for enemy airplanes and simulate discharging my M1 at them to protect two dozen troopers sitting in the open truck bed behind me. As it always happened in the Army, we grunts had to hurry up to wait. I used the time profitably by reading “The Federalist Papers” for the hour or so before the truck moved out to form a convoy with other trucks. The essays were so fascinating I kept them in my hands and looked down, instead of holding my rifle and looking up. It was quite a trick to read while standing in a moving vehicle. It must have been quite a sight as we passed the reviewing stand where our good Captain proudly stood beside out better Commanding General. Micro-seconds after the masquerade ended, Chuck appeared before me as if a fountain spouting spit and sweat, with engine-red profanity in several languages. The sharp, staccato sounds in High C drowned out his conniption’s cause. But several words did muscle themselves through: “KP”, “daily”, “spuds”, “pissed off”. I could only guess our highest officer had gone ballistic. Military shit continued to roll downhill. For enabling him to enjoy the stuff that dreams are made of, my reward was bringing luster to our garbage cans and sparkle to a heap of dirty pots and pans. I could have reminded him my book in a combat zone would have been as useless as my M1 against airplanes. But then I thought, “Oh, what the hell; this guy’s lost him marbles”. The next day, I arose at 4 AM and began my chores. At lunchtime I was ordered to stand on the chow line to plop mashed potatoes onto passing plates. Unbeknownst to me, it was to be my lucky day: Frank Kowalski walked through mess hall doors. Connecticut’s Congressman-at-Large paid us a visit with General dirigible floating in, along with puffed-up Chuck. Frank had been a West Point graduate, who recently retired from the Army as a Colonel, and was now the Chairman of the highly-popular and televised hearings of a House of Representative Committee investigating the abuses in the armed forces. The public relished his effrontery on hearing of enlisted men being forced to tend bar at generals’ cocktail parties and to groom the dogs of generals’ wives and other stories of noncom mistreatment. He might have had a score to settle: I learned afterward that General George Patton had become furious with him for some unknown reason and had blackballed him from advancing to higher rank. During his recent campaign for Congress, I was the only member of the committee that organized the Kowalski Day in New Haven to greet him at his first event at 5:00 AM at a factory gate to meet the change of shifts. I single handedly saved the day, since there was no one else showed up who knew the schedule, which apparently had not been forwarded to his staff. Only I was available to take him from rally to rally, which I did. All in all the day turned out to be successful. He was very pleased with the enthusiastic crowds on his behalf, especially the outpouring of Polish men and women. We got to know each other rather well, and he was especially appreciative of my assistance. Full-bird Frank went on to win the election, carrying New Haven handsomely. When he saw me with my ladle, he rushed to give me a big bear hug. We chatted for a while, as the brass by stood aghast. He was thrilled to be with the troops, which reminded him of the old days, the long-grey-line days, and the fighting days with Patton. He wished me well and went around the room shaking hands. Minutes later, Oh Captain, my Captain sheepishly tiptoed to me to whisper that my kitchen obligation was kaput. I retired to my tent and emerged only to eat and take a leak. A day or so later, the good times continued to roll, as another political acquaintance of mine arrived, the office manager for our Governor, John Dempsey. They both had come to greet the happy campers. I was invited to sit in Dempsey’s jeep as he rode around the camp, waving to would-be voters on the right, as I waved from the left. I brought him to visit our company and introduced him to my then very, friendly Chuck, a favor that allowed me ample time to read for the remainder of my military service commitment. Training at this camp was a ruse; there wasn’t any. Each morning the company was called to order, was transported to a field for a maneuver, which was practiced for a half hour or so after which everyone was allowed to sit or lie down, until the trucks came to take them home. I remember once a Sergeant told several of us to get into a large vehicle and took us on a joy ride in an open area filled with bushes that he plowed through and flattened at high speeds. There was no target practice. Unfortunately, I had to attend the monthly field trips that were similarly inconsequential.

Which gets us back to the question about my being a good soldier or not. The answer is I was not a good soldier, lacking as I did the training and also commitment, maybe because of the lack of training, except for the first two months at Fort Dix. That was also true of all the others in the company: we were rather a bunch of ragamuffins suiting up to turn the pages of the playbook, while the bozos sashayed with their bars or birds or stars stuck on their helmets, barking orders into bull horns. Then, the Nutmeg State’s Connecticut National Guard was an utterly, worthless waste of tax payer’s money. If the Ohio National Guard was anything like ours at that time, it would somewhat explain the Kent State tragedy. For this reason I was terrified when the several guardsmen raised their rifles at the approaching auto. Had the question been better stated – if the security of our country were at stake and you were well trained, would you have been a good soldier? – I would also have to answer “no”, if it meant I was obliged to kill another human being tagged an enemy combatant, who was determined to kill me. I am certain I could not do that. But I would not refuse military service, as did Robert Lowell, who went to jail for refusing to honor the World War II draft. I would answer “yes”; I would be a very good soldier in a noncombat roll, in a medical unit or an ambulance squad or in a “Red Ball Express” type brigade. To me Woodrow Wilson was only partly right in his peroration on Old Glory, when he implied it was the [red] blood of soldiers, spilled to vindicate the “…rights of liberty and of justice…on alternating strips of [white] parchment…” who will lead all nations that stand for those great things to the “…blue serene…”; it is the peacemakers who will lead them there, for they are called the children of God.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the auto stopped a few feet in front of the guardsmen, turned onto Crown Street and disappeared.

William H. H. Rees
New Haven, Connecticut
June 27, 2004, edited October 9, 2013