01 - Into The Army
01 - Into The Army
When we were inducted we were tested, got physical exams, teeth cleaned, eyes examined, clothes issued and a record of what we had done in civilian life etc. Then they assigned us to basic training. A day in the Army starts almost always by Reveille Bugle call. Out of the sack at six, time to wash, shower, shave, get dressed, then roll call in the Company street. Then if you are sick it's sick call. If you are sick no breakfast and the doctor sees you about 10. So unless you are really sick you will skip that. Hospital if really sick an aspirin if not then back to the company for regular training. If you miss much training they pull you out and let you restart training all over again. You try to avoid that.
After roll call it’s breakfast in the mess hall then back to the barracks for police call, make your bed, police the area. That is clean and empty the cigarette butt cans wet mop the floor by your bed, straighten and hang clothes. Walk around the area pick up all paper, matchsticks whatever God didn’t put there. The general wanted everything to look neat and clean. Rake the gravel (no grass) clean the latrine What ever. Shine everything. An officer always inspected some time in the morning to make sure. It was done and done the way the Army wanted it done. God help the poor GI’s who lived in the barracks that didn’t live up to Army expectations. The bulletin board had the training schedule posted each Monday morning. It told what to wear and what time to wear it. It told you everything to expect all week day and or night. If no night problems you could do what ever till the next morning. At roll call the flag was raised and everyone stood at attention while it was raised. At 500 PM retreat was sounded and everyone saluted and stood at attention till the color guard retired the colors. At 1000 PM taps sounded and lights went out. With the exception of the latrine, the company command post (C.P.) The Supply room and the first aid station. That’s the time the Post exchange would close and all good little G.I.’s went beddie bye.
We had a barber, a company PX, a day room with books and magazines plus a pool table. It was called a day room but we didn’t use it in the day time, at night or Saturday.
Saturday morning was inspection and parade and dismissal at 12 noon for the weekend, unless you had guard, K.P. or restriction. Each barracks had a wash room for laundry and on Friday everyone took their mattress and bedding out to air and Friday night was always a GI Party. Clean everything and scrub for the Saturday morning inspection.
There were four companies Sergeant and Corporals to the platoon. The 1st , 2nd, 3rd and 4th platoons were in the first barracks etc. with each company A, B, C, D to make up the Regiment. The NCO’s had private quarters in the front of the barracks with cooks and other headquarters NCO’s upstairs in the NCO room. The officers had their own living quarters if married and the BOQ for the unmarried. They had visitor quarters for civilians if they came on the post to visit.
The first week we did a lot of close order drill, physical training and attended lectures. Some lectures were outside under the shade of the Giant Oak trees and they told us if one sits in the shade all sit in the shade. If not everyone in the sun. We would crowd close together and as it was hot would start to go to sleep. The NCO’s would go around poking us with sticks to keep us awake. All of this was done to make sure we had a chance to survive in combat.
We visited the Gas Chamber to teach us how to put on and wear a gas mask and how to detect gas and how to recognize the different smells. The last thing was the Gas Chamber with tear gas. We had to go in, take off our mask tell the NCO our name before coming out. After doing this we went to eat we had so much tear gas that we cried all afternoon.
We had obstacle courses run three times jump over water on ropes, climb towers, swing over water on ropes, go over gullies on ropes. Everything to toughen us up for the long pull. They had us crawl under live machine gun fire with live rounds just twenty-four inches over our backsides. It made you really get down close to the ground. They had barbwire strung up and you had to make your way under it. This course was one hundred-fifty feet or two hundred feet long. We were taught how to pull the pin and toss a grenade and to get your hand down to keep it from getting holes punched in it. The second week was much the same along with training movies in the post theater. It was so nice and cool inside that they really had to work to keep us awake. We marched everywhere we went and everything was always at the other end of the fort.
They had rifle companies, heavy weapons, mortars and machine guns, bazookas, grenade launchers, field artillery. We as rifle men got a sample of everything but firing the artillery pieces. I was in a rifle company. My nephew Virgil Gurnard was heavy weapons and my friend Don Trotter was a field artillery man. We had all gone into the service within six weeks of each other.
The third week we were issued rifles and our first job was to clean them . They came coated with cousmoline, a heavy grease that wouldn’t melt. The only way to get it off was with cleaner fluid. The rifle stocks were walnut and we had to season them with linseed oil. The rifle sling was new and we had to oil it with neat foot oil to preserve the leather. Then they taught us to disassemble and reassemble the rifle and to get proficient enough so we could do it blindfolded in the dark. If it came apart we took it apart and then put it together again. They told us and rightly so that it was our best friend and if we took care of it, it would take care of us. We did not want it to misfire because we had failed to maintain it in a clean condition.
The fourth week we spent on the PFR (Preliminary Firing Range). This is where you sight a wooden rifle in and are instructed how to do it so you will be able and what you aim at on ---- The PFR is where we heard that Europe had been invaded and we all thought O Boy the war was over. Wrong, it was another sixteen months and then only because of the atom bomb. They saved some combat for all of us. There was a lot to go around. There was D Day, Hedgerows of St Lo, Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, Market Basket (Monty’s Fiasco of an end run around the Germans, then the low countries. He got caught on the dikes almost lost the war for us, then the dash into Germany and across it to the end of the war and the link up with the Russians. This plus the island hopping in the Pacific. Bougainville, New Guinea, the Philippines, and Okinawa plus a few other islands that the marines got all to their selves. When the bomb exploded it made you feel like a condemned man getting off death row. If we had gone into the home islands in combat there were not many of us who would have come back.
The fifth week we learned to shoot and had our first overnight in the field. After that we got to camp out a lot. We got to dig holes learn camouflage how to make bombs shoot rockets, machine guns, string barb wire, lay mine fields, how to remove them, all kinds of tactics, how to read maps. Find our way at night orient ourselves by the stars how to be quiet, not to smoke at night, how to get along with little or no water and to drink only at night. They have changed their thinking on this but we learned it well. I was 60 years old before I would drink water in the daytime. We learned to march at about four miles per hour for the first forty-five minutes then rest fifteen minutes, then march the rest of the day and only rest ten minutes each hour with the exception of noon.
By the time we finished basic we were able and did march fifty miles and still shaved, showered put on clean clothes and went to town for the weekend. This was to show us we could march all night and still fight if we needed to. One time the mortar company shot a flare. Set the camp on fire. We fought the fire, put it out and went on with our training and then marched ten miles that night to get ready for the next day. We did a nine mile speed march in fifty-four minutes with full field gear and at the end of it marched back to camp and never lost a man. Not even the fellow who marched beside me. His was Samples. He always carried tequila (Mexican hooch) in his canteen. He always rode the meat wagon back. He was always polluted. On the speed march he didn’t have time to take a drink, so made it for once. Most all the fellows were too proud to fall out as no one wanted to be called a whimp.
The Southern Pacific ran right through the middle of Camp Roberts right beside Highway 101. It divided the East Garrison from the Main Post. One of our guys always rode the train to town and laughed at us because we hitch hiked or rode the bus. Well one day the railroad cop caught him and threw him off the train. Boy did he get tore up. After that he didn’t ride the rods anymore. The railroad didn’t take kindly to anyone riding their trains for free. All their cops had a mean streak and their job was to keep riders off. If anyone went AWOL the MP’s caught them brought them back put them in the guard house. Now the guard house consisted of a barbwire fence with a house for the MP’s and the prisoners got to sleep on the ground inside the wire. This did not mean that they didn’t train, it meant that they trained but stayed at night in the stockade and had a guard with a loaded rifle beside them all day. Some of the fellows got on the troop ship in San Francisco with a guard till the boat left.
One time they were teaching us to handle explosives and the NCO showing us how to do it had what we thought was an accident. He was showing us what to do and all of a sudden there was an explosion. He flopped down what looked like blood came out of his mouth and he flopped around. While doing this he slipped a fake pair of gloves on. That looked like he had blown his fingers off both hands. The Captain called for the medics and they came to give first aid. This was kind of a shock to us as most of the guys felt that no matter what happened you couldn’t get hurt. It sure opened everyone’s eyes and underscored the need to learn what to do and to carry on no matter who got hurt or what ever may have happened. So no matter who got hurt some one could always step up and take over. We never felt that because we lost a leader we were lost or couldn’t finish our jobs. No matter what the battle plan was or what the job was or no matter how many times it had been rehearsed it plan could go out the window after the first shot. The enemy didn’t do it, as you wanted him to. They wanted a different ending. Our job was to see that our’s prevailed over theirs.
On reflection on the Vietnam era vets, Maybe I’m too harsh. The American people were not behind them and labeled them baby killers etc. If we ask our troops to go someplace we should be behind them 100% or get them out. The whole fiasco was a mistake. Our troops were asked to take over from the French and the people were ready to throw out foreign people and to decide their own future. We should have let them. But for a vet to whine and cry about it rubs me wrong. When he cries he forgets that most of his buddies came home in a box or not at all. The French only educated converts and put them in office. The office holders were a minority and were only able to rule until they got ousted.
Ken's World War II Experiences <Previous 01-Into The Army Next> 02-California Living 03-Food, Drink & Rations 04-On Patrol 05-Never Volunteer! 06-Jungle Patrols 07-Foxhole Lore 08-God In the Foxhole 09-Life As It Was 10-Humor 11-Entertainment 12-The End of the War 13-After The War 14-Coming Home 15-On Veterans