"Strap Hanger"
© 1997 Donald E. Valentine
All rights reserved

CHAPTER ONE [CONTINUED]]

 This section covers the 505th Airborne Infantry [Ft Bragg, NC & Mainz, Germany 1957-1960] and the 325th Airborne Infantry [Ft Bragg, NC 1960]

505th Infantry Crest

In October, I re-enlisted for three more years.  I traded my free and clear 54 Ford for a new Fire Engine-red, 57 Ford convertible and a monthly payment that would take half of my pay check and headed for Fort Bragg and the Eighty-second Almost Airborne.  While I was in Repple-Depple, I met PFC William Timeche, who had served with the 187th Rakasans in Korea and who had also just re-enlisted after a three year break in service.  Bill was a full-blooded Hopi Indian from Arizona and stood about 5’ 3" or 5’4" tall and was fairly stocky-built.  Bill and I hit it off right away. 

[Many years later, I learned that Bill's father had worked for the hotel corporation that operated the huge lodge on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I believe that was the main entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park. His family had lived in the stone house near the lodge and Bill had worked as a Bell Boy in the lodge when he was in high school back in the 1940s.]

At that time, Wayne Boatman, was in the 82d Almost Airborne.  We both went to Wayne’s company and asked his first soldier to get us assigned to his company.  He said that he couldn’t do that because Repple Depple made all of the assignments.  But as it turned out, they assigned both of us to B Company of the 505^th. 

Three years in the rifle platoons walking my feet off and digging holes all over the damn planet  had left me determined to find a better job.  When I was welcomed to the unit by the company commander, I talked my way into a job in the weapons platoon.  In other words, I lied.  "Sir, just before I left the Eleventh, I was assigned to the anti-tank section in our company.  I enjoyed that job and if you have a slot in your anti-tank section, I would like a chance at it," I said.  He must have believed me because he assigned me and Timeche to the Anti-tank Section of the Weapons Platoon.  Actually, I had got this idea from Timeche because he mentioned that he had been in a 57mm Recoilless Rifle crew in the Korean War and he wanted to get assigned to the Anti-tank Section because they  had even larger weapons and rode everywhere they went.

At that time, the troops in B company were about the same quality that those in E Company of the 325^th two years earlier.  B Company was loaded with a bunch of eight balls and goof-offs, at least weapons platoon of B Company was.  Like Easy Company, Bravo company had several "professional privates.”  Our mess sergeant had been assigned to the Eighty-second for ten consecutive years and had never left Ft. Bragg. When I first reported to First Sergeant Conneley, who was a very tall and very skinny, white Master Sergeant, I noticed several charts on the walls.  One chart in particular caught my attention because it had so many names on it.  "Sergeant Conneley, are those guys TDY?" I asked.  He laughed and then answered, "No.  They’re the company screw-ups.  They’re in the post stockade.”  Our Company Commander was Captain Robert C. "Barbwire Bob" Kingston.  His nickname was appropriate, but he hated it and he best not catch you using it.  [Later, He became a general and was in charge of all US Army Special Warfare units.]

The Anti-tank Section usually rode everywhere they went because their big recoilless rifles were mounted on jeeps.  The very first maneuver that we went on, they made us dig a fighting position [hole] for that damn jeep with our entrenching tools and one D-Handle shovel.  We had to dig a hole for the jeep with a ramp so it could drive in and back out and then dig individual slit foxholes for ourselves.  If there were any tanks around we could have gotten one of them to dig a hole for us, but there were none around on that maneuver, so we had to dig it in by hand every time we moved.  That brilliant career decision didn’t work out exactly as I had planned, but at least I was riding.

Not long after I joined B Company, a notorious barracks thief was finally captured.  As it turned out, the thief was none other than Corporal Brockman.  As I recall, Brockman had once been a Master Sergeant during the Korean War and had been court-martialed and jailed in the Federal Prison at Leavenworth.   As I recall, Brockman went to jail because he had stolen or misappropriated an army helicopter.  Anyway, at that time in the army, you could "soldier" your way out of the Leavenworth Prison and back into the army.   Brockman volunteered for this program and he soldiered his way out of prison and back up to Corporal.

The barracks thief had hit men in every platoon.  He always struck shortly after payday.  He had taken money from lockers that had been left unlocked, from beneath a sleeping soldier’s pillow and even from inside some of the men’s pillow case, after he had slipped the pillow from beneath the man’s head.  He only targeted the enlisted men that slept in the large squad bays.  You were required to knock before entering a cadre room, but no knock was required prior to entering a large squad bay because up to fifty men could be sleeping in there.

Several men from each squad bay who had already been victimized by the thief, secretly organized a clandestine guard system in each bay beginning on the night of the next payday and continuing until the thief struck again.  This plan was known only to them and they only chose men who had been victims of the thief because they had no idea who the thief was, but they were pretty sure he wasn’t one of them.  They caught Corporal B. stealing a wallet from a soldier in one of the rifle platoons and beat him very badly before they drug his sorry ass down to the orderly room and turned him over to the charge of quarters.  Before he was finally caught, Cpl. B. had stolen thousands of dollars from the men that he served with, men who had trusted him.  Cpl. B. was court-martialed, served six months in confinement before he was dishonorably discharged.  He was lucky that he lived to be discharged.

Our Battle Group went on a big maneuver in the winter of 1957-1958.  We marshaled on the Air Force Base at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for several days before we jumped.  The weather turned bad the day before we were scheduled to jump into Fort Bragg.  The rain poured down and flooded our bivouac area.  We were camped on a ball field and we literally floated around inside our pup tents on our air mattresses.  Before daylight, we were awakened and told to strike tents and make ready to jump.  The rain was still pouring down on us and everything that we had got soaked.  We sat around on our chutes inside hangars all day waiting for the rain to stop.  It didn’t stop and then the temperature dropped into the high thirties.  Just before dark we turned in our parachutes and marched back to our shallow lake at the ball park and were ordered to pitch tents again.  The temperature dropped a tad more and that was one cold, miserable night.  We repeated the same process the next day.  The next night the temperature dropped another couple of degrees.  The third day the rain finally stopped and about 1,800 soaking wet shivering paratroopers loaded up into those planes.  I think I can safely say that we were all glad to get the hell out of Myrtle Beach.  [About an hour later we had changed our minds because the closer we flew towards Fort Bragg, the lower the temperature dropped.]

When we loaded onto the plane we were soaking wet.  We were so wet our boots "squished" when we walked.   I guess the air crews needed flight time so they flew us in circles for a couple of hours and it got colder every minute that passed.  When the jumpmaster finally stood us up and we were preparing to jump, I saw snow on the ground below.  We were all chilled to the bone and shivering like a dog passing a peach seed.  Many of us had blue lips and fingers.   I was so stiff from the cold, I could barely move because my hands and feet were numb.  [Raynaud’s Disease/Phenomenon had drained the blood from my fingers and toes the first day and I could only get the circulation back by sticking my bare hands inside my clothing and under my arms. I had endured this ever winter since basic training.]   This freak winter weather was a total surprise for everyone and we were not prepared for it.  We did not have our cold weather gear with us to protect us from the snow and ice.   I thought that they would cancel the jump.  My mind kept telling me that they would have to cancel this jump-that’s the only way to avoid cold weather casualties in a situation like that.  When it was my turn to jump out of that flying freezer, I was still thinking the same thing as I left the plane.

The snow storm had just passed and the cold front had moved in and it was bitter cold.  I was shivering from the intense cold all the way down.  It was night, but we could see very good because it was a moon-bright night and the moonlight reflected off of the snow.  This time I could see the trees before I hit them.  When I crashed down through that frozen tree and jerked to a stop just before I hit the ground, I was nearly as stiff as a board from the damn cold.  The tree limbs were frozen solid and my frigid body flopped down through the limbs like a snake [a stiff, frozen snake that is]. The smaller limbs snapped right off when I hit them, but the larger ones didn’t give an inch, they were frozen solid.  That landing hurt even more than the one when I broke my ankle.  In the snow, I could see how high I was, so I dropped my field gear and climbed down from the tree.  My wet clothing and gear were freezing solid right in from of my eyes. 

After we assembled, they let us build fires that night so we could thaw out.  They very seldom allowed us to have a fire in the field.  One of the guys at our fire had brought a bottle of whiskey and we took turns sipping from his bottle until it was empty.  At least it made us think we were warmer and the fire dried out our clothes and boots.  But after that first night we weren’t allowed to build anymore fires.  Unfortunately, the weather remained the same throughout that maneuver.

No fires of any kind were allowed and Because this winter storm was a surprise, we had not been issued any heating tablets so we could heat our rations either.  We were slowly freezing to death.  One of the guys in our company came by in a jeep and told us that they kept a big fire going back at Company Headquarters.  "Fuck those damn Remington Raiders," I thought.

When the company commander stopped by to check our position, I asked him, "Sir, can we ground-mount the gun so my guys can take turns driving back to headquarters to warm up and cook their rations, at least once a day?" His answer was, "No sergeant and that gun jeep better not move from its assigned position.”  That did it, for me.  As soon as he left, I dug a small hole behind our jeep directly adjacent to the tailpipe and put an empty ammo can in it.  Then I filled the can with sand and soaked the sand with gas from our spare gas can.  At least my guys would have a warm meal and take turns warming up their hands and feet, that would help a lot.  Whenever anyone approached our position, I slammed the lid down on our improvised stove and pushed dirt over it with the toe of my boot.  The company commander came back once and when he stopped he said, "I thought that I saw smoke around your position.”  " It was exhaust from the jeep, Sir.  We start the motor every so often to keep it from freezing up on us," I replied.  He thought that was a good idea and said so; I thought it was just fast thinking.

My guys erected a poncho shelter in the woods about twenty or thirty yards away from our gun position.  One night when I went to get someone to replace me on guard, I discovered that they had built a fire inside the shelter and they were lying inside it wearing their gas masks.  I didn’t think that I was ever going to get them awake.  The fresh air did more good than all of my kicking and cursing.  Those damn gas masks weren’t made to protect you from carbon monoxide gas.  They were lucky, very lucky.  Hell, so was I.  They would have probably court-martialed me because I was their sergeant.

The next morning, I saw a black soldier from one of our rifle platoons coming down an icy road that was about a hundred yards behind us.  He had both feet raised off the ground and he was sliding himself along on his butt.  When he reached the intersection, he turned towards our company CP [Command Post].  Me, I was torn between my feelings for that poor dumb-ass that was crawling through the ice and my orders.  Even though I knew that his platoon had a jeep and could have taken him to the medics and that I was ordered not to move that vehicle, I still wanted to use our jeep and help him, but I didn’t.  I just stood there and watched that poor bastard slide on down the road on his ass towards our CP until he was out of sight.

[At the time, I didn’t have the kind of guts that it took to disobey an order from the Company Commander and do what I knew was right.  I should have dismounted our gun and drove that guy straight to the nearest medics.  If that had happened a few years later, after I was in Special Forces and had considerable more experience, that’s exactly what I would have done.]

They finally called the maneuver off early because our Battle Group had suffered so many cold weather injuries.  Hell, the group commander finally realized what I knew before we ever jumped out of those damn planes.  Our battle group must have suffered a great many cold weather casualties or they would have never cancelled that maneuver.

Herman, Farley, and myself began going together to Southern Pines on Saturdays.  Southern Pines is a very small, quiet country town on the western edge of Fort Bragg.  Normally, we would pick up a case of beer at the PX and drink it on the way.  Our first stop in Southern Pines would be the town’s tiny package store where we would buy a pint of rum and a pint of sloe gin.  It wasn’t my idea: I had never drank any rum or gin before.  Anyway, first we would drink the sloe gin because, "It takes a while to kick-in," then we drank the rum because, "It’ll get ya high right now.”  Both took effect about the same time.   We ran into some nursing students there at the Hill Top Diner.  The girls were students at the hospital in Pine Hurst which was just outside Southern Pines.  All of the nursing students lived in a large two story dormitory on the hospital grounds.

We had a lot of fun with those girls.  Their house mom was like a drill sergeant.  The outside walls of that big dorm were covered with vines.  If we showed up after seven or eight o’clock at night or if she could smell liquor on our breath, she would run us off.  We would then revert to our alternate plan and one volunteer would climb the vines and tap on a window until a girl opened it.  Farley was the smallest so I assume he did the climbing.  Then our brave climber would ask the girl to tell our girls that we were outside.  We would eventually get together.

One cold snowy night we went out to the hospital and all of our girls were on duty so we went into the hospital to see them, just so they would know that we had stopped by.  When we were ready to leave, Herman was no where to be seen.  He wasn’t in the car either so we systematically began searching for him.  We inquired at the dorm.  He hadn’t been there, at least he hadn’t gone to the front door.  We checked for footprints in the snow around the nursing home and found none that looked like it might have been made by Herman.  Then we went around the hospital building and we found what appeared to be his tracks, but they disappeared.  Actually, they got mingled with other tracks and spots where the snow had simply melted.  We figured maybe it wasn’t his tracks; maybe he got tired of waiting for us and started hitch-hiking back to Southern Pines or maybe even to Fort Bragg.  We drove slowly back to Southern Pines peering into the darkness along each side of the road for any sign of Herman.  We didn’t see Herman or any suspicious footprints along the road either.  We didn’t find Herman anywhere in Southern Pines so we returned to the hospital and this time we searched the entire grounds.  We looked under and behind every damn bush.  We thought that Herman had maybe passed out outside and would freeze to death, but again no Herman.  We decided that Herman had maybe headed for Fort Bragg so that’s where we went — same thing — no Herman.  The drive back to Bragg seemed to take forever because we were going so slow.  It was daylight by the time we finally reached our barracks Sunday morning.

We had no idea what to do.  We didn’t want to ask the sheriff for help because if Herman was all right he might be arrested for being drunk and we sure didn’t want First Sergeant Conneley or Barb-wire Bob to know anything about it.  We decided to wait it out and hope for the best.  Herman arrived about an hour later and told us what had happened...to the best of his memory.  That drunk son of a bitch had gone outside and wandered around in the snow.  Then for some unknown reason, he climbed up a fire escape and through a window into a waiting room where several patients were watching TV.  He said that he sat and talked with the patients for a while and then went around from room to room cheering up the patients.  Until the head nurse came in with the sheriff’s deputy and took him away.  He woke up in jail and when they released him, he got a taxi to bring him back to camp.  He never got in trouble with the unit over this because the sheriff’s office didn’t notify the MPs.  That was the main reason that we chose to party in that tiny town rather than staying in the Fayetteville-Fort Bragg area.  After the Fayetteville courts nailed you, your unit would also nail your hide to the wall.  It was double jeopardy, but they got away with it because the army didn’t charge you with the same offense.  The army usually charged the offender with "conduct unbecoming" a soldier, a non-commissioned officer or an officer, whichever the case may be.

My second experience with SF happened during the "Oil Slick" Maneuver at Fort Bragg during 1958.  The Hundred and First Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" from Fort Campbell were attacking the Eighty-second Airborne Division "All Americans" at Fort Bragg.  Most of us called the 101^st, the "Hundred and Worst Puking Buzzards" and the Eighty-second All Americans, were the "Almost Airborne.”  Some guys called the Eighty-second the "All African Division."

My platoon was selected to act as guerrillas for the SF that was supporting our side.  Master Sergeant Tom Conway was the SF team sergeant and one night he took some of us out on a patrol.  Our objective was to raid the enemy’s main CP and try to kill as many leaders as possible.  Sergeant Conway was the only one that knew where the CP was supposed to be.  The rest of us just tagged along and followed orders.  It was a long way to the CP so we stopped near a major road junction.  Conway put us into the woods and he stood beside the road with his map folded over his pistol.  Pretty soon he waved down a command jeep, we also called them a radio jeep because it was equipped with a large radio set.  The only occupants of the jeep were a second lieutenant and the enlisted driver.  Tom said that he was lost and asked them for directions.  He stuck his map under the lieutenant’s nose.  Tom then unfolded it and shoved the muzzle of his pistol against the lieutenant’s chin and told him to get out.  The young officer panicked.  He yelled, "Don’t let them get the SOI [Signal Operating Instructions] in the glove compartment!” and then ran off into the woods.  Tom went "Bang! Bang!”  right in his face before he disappeared.  Tom laughed and then hopped into the jeep with us close behind.

We drove right through a couple of enemy roadblocks and finally Tom had the driver stop to let us out.  We removed the knobs from the radio and hid them under the seat to buy us some time.  We crept through the woods, all the while paralleling another road, until we reached a point where Tom led us away from that road and deeper into the woods.  Just then, I heard a sentry challenge Tom, "Halt! Who goes there?.”  Tom had walked right up on two guards who were apparently asleep and one of them had suddenly awoke.  They had a field telephone with them, but we were unaware of it at the time.  Tom reasoned, "Look, we have the drop on you and would have blown your brains out, if it were the real thing?" He added, "Why don’t we just call it even.  Give us five minutes and then you can notify your superiors that we are here, okay?" Being outnumbered, they agreed and we continued on our merry way. 

The sentries did not keep their word, but Tom didn’t think that they would, he was just trying to buy us some time.  We had only gone about fifty yards when Tom dropped down onto his belly and motioned for us to do likewise.  We were still in a single file and that’s how we lay on the ground.  Pretty soon, shadows approached us and two files of military police walked by, one file on each side of us.  The two leaders must have thought we were a log or rock formation and walked right around us.  We almost made it.  Then the very last man in the file to our right stooped down to get a closer look at me and just as he yelled a warning, I fired pointblank at his chest.

That MP's screaming and jumping gave us an opportunity to hastily relocate our assets — which we did — but every damn one of those bastards chased me.  After all, I was the one that had fired the blank cartridge that had scared the living shit out of their buddy.  Come to find out later, the powder had also slightly burnt his face and neck.  Everywhere I ran MPs seemed to be behind every damn bush and tree.  I have never seen so damn many MPs in my life.  Actually, in the moonlight, all I could see was their silhouette.  Now I understood how General Custer must have felt when he said, "Where did all of these fucking Indians come from?"  A damn MP jumped from behind every tree and bush where I tried to hide so I just kept running until I couldn’t run another step — and then I ran some more.  The farther I ran through that damned sand the larger the crowd pursuing me became.  We probably resembled a re-run of a Keystone Kops movie.  I believe if I could have ran non-stop for thirty days, I would have had the entire US population chasing me.  The MP that I had shot had recovered and was now leading the chase.  He had passed the entire mob.   I think it is safe to say that he was slightly pissed.  "We’re playing at war, and soldiers shoot each other in war, that’s nothing to get all upset about," thought I, as I raced for my life through the woods.  I was closely followed by a horde of MPs that were led by one pissed-off raving lunatic with a singed face.

When I came to a sandy road, I made my second mistake; I turned to my left and followed the road — I thought that I could make some time and out distance them.  Unknown to me, the road led me straight to their CP where even more MPs were posted and it also angled back towards the mob that was chasing me.

[Later, during SF training, I learned that I should have dashed crossed the road and dove into the brush.  But the way things were going that night, there would have been a squad of damn MPs in those bushes had I jumped into them.]

Instead, I raced by more MPs who had been stationed in the brush along the road and they gladly joined in the chase.  That damn raving lunatic passed everyone but me.  Somebody threw a smoke grenade that hit me hard right between the shoulder blades and I was so pooped and off balance, that’s all it took to topple me forward onto my kisser into the ankle deep sand.  Before I could take two breaths and get back up on my feet, I was surrounded by a horde of angry, scared folks and, oh yes, one raving lunatic.  While I wallowed in the sand trying to catch my breath, the mob discussed exactly what they were going to do with me.  That damn lunatic wanted to kill me and the other opinions varied, but none were satisfactory to me.  One of the MPs who had been about the last one to get involved in the chase, just happened to be the ranking man and he saved my ass from being butt-stroked into an early grave.  He escorted me to the local POW [Prisoner of War] camp and I was very happy to become just another POW.

Later I was interrogated for the first time in my five years of service.  That was the first and only time I had ever been captured on maneuvers.  I guess I was slowing down. The interrogator asked me who I was and why I was in their area and shooting at their people.  "I’m a civilian out hunting for food for my family because your damn troops and this stupid war have caused us to lose our livelihoods and we’re hungry," I replied.  The M-14 army-issue rifle, with ammo pouches, ammo, C-Rations, canteens and other military equipment did absolutely nothing to help my case, but that was my story and I stuck to it.  The interrogator threatened me with all sorts of tortures, including a court-martial for deliberately injuring the lunatic.  They finally put me back into the POW cage where I remained for a couple of days until a hurricane watch occurred and we were all returned to the barracks.

After the hurricane watch ended, the maneuver resumed.  Instead of returning to the POW cage, I rejoined my guerrilla team.  Thank God for small favors.  Shortly thereafter, some of us went on a night patrol to the Normandy Drop Zone area to find out what was going on over there.  One of the Hundred and Worst units had just jumped there and we ran into one of their chaplains wandering around trying to find his unit.  Tom Conway decided that the chaplain could not be released.  We tied the chaplain to a pine tree and left him there.  If chaplains don’t get into heaven for using filthy, vulgar, curse words, that guy was definitely in trouble.  He really let us have it when we left him tied to that tree.  Tom did not want him for a POW because, "Chaplains don’t know anything worth knowing anyway!"

Enroute back to our base camp, we encountered another group of enemy who fired on us and I ran smack dab through a double row of concertina wire — no sweat.  I did not get one scratch.  My fatigue pants were torn in a few places but otherwise, I came through it in good shape.  Concertina wire is a long, strand of military-style barbed wire that is coiled up when stored.  When you lay it out on the ground you stretch it out into a long spiral shaped wire and it is about three feet high; it is also razor sharp.  How I ran through that wire without suffering a single cut is beyond my comprehension.   I just did it.  I sure as hell must have been high stepping.  Maybe I hadn't slowed down after all.

[Thomas F.  Conway later retired as a Sergeant Major.   I saw him mentioned in an article in the VFW Magazine about the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team during the Korean War that was published in October 2000.   I joined special forces partly because of my experience with Tom and partly because of my experience with the 10th SF Group while with the 11th Airborne.   Tom lived to retire and I last saw him at a 1st SF Group Reunion at North Myrtle Beach  in September 2000.   Tom was another one of the good 187th vets that I served with.]

Fort Bragg is just outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, which the troops had nicknamed "Fatalburg.”  One night while I was downtown, I noticed a black man stagger out of a restaurant that was adjacent to the railroad tracks near the train station.  He was obviously drunk.  He started to cross the tracks, but stopped and lit a cigarette.  Because of my angle of view, I could not see down the tracks.  Suddenly, a train whistle sounded and the train roared past.  It was on the same track as the drunk.  The drunk disappeared.  The train’s wheel’s locked and it began to slide.  It seemed to me at the time that the train took forever to stop.  When the train finally did stop, I walked to where I had last seen the drunk.  Under the train, I saw what appeared to be a human torso, no head, no arms and no legs, just the torso, lying between the rails.  There was blood splattered on both sides of the tracks.  They recovered the other parts of his body farther down the track.  Back to the bar I went, where I ordered another beer.  I figured this would probably be a six pack event.  A few beers later, after the paramedics had policed up the body parts and departed, I walked that way again, I believe that I was headed for the movies.  Several stray dogs were now alongside the tracks licking up the poor bastard’s gore.  The papers reckoned that the man had committed suicide, but I reckoned that he was so damn drunk, he didn’t even know where he was at.  It was impossible for me to believe that anyone was desperate enough to commit suicide by standing in front of a damn slow-moving train and it was moving slow going through town like that.

We went to the field for live fire exercises in preparation for a live fire test by the IG [Inspector General].  By live fire, I mean we were firing real ammunition, not blanks.  We even fired the mortars on this exercise or at least we tried to.  The FDC [Fire Direction Center] for the mortars was a black Staff Sergeant.  I can't recall his name, but he was so dumb, he couldn’t find his own ass with a search warrant and a flashlight.  The mortars were ineffective and had that training exercise been our unit’s ATT [Annual Training Test], our mortar section would most definitely have flunked.  My platoon leader, Lieutenant Fish, gave me the FDC job.  I didn’t want it.  Hell, I didn’t even know our mortar section had an FDC.  My likes and dislikes didn’t matter ¾ I was the new FDC.  Lieutenant Fish decided to teach me my new job.  He had no idea how an FDC operated so he tried to teach me from the manual.  After two nights with Lieutenant Fish, I begged him to give me the manual and I would learn the job on my own because I thought I could learn it faster that way.  He reluctantly agreed.  Two weeks later we had our live fire ATT.  The standard operating procedure for Forward Observer/FDC communications required the FDC to repeat over the radio every command the FO gave him, just to make sure he got it right.  We were graded on time and accuracy.   When the Umpire told me that he would start timing me  when I ended my conversation with the FO and he would stop timing me when my gunner said Round on the Way.  That gave me a brain fart [idea].  I computed the data as the FO gave it to me and by the time I ended my conversation with the FO with Standby, Over, I already had the info the gunner needed so I immediately yelled Fire Mission and gave it to him.   Our mortar section passed with flying colors, in fact the FDC section received a score of 92.  Everybody was as pleased as punch, everybody that is but me, I was stuck with being the damn FDC.  FDCs mostly walked.  Oh well, on the bright side, I only had to carry a feather-light M-2 Carbine and a tiny M-10 Plotting Board.  That still beat carrying that damn big-ass machine gun.   I figured I was still ahead of the game.

Sergeant First Class James C.  Brown was assigned to our platoon as the new anti-tank section leader about six months later.  Shortly afterwards, he found out that I had once been in the anti-tank section and asked me if I would like to come back as a squad leader.  Hell yes, I jumped at the chance to get back into a 106 crew.  How Brown did it I don’t know, but within a week I was back with the anti-tank section.

B Company stood their annual IG Inspection while I was there.  The supply sergeant had accumulated more of some items than the unit TO&E allowed.  He had to get rid of the excess items and I was assigned to that detail.  A jeep trailer was full of mostly metal objects, I don’t remember exactly what.  This was not unusual, many units dumped excess gear just before an IG Inspection.

We dumped the material in a creek that flowed along the northern edge of Fort Bragg.  We went out the paved highway towards the three major drop zones on Fort Bragg, I believe that it was called Manchester Road, and turned right onto a smaller paved road.  This road crossed the creek and I believe it continued on off post to Vass Road or Sanford Road.  Anyway, we dumped the excess material on the upstream side of that bridge.  Other material that had already been dumped there by other units was clearly visible in the crystal clear water.

[What a waste of tax payer’s money that was.  Many times I have wondered why the army doesn’t have a turn-in point where GIs can leave unwanted excess items with no questions asked.  Those items could then be put back into the supply system.  I also wondered why the army doesn’t have slush funds at least as low as battalion level for buying small items such as hammers and commode seats on the local economy instead of requesting such items through normal supply channels and the taxpayers paying $200 for a ball peen hammer and $300 for a damn commode seat.  The answer eventually came to me, that’s too damn efficient.

The only way that would ever happen would be for a couple of million taxpayers to complain about that to their representative in Congress and to the Congressman that is also the Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee.  I don’t know about the other branches of the service, but army officers literally cringe at the words "Congressman" and "Congressional Investigation."

It was common knowledge in the army then that the Personnel Officer stamped your 201 File with a red "PI," if you ever complained to a congressman.  The PI stood for "political influence" and that individual received "special attention" henceforth.  What "special attention" meant I had no idea and I still don’t.  I assumed that they either gave you the "kid’s gloves" treatment or  you could pretty much kiss a military career goodbye. Of course this could have been just a rumor, but I don't think so. ]

In December 1958, I was promoted to Sergeant.   I was on the first set of orders that promoted men to the new rank of three-stripe sergeant, commonly referred to as Buck Sergeant.  For some strange reason back in the late 1940s or early 1950s, the army had eliminated Buck Sergeant from their rank system.  During that period, enlisted men were promoted from Corporal [two stripes] to Staff Sergeant [three stripes with one rocker below].  Quite awhile earlier, I had been moved into a semi-private room because I was the highest ranking enlisted man in our platoon that was a Barracks Rat.  Compared to being in the squad bay with the rest of the guys, it was like being jailed and I didn’t like it.  It got worse after I was promoted to Buck Sergeant.  When I was off duty, I wasn’t supposed to associate with the lower-ranking enlisted men.  That was especially hard on me because I wasn’t very close to any of the sergeants in the company.  Most of the sergeants were Brown-baggers [married and lived off post].  They were called Brown-baggers because many of them brought a sack lunch instead of eating the noon meal in the mess hall.

The guys who lived in the barracks were referred to as Barracks Rats and we became pretty close.  We pulled most of the details because married men were given a break.  Given a choice, the barracks rats always got the shaft.  As a Specialist Fourth Class, I had been the "Acting" Platoon Sergeant during off duty hours when we were in garrison.  There was always some shit detail that came up after the Brown-baggers had been released and went home so I had no choice but to assign a Barracks Rat to pull the detail.  Sometimes, I was on the detail also as the NCOIC [Non-commissioned Officer In Charge] even though technically a specialist wasn't supposed to be in charge of anyone.

Before I was promoted to sergeant, I had pretty much stopped running around with just any of the guys.  Many of the guys always seemed to want to get rowdy or wanted to do something that was illegal so I became more selective.   Unfortunately my selection process at the time was still faulty.

We played a lot of card games.  We mostly played Hearts, Crazy Eights or Euchre.  We never played poker because that wasn’t allowed in the barracks.  After I became a sergeant, we didn’t even play cards together again.  I really missed the guys.  [Even today, my favorite way of socializing is playing card games or board games.  I don't last long just sitting on my duff and flapping my jaw.]

It was very lonely being a sergeant in that chicken-shit outfit, especially a brand new sergeant.  There were very few sergeants among the Barracks Rats in our company that I wanted to buddy-up with.  None of the other sergeants in my platoon were Barracks Rats.  I began to drink more.

[In many units, this Single Men vs Married Men situation even carried over into combat and a single man tended to draw the most dangerous jobs.  Yet, the army’s official position was, and still is, "the married, family man makes the best soldier.”  That’s a bunch of crap!  What they really mean is they have greater control over the typical family man than a single man.  A single man is more likely to question stupid and unlawful orders.  A single soldier costs the army less money than a married soldier and the single soldier can be relocated quicker, cheaper and without as much fuss as a married soldier.  Single soldiers also cause the army less grief than married soldiers.  The dependents, especially the wives, are the biggest morale problem in the army because they are separated from their husbands frequently and for long periods of time.   The problems caused by wives and dependents were more damaging to morale than anything a single man could do.  The single Barracks Rats also were closer knit than the Brown Baggers and very few of the Barracks Rats and Brown Baggers were close.

Much later, when I was in Vietnam, we used to watch fighters strafing and dive bombing an enemy position and try to pick out which pilots were married and which were single.  The ones that pulled out so high they did little damage to the enemy, we labeled "married" and those that went low enough to provide accurate fire support, we labeled "single.”  Many times, I wondered how accurate we were.]

It was about this time that our company made a night jump.  On this particular jump, the jumpmaster wasn’t allowed to decide when to jump.  Up until this time, the jumpmaster had the last decision on whether or not we were at the correct spot.  We were going to use a new technique.  The jumpmaster was told before this jump that we would jump when the pilot flashed on the green light and that’s what we did.  This they called the CARP [computed air release point].  The navigator would compute our release point.  Naturally most of us missed the drop zone that night and I was one of those unlucky troops.

I crashed down through the tree limbs and finally jerked to a stop when my chute caught in the tree limbs.  It was an overcast night and pitch black.  It was impossible to tell how high I was and I just didn’t believe that the trees in that area were very tall.  Instead of popping my reserve chute and climbing down it to the ground per the book, I just dropped my helmet and it sounded like it hit the ground almost immediately.  Then I dropped my rifle and pack and undid my harness so I could hang from my leg straps.  I thought that was all I needed to reach the ground with my foot.  I thought wrong!  When I had climbed as low on my harness as possible, I still could not feel the ground with my foot.  Cursing myself for being so stupid, I let go and dropped to the ground.  I hit the ground immediately and it jarred every bone in my body.  I wasn’t expecting the ground to be that near.  Night jumps were okay, in fact I liked them, but I sure didn’t like tree jumps.

During the summer of 1958, Bravo Company was sent to support field training at West Point.  We were stationed at Camp Natural Bridge near West Point.  We lived in squad tents spread over wood frames erected on concrete slabs.  The orderly and supply rooms were quonset huts. 

Our camp had a dock on the lake and all things considered, that was good duty.  All of the Brown-baggers lived on post with the rest of us Barracks Rats so I had more sergeants available to run around with and the First Soldier had plenty of other sergeants besides me to select and supervise the shit details.  The cadets had their summer camp at the opposite end of the lake.  We were not allowed on their camp when we were off duty.  The cadets had a Rangers "slide for life" at their end of the lake.  That is where you slide down a cable that has been stretched over the lake and drop into the lake.  Perhaps this was supposed to teach them to overcome fear of heights.  At night, we would slip down to their end of the lake and slide down the cable just for fun.  It was like a free roller coaster ride.  This was before the cadets actually occupied the camp.

While we were at Camp Natural Bridge, one of the sergeants in the mortar section and one of his privates and I went for a ride one Sunday in the sergeant’s car.  We decided to buy some beer.  The private told us how we could get a really cheap high.  He mixed beer and wine in a jug we got from somewhere and called it "Kick-Apooh-Joy Juice.”  He was right, that stuff really packed a wallop.  It tasted okay, but boy was it potent.  We ended up about fifty or sixty miles south of West Point in the wooded area of a cemetery.  The sergeant said that he was too drunk to drive back to camp.  They voted me the most sober of the three and I became the driver.  When I first become drunk, it doesn’t show that much because I don’t get rowdy and slur words, but trust me, I am drunk.  In fact, I was drunker than either of them, but none of us realized it.  I drove towards the gate, but between us and the gate was a traffic circle.  We made two laps around that circle because I missed the turn off.  For some strange reason the car speeded up on the next lap and I ran off the circle and knocked over a couple of tombstones with the right front fender before I finally got the car stopped.  After we put the spare on the right front and used the jack to pry the fender away from the tire, the private drove home.  He was actually the most sober of the three, but he didn’t have a license.  We both helped the sergeant pay for repairing his car.  He didn’t turn it in to his insurance company because he was terrified that his wife would find out about it.

The 505^th Battle Group along with the 504^th Battle Group shipped overseas to Mainz, Germany where we formed the "Airborne Brigade" of the 8^th Infantry Division.  With our new replacements, we had a good outfit by the time we went overseas.  It was a totally different outfit than it was when I had first joined it.  Unlike the 11^th Airborne, the 505^th replaced most of their eight-balls before we shipped out.  Of course our company’s mess sergeant remained in the Eighty-second.  That man must have had one hell of a lot of political pull.

We had several ex-Special Forces sergeants in the Airborne Brigade in Mainz.  There were Master Sergeant Talamine, Sergeant First Class Vukovich, Staff Sergeant Wesley Kamalu from Hawaii or American Samoa, Staff Sergeant Bill "Flannel Mouth" Collins, Master Sergeant William O.  Fields, Sergeant First Class Clifford "Whiskey Mac" McElveen, who was also a World War II veteran of the 1^st Special Service Force, Staff Sergeant Joseph S.  "Bud" Budzynski, who was also a World War II DP [Displaced Person] from Poland and who spoke several languages, Sergeant First Class James C.  "Charlie" Brown from Kentucky, my section sergeant, who was as mean as a damn striped snake, and Master Sergeant Fafek, just to name a few.  Fields, Bud, and Brown joined our company before we left Fort Bragg.  [Most of these guys ended up back in SF during the SF buildup in the 60s.  Brown was my Section Sergeant, Fields was my Platoon Sergeant, and Budzynski was a Squad Leader in the Mortar Section of our platoon and also my roommate for a year.]  Some of our Ex-SF guys were real characters and those guys were always just one step away from disaster.  Regardless, they were a ready source of entertainment.

For example, one night sergeants Foley and Tremane [not their real names] were at the NCO Club on our post in Mainz when Foley passed out and fell face-first into the steak dinner that he had just ordered, but had not yet touched.  Tremane finished his own steak dinner, then he picked Foley’s head up out of his plate, replaced Foley’s plate with his own empty plate, stuck a toothpick in Foley’s mouth, laid Foley’s head back down on the empty plate and proceeded to eat Foley’s steak dinner also.  After he polished off his second steak dinner, he awoke Foley and asked, "Did you like your steak?" Foley, with gravy all over his face, sat up and started picking his teeth and said, "Yeah.  It was great, just the way I like it."

Sergeant Coggin’s [not real name] favorite thing was using his knife to relieve an over-dressed sergeant of the bottom-half of his necktie should that poor soul enter the NCO Club Stag Bar wearing a tie.  Apparently, Coggin considered any NCO in the NCO Club who was in civvies and wearing a tie to be overdressed.  One wall of the Stag Bar had twenty or thirty severed ties tacked all over it.

Eventually the Post Commander, assigned Coggin to Charlie Company which was billeted across the Rhine River from the rest of the Battle Group and ordered Coggin to never enter that kaserne again before he transferred back to the states.  He also told him to not even cross the Rhine River before then.  One day while I was enroute to the PX, I passed the main gate to our camp and heard a loud ruckus at the main gate so I stopped to see what was going on.  There was the entire guard detail lined up with their rifles pointed at this one drunk rowdy idiot in civilian clothes.  The idiot in civilian clothes was Sergeant Coggins and he was armed with two pearl handled revolvers that were strapped to his waist.  Coggins was determined that he was going to come on post and go to his favorite watering hole, the NCO Club Stag Bar, and the guards, per their commander’s orders, were just as determined that he wasn’t.  How this incident ended I don’t know because I went on about my business.  [About a year later, I saw Coggins at Fort Bragg and he was still a Staff Sergeant, but not back in SF.  How he kept that rank, I do not know.  Coggins was later assigned to an airborne infantry unit in Vietnam, I think it was the 173d.  His unit and the North Vietnamese Army swapped off on a hill several times and the last time Coggins outfit took that hill he was really pissed and said that he wasn’t moving off that damned hill again for no damn body.  His unit was once again forced off that hill. I heard that the last troops to see him alive said that he was blasting away with those two pearl-handled revolvers.]

When our unit shipped out to Germany, our anti-tank section consisted of: James C.  "JC" Brown from Kentucky, Section Leader; Myself, Squad Leader; Private Micheal Lila from Detroit, Michigan, Gunner; Private Donald Dennis from Maryland, Driver; Staff Sergeant Roby, Squad Leader; Specialist William Timeche from  Arizona, Gunner; Private First Class James Carson "Otto" Lawson from Kingsport, Tennessee, Driver; and Private Peter Paskiewicz was the driver for Charlie Brown.

Our section’s living quarters became the showplace of the company.  Instead of using GI floor wax, we had to buy red-colored paste wax for our wooden floors from a civilian store in downtown Mainz.  The wooden floor in the 106 section room was the only room in the barracks that was red.  We practiced out-loading for alerts until we did it fast enough to satisfy JC.  We finally satisfied JC when we drove the gun jeeps and trailers into the yard under our windows so we could throw our gear out the window and jump out behind it.

We had bed check every night.  The Company CQ [Charge of Quarters] was responsible for bed check and only sergeants pulled CQ duty.  When I was CQ and checked Private Zipper’s [not real name] room, I always made sure to check under all of the beds.  That indian seemed to prefer sleeping in the floor when he got a snoot-full of booze.

The enlisted men had a pass to go to town and the normal pass expired prior to bed check.  Only a certain percentage of the troops could have a pass of any kind.  Some enlisted men could get an overnight pass during the week or weekend and sometimes a three day pass over the weekend.  If I remember correctly, only about ten percent of the troops could be on an overnight pass.

I only reported one man to JC and that was Private Dennis.  Dennis had left our jeep unlocked in the motor pool one night when we were at Baumholder on training maneuvers.  JC had Dennis busted one grade in rank.  Never again did I turn anyone in to him or to anyone else for anything.  Instead, I always gave my soldiers a choice.  They could take my punishment, which would cost them a little sweat, but no money and would not count against them on their records, or they could take JC and the Company Commander’s punishment.  They always chose me.

JC’s chicken-shit became too much for some of the guys in the section and one night they got revenge.  That also happened to be the one and only night, that I ever brought any booze into the barracks which I had bought at the Class Six store [package store].  That was strictly against regulations and it was the first time that I had done it.  After I got drunk out of my mind, I went next door to visit my buddy, Sergeant Budzynski, but Bud wasn’t there.  A "Life" magazine lay on Bud’s bed so I sat down to read it and fell asleep or perhaps passed out would be more correct.  A loud banging and yelling at the door awoke me.  It was the Company Supply Sergeant, Sam Arnold.  Sam had poked his head into the room and was yelling for me to come with him.  Up I jumped and followed him into the room that JC and I shared.  All of JC’s gear was missing, but mine was still there.  They had thrown all of JC’s gear, boots, bed, bedding, foot locker, the large, wooden double wall locker, clothes, every damned thing, out the window into the yard in a huge pile.  Knowing JC, I knew there would be hell to pay when he returned.  I went into the section room and awoke everyone and got them to help put everything back in the room.  Several of the 106 guys smelled of alcohol.  JC’s gear was a mess, but at least it was all back in the room.  Just as I had suspected, all hell broke loose when JC returned from overnight pass the next morning.

JC and the platoon leader, Lieutenant Gilmore, questioned everyone.  Naturally, they strongly suspected that I had taken part in throwing JC’s gear out the window because my gear wasn’t touched and I was next door when it happened and didn’t hear anything.  Sam Arnold, slept in his supply room in the basement and JC’s gear hit the ground right outside his window which jolted Sam awake.

When questioned, I told the truth, admitting to being drunk and passed out next door when Charlie’s gear went out the window, but I strongly denied being involved.  Apparently, Lieutenant Gilmore was satisfied that I hadn’t had anything to do with throwing JC’s gear out the window.  JC was a different matter entirely, he was positive that I was guilty.  JC ordered me out of his room and that’s when I moved into Bud’s room.  Both of those rooms were the same size, about 6’ x 15’, but there were four of us assigned to one room and just JC in the other room.  That afternoon [Sunday] JC told me to fall out the section in full field gear wearing their gas masks for dismounted gun drill on the 106s in the yard out back of our barracks.  After I donned my gear, JC saw me and told me that I didn’t have to wear the damn full-field gear, just the troops.  I told him that by God, he thought that I was guilty and if I’m going to make the troops wear that gear and haul those damn big guns around, I’m going to wear the same gear as them.  JC grimaced and told me, "Suit yourself, you fucking rock head."

We moved those heavy guns across the yard every fire mission.  We ran fire mission after fire mission all over that grassy area.  We continued that all damn day and I, for one, was glad to see Monday and the regular training schedule again.  JC gave our section hell for about a month because of that incident and then the problem just seemed to disappear.

Charlie had a lot of faults, but he was very good in some ways.  For instance, when the 505^th went to Baumholder for training, he went out on his own and arranged with the local tank unit to let our anti-tank section use their indoor firing range for a day.  That was the best training that we got as long as I was in the anti-tank section.  We used our sub-caliber device instead of our cannon.  The sub-caliber device fitted inside of our cannon chamber and barrel and fired 30 caliber rounds instead of the big 106 millimeter rounds.  We fired at moving silhouette targets that resembled tanks.  Some of the targets traveled across in front of us horizontally from right to left and vice-versa while others traveled at two or three different angles up or down as they crossed to our front.  We fired at those damn moving targets until even our drivers were considered to be expert shots.

We went to Baumholder several times for training, but during this trip I discovered that there was a section of the garrison set aside for the French troops in NATO to live while training there also.  We also learned that every payday, the French troops could buy a sex chit book that was referred to as a "Pussy Chit Book."  Periodically, the French also set aside one of the barracks to be used by local prostitutes for "entertaining" the troops.  They could pay cash or use their chit books.  We envied the French soldiers.  If they bought the chit book, I think they got a discount.  Some of our guys went to the French enlisted club and won some chits at poker and tried to participate in the next Hooker Day only to discover that only the French troops were allowed in that line.  They had to sell their chits to the French troops at a discount so they lost their ass on that deal.

While we were roommates, Bud and I became great friends.  Bud was born in Poland but he was uprooted during World War II when both the Russians and the Germans ravaged his country.  The Nazis put Bud in a labor battalion and shipped him out to work for their army in France.  After the war, Bud joined the US Army and volunteered for Special Forces.  Bud, like many other DPs that joined SF, originally hoped that he would be sent back into his native country to help free them from the communists, but of course that never happened.

While Bud and I were rooming together, our NCO Club had slot machines installed and Bud took to them like a duck takes to water.  Playing those machines became addictive to Bud.  Each payday, poor Bud would pay me what he owed me and then he would always send money to his wife to save in addition to her regular allotment.  Then Bud would head for the NCO Club where he would play those damn slot machines every night until closing time or until he ran out of money.  Some nights he would bring home a wad of money that he had won and he would be absolutely giddy he was so pleased with himself.  However, about three to five days after payday, just like clockwork, Bud would come home broke and then he would borrow money from me to live on until the next payday when the process would start all over again.  I told Bud, "When a one arm bandit puts his back against a wall and challenges the whole damn world, you best not mess with him.”  Trying to reason with that hard-headed Pollack was like talking to a fence post.  Bud kept this up until I was shipped back to the states.  [Bud retired and lived in the Fayetteville area where he and his son invested in real estate and I understand they did very well at it.   Bud died from a heart attack sometime in the early 80s.  Bud was a good soldier and a good friend.]

One day SFC Brown disappeared and Sergeant First Class Lumpkins took his place.  We had a much easier time of it after that.

[I never knew why JC was transferred out of our company.  I didn’t see JC again until many years later.  JC and I met in front of the Main Post NCO Club at Fort Bragg in 1972 or 1973.  I did not recognize him at first, but when he got close I recognized that evil twinkle in his eyes and his evil giggle.  JC looked awful; he told me what happened over a beer:

JC had been assigned to the Fifth Special Forces Group in Vietnam and he was on an operation with his indigenous troops when a VC sniper pinned them down.  JC decided to sneak through the brush and flank the sniper which he did and he came up behind the VC.  Instead of shooting the guy in the back, like any sane soldier would have done, JC decided to drop a Willie Peter [White Phosporous] grenade on the VC's back and watch him burn.  So JC pulled the pin on a Willie Peter grenade, but as he stepped around from behind the tree where he had been hiding, he stepped on a dry twig and it "snapped.”  The VC wheeled around and shot JC three times through the torso with his AK-47.  The bullets knocked JC back against the tree and he dropped the grenade between his own feet where it exploded.  The VC got away.  JC lost an ear along with half of his face, one arm and one leg.  JC was also burned over most of his body, but he never fell.  JC was braced back against that tree the whole time and just stood there looking down at his body watching himself go up in smoke instead of watching the VC burn as he had planned.

JC really was a mess, but he stayed on active duty until he had enough time to retire.  The army loved to use guys like that as instructors in mines, booby traps, demolitions or grenade training.  The troops always paid close attention to every thing they said.  The last time that I heard from JC, he was retired, living in California, and working for the federal government.]

The rumor mill said that some of our ex-SF guys had been transferred from the 10^th Special Forces Group that was stationed in Bad Tolz as punishment for flunking an inspection by the IG [Inspector General].  That IG inspection was legendary in SF and it is well worth relating here.   Of course I was not present so I am merely repeating what I was told.   I have no way of knowing how much the story had been 'embellished' when I first heard it.

The 10th Special Forces Group was stationed in Bad Tolz which is in southern Germany about forty miles south of Munich.  The area was perfect for their mission, but the 7^th Army NCO [Non-commissioned Officer] Academy was also stationed there and that became a serious problem.  In fact, those two units were the only major units on that tiny kaserne.

The 7^th Army NCO Academy was infamous for its chicken-shit.  The NCO Academy had their cadre and students carried swagger sticks or inspiration sticks whichever you prefer to call them, everywhere they went.  The new SF commander thought that this was very sharp and informed his SF troops that they too should carry swagger sticks so they would look as sharp as their soldierly neighbors.

One Friday at Retreat, the Tenth Group Commander informed his troops, "The IG Inspection is scheduled for Tuesday morning.  You had damn well better show up sober and with swagger sticks.  So you better get all of your damn partying done over the weekend.”  The troops took that as the commander’s blessing to get "plastered" over the weekend and not wanting to let their commander down, they followed orders.  [Since then, I have learned that SF doesn’t need much encouragement to "party.”  Some outfits reportedly tried to host "coming out" parties every time somebody opened a fresh pack of cigarettes.]

The IG Inspection team showed up early on Monday morning instead of Tuesday as planned. I bet some of you readers who are army veterans already knew that was going to happen, right? This is referred to in the army as a SNAFU [Situation Normal, All F--ked Up!].  The IG Inspection Team had the Tenth Group formed outside for inspection in ranks.  Many of the SF guys were still roaring drunk but, each and every one, being dedicated professional soldiers, carried something that he considered to be a swagger stick such as; a ball bat, a stick, a piece of lumber, a rifle cleaning rod [that really seemed to be the favorite], and one ingenious fellow even proudly carried a 12" life-like battery-operated rubber dildo.  I bet that guy won the door prize.  At any rate, real swagger sticks were few and far between.  As you might expect, this went over like a fart in church with the IG team.

During the IG Inspection in ranks, the Tenth Group men wore their Class A winter uniforms, the World War II style olive drab uniforms, with Ike Jackets and bloused jump boots.  The inspector noticed that the collar on Staff Sergeant Bill Coggins’ [not real name] Ike Jacket was frayed.  He told Coggins, "Sergeant, your jacket is frayed.”  Coggins was rumored to have been a former moonshiner and bootlegger from North Carolina  He had black hair, spoke out of the side of his mouth, always in a growl, and stood about 6’2.”  Coggins had wide shoulders, a large chest, long skinny legs, a very nasty, pugnacious disposition, and was frequently armed with a knife or gun, sometimes both.  Well, Coggins, who was obviously still drunk from the weekend, swayed back and forth, turned beet red, leaned forward, stuck his beet-red nose and foul whiskey breath right in the inspector’s face, and growled, "Sir, my God-damned jacket ain’t afraid of nuthin!"

As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, another fun loving SF sergeant, who I will call Golden, awaited the inspectors inside the barracks.  Each time they opened a door to one of the team rooms, there stood Sergeant Golden.  Golden would point his finger at them and say, "Bang! Bang! You’re dead.”  How Golden got from one room to another so fast without using the doors, no one seemed to know.  Needless to say, the unit scored less than perfect on that IG inspection and several troops, including the commander, were transferred out of the unit.....or at least that's how the story went.

Also in the 1950s, one of the SF officers in the Berlin Detachment had a huge red firing range flag that he proudly flew 24 hours a day for some unknown reason.  The flagpole was atop a tall hill near a soccer stadium.  One day during a soccer game when almost everyone was concentrating on watching the game, two or three SF sergeants stole that stupid flag.  A soldier was guarding the stairs leading up the hill to the flag at the time, but one of the sergeants kept the guard occupied by talking to him while the others went right on by him.  Unfortunately the one person who happened to be looking to the rear instead of watching the game, was one of the chicken-shit officers and he squealed on the adventurous sergeants.  A few days later the adventurous sergeants became not-so proud new members of the Airborne Brigade of the 8^th Infantry Division in Mainz, Germany.

[I do not know which of our Ex-SF guys came to the 8^th Infantry Division’s Airborne Brigade as a result of the IG Inspection, which ones came to us as a result of the flag caper and which ones just transferred out of SF for other reasons.]

In late April of 1959, the 505^th made a mass tactical parachute drop at a place in Germany called Kirchburg.  We sat around on our chutes for two days waiting for the winds to settle down so we could jump.  Finally on the third day, our Battle Group Commander, Colonel Lamar Welch, decided we were jumping and that was that so he had us all board the aircraft.  We started flying around in circles around our DZ just waiting for a break in the wind.  The wind was very strong with gusts up to about 35-45 miles per hour.  Mass tactical parachute drops are not safe, if the winds are over 15 miles per hour.  Hell, they're not safe any damn time come to think of it.  We stood up, hooked up, checked our equipment and then just stood in the planes waiting for at least another hour.  A couple of little guys in my plane fainted from the strain of supporting all of that weight for that long.  The typical combat load is about sixty pounds of equipment and clothing plus forty two pounds of parachutes.  That’s a lot of weight for anybody to tote for an hour much less for a little guy.  The guys that were jumping GP Bags, like dumb-ass me, were jumping even more weight.  Everyone was hanging on to the anchor line cable for support.  The clouds briefly separated, the green light came on, and we began jumping.

As soon as my chute opened, I soared sideways.  If the wind had decreased, it hadn’t decreased very much.  It was very strong, too strong for parachuting.  The guys on the ground who had jumped before me, were all being drug across the fields like they were hitched to wild horses.  Being drug by a parachute in wind like that is like being drug by a run-away horse.  The jumpers that were fortunate enough to hit the DZ were bouncing like rubber balls and then the wind would drag their bodies swiftly away.  Many jumpers did not hit the DZ.  Because my chute had a delayed opening, I was closer to the ground before the wind effected my drift — much closer to the ground, so I landed on the DZ.  Some troops landed in the trees, some landed on the paved road and some landed elsewhere.  One jumper crashed through the roof of a chicken house and another landed astraddle of a cow.  Colonel Lamar Welch, our battle group commander, missed the DZ and landed in a tree.  His driver found him there and took his picture while he was still dangling from a tree limb and that got him a good ass chewing.

The only good thing about jumping a heavy GP Bag is it helps in windy weather.  That is assuming of course that you land on the drop zone instead of in a tree, lake or high voltage power line.  The GP Bag is suspended fifteen feet below you on a drop line so it hits the ground before you do.  When the bag hits the ground, it reduces the downward pull on the chute and slightly slows your rate of descent one second before you hit.  Also, the bag is so heavy, after you hit the ground, it acts as an anchor during strong winds.  You may still be drug if you jump a GP Bag, but you won’t be drug as fast so you had more time to get out of the parachute harness and collapse your chute before being drug to death.

After I made it to the assembly area, they began dropping our heavy equipment, including vehicles.  A ¾ ton truck was driven off of the DZ sideways because it had hit the ground so hard in that wind the impact bent the frame.  After we were finally assembled, those of us that weren’t injured went on a long march up into the mountains.  Otto had a heel knocked off of one of his boots because he had hit the ground so hard and that’s how he started that march.  After hobbling a mile or so, Otto knocked the other boot heel off so he would be more comfortable.  [Otto ended up spending a total of about ten years in the army.  He made it through one tour in Vietnam and then got out when he was passed over for promotion to Sergeant First Class.  He eventually moved to Mosheim, Tennessee where he began to buy and sell livestock and then opened a meat packing (slaughter) house in Morristown, Tennessee.  He was quite wealthy at one time, but additional federal regulations finally forced him to sell his business in Morristown and he bought into one in Georgia.  Otto still wheels and deals in livestock to this day.]

By this time I had become a heavy drinker.  Not as bad as some guys maybe, but definitely a heavy drinker.  My drinking had started to increase shortly after I made sergeant.

On New Year’s Eve, I got a three day pass and decided that I was going to see Paris.  While I was waiting to catch my train in the Mainz Bahnhoff, I noticed some very small bottles of booze that were for sale in the Bahnhoff newspaper stand.  It was several different kinds of liqueur and I bought a couple of bottles of each flavor, about a dozen in all, and put them into my AWOL bag.  In order to reach Paris, I had to change trains in Frankfurt.  Eventually, I found my Paris train and there were very few people on it.  Finally, I found one guy sitting by himself in one car and he invited me to sit with him, which I did.  He spoke very good English and told me that his name was Willie Weilinger [I think that is spelled correctly] and he worked for his father’s newspaper in Frankenthal, which was just outside Frankfurt.  After I opened a bottle of my liqueur, I shared it with Willie.  It was very sweet and tasted like Peaches and I didn’t much care for the taste.  Willie was headed to Innsbruck, Austria on a skiing trip.  He invited me to join him and I told him that my three day pass and my train ticket were for Paris.  He insisted and I opened another bottle of liqueur.  This one tasted better.

Willie continued trying to persuade me to join him skiing in Austria until the train was pulling into the Mannheim Bahnhoff and I finally relented and agreed to join him.  He and three or four bottles of liqueur had convinced me that he could pull it off okay so we changed trains and headed for Austria.  By the time the conductor found us and asked for tickets, we were both feeling no pain.  Somehow Willie convinced the conductor to let me stay on the train.  It’s a little fuzzy because I still had plenty of those lovely little bottles, but I remember the train stopping at the Austrian border and Willie and I getting off with a border guard and stumbling through the deep snow to the small Bahnhoff and Border Guard Post.  There was a Gasthaus in the Bahnhoff and it was full of border guards.  After I bought them a round of beer and wished one and all a Happy New Year, they escorted us through the snow back to the train.

The only thing I can remember about arriving in Innsbrucke is slipping on the ice in the street and falling and busting my butt.  But I was as limber as a wet dish rag and it didn’t injure me.  There is something good to be said for being inebriated, I guess.  However, if I had been sober I probably wouldn’t have fallen in the first place.  Then again, if I had been sober, I would have been in Paris, France instead of skating along the icy streets of Innsbrucke, Austria on my ass.

I awoke the next morning with a terrible hangover.  My head hurt me something terrible and somebody was squealing and that didn’t help a bit.  It was like when I was a kid at Mama Valentines in the winter because I was under about two feet of quilts.  In the bed next to me, there was a total stranger [Willie] and a beautiful dark-haired Austrian girl.  She wasn’t undressed and in bed with him, she was just lying on top of the covers pestering him.  At first, I had no idea where we were or who the hell they were.  The girl didn’t speak a word of English and left shortly after I awoke.  After I got up, I walked to one of the windows and there were icicles, each three or four foot long, hanging from the eaves.  Everywhere I looked I saw snow.  It shocked me fully awake.  I thought, "This can’t be Paris.  Where the hell am I and who is that guy in the other bed?" Then I started remembering bits and pieces about the night before and slowly remembered where I was and how I had gotten there. 

Wearing a winter sport coat, turtle neck sweater and slacks with no gloves, no winter underwear, no winter footgear and no hat of any kind, I was dressed for Paris in the winter, not the Austrian Alps.  That wasn’t my worst problem, if I did anything to anger Willie, I would probably end up in the stockade because without his help, I would have a serious problem getting out of Austria without proper papers.  So legally, I guess that I was AWOL or something.  About that time Willie asked me, if I was hungry.  To the best of my knowledge, East Tennessee boys either have just eaten, are about to eat or are eating.  We headed out to find something to eat.  Then Willie and his girlfriend got their ski equipment and we all headed by train for a ski resort.  As I recall, it was the highest ski slope in that area.  It seems like it was an hour or two by train, but it may not have been that long.

Willie bought tickets at the resort and went up the lift to the top of the mountain and ski back down.  His girl friend decided not to ski; she stayed with me.  That cute little gal was all heart.  Maybe she knew a lost puppy when she saw one.  We all went up the ski lift to the top of the mountain together.

When we got to the top, Willie tried to get me to put on the skis and try skiing, but I refused.  That slope looked straight down to me and I was wearing street shoes and street clothes and never had skied in my life.  Willie almost talked me into it because I really did want to learn to ski, but his girl friend begged me not to do it so I didn’t.  She probably did me a great favor because I probably would have killed my fool self.  His girlfriend and I rode the lift back down and spent the rest of the time in the Gasthaus eating and drinking while we waited for Willie to have all of the fun on the slopes that he could handle.  Then we returned by train to Innsbrucke.

That evening we went downtown and I thought that Innsbrucke was beautiful.  Maybe it seemed so beautiful to me because everything was covered with snow or maybe it was because of the architectural style of the buildings or maybe it was the booze, regardless, it was beautiful.  We drove around town and then we parked and walked through the streets.  Walking through Innsbrucke made me feel like I was in a live cartoon or a Grimm’s Fairy Tale because of the snow and the architecture of the buildings.

The next day we started for home, but I doubted that Willie could get me back the way we came unless I was drunk; so I bought some more liquer and drank just enough to smell of alcohol and pretended to be drunk.  We made it all the way back to Mannheim, Germany without any problems.  The conductors and border guards looked at me a little weird, but we made it.  From Mannheim to Mainz, my original round-trip ticket was good.  Willie and I parted at the Frankfurt train station and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.

Sometime during this tour, my company made a parachute jump in Southern France near it’s border with Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains.  I believe our drop zone was a French Army artillery range on Camp Pau.  Our aircraft were flown by Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve crews, I forget which.  When I left the plane, it was like running full speed into a brick wall.

The wind slammed me back against the side of the plane and my chute was really twisted.  When I finally unwound and could look up to check my canopy, I thought, "Oh shit, look at all of the damn patches!”  My chute was literally covered with patches of all sizes and shapes.  When the edges of all those "patches" started fluttering in the wind, I knew they weren’t patches they were holes.  There were three very big holes in my chute and my shroud lines crossed just above my head, but I was not twisted.  I cursed, "Damn! I’ve got another Mae West.”  Looking around, I compared my descent against that of the other jumpers in the air and decided that I was safer with what I had, than I would be if I pulled my emergency chute.  Sometimes the reserve gets entangled with your main chute and then you have no chute.  Fortunately, I was right.  After I collapsed my chute, I inspected it and counted over forty holes in it.  The three large holes were big enough for me to walk through.  It hadn’t been a Mae West: my chute had completely inverted and in doing so, the friction had burned all of those holes in the canopy.  We learned later that the plane had been flying too fast for dropping troops.

Artillery bombardments had churned the ground up so bad there were several bogs in the drop zone.  One of our more chicken-shit young officers in the 505^th landed in one of those bogs and began to sink out of sight.  Unfortunately for him, troopers from his unit were the only ones that were close to him and they were in no great rush to rescue that sorry son of a bitch.  They stood nearby in deep discussion about exactly how they should go about rescuing their fearless leader while he continued to sink into the bottomless mire and was screaming his head off.  Finally, when he was up to his armpits, they grabbed his chute and tried to pull him out, but to no avail.  Just before the poor dumb bastard went under, a jeep drove up and they hooked the chute onto the jeep and used it to drag him out of the mire.  He had gone in up to his chin by that time and had stopped cursing them and was begging for their help.

During this tour of duty, I never really adapted to being the kind of sergeant that the 505^th wanted me to be.  Instead, I became more and more lonely and was getting drunk about four or five nights a week.  The booze put about twenty pounds of fat around my gut.  Being a sergeant in the airborne infantry was not for me.  Hell, I didn’t even like the airborne infantry.  It was mostly boring and I had already learned every job in the rifle and weapons platoons.  Being ostracized from the other enlisted men in my section was difficult for me to cope with and made life even more boring.  The other squad leader in my section was a Brown-bagger so I could not hang out with him even if I wanted to.  Charlie Brown, Bud, and I were the only sergeants from my platoon that were Barracks Rats.  I just didn’t feel like I was a part of the team anymore.  Mostly, I couldn’t handle the chicken-shit, plus I thought too much and I cared too much.  A sergeant had tried to teach me better than that several years before.  He cautioned, "Val, you don’t get paid to think and you don’t get paid to worry.  You just get paid to do.  Let those who get paid to think and worry, earn their money.  If you don’t drive yourself crazy, you will cause the Green Machine problems and it will run right over you.”  The "Green Machine" being the army.  Every soldier knows the old adage, "Ours is not to question Why.  Ours is just to do or die," by heart.  [Many years later, I heard that Lieutenant Gilmore became a general.]

Because of what I saw during the two field exercises when I worked with special forces guys, I wanted to join their outfit.  A couple of years later, most "outsiders" refer to SF and SF soldiers as "Green Berets" which ticks many old SF men off.  But back then    Special Forces soldiers weren’t officially authorized to wear the beret.  They only wore the beret when on maneuvers.  SF was commonly referred to by outsiders as "Sneaky Petes” and special forces soldiers referred to themselves as "SF" or "Group.”  Some people thought that SF were called Sneaky Petes because they were so secretive and they were always sneaking around in the woods during FTXs [Field Training Exercise] and disrupting things in general.  Some people thought SF was called Sneaky Petes because so many of them cheated on their wives or dated married women.

It was not unusual for SF to be pulled out of a stateside FTX because they had caused so much confusion it was almost impossible to continue the maneuver with them still participating in it.  FTXs are sometimes referred to as "maneuvers.”  Some of SF’s favorite tricks were impersonating MPs so they could misdirect convoys and raiding the main command posts.  When you bring the war directly to the generals and colonels, things tend to become even more confused than normal.

I asked my unit about volunteering for SF duty while I was still in Germany and they told me that you could only enter SF at Fort Bragg where their training was conducted.  I figured that qualified as another Catch-22.  [I discovered later that this was a lie.]

E Company, 325^th, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., October 1960

When I finished that tour in Germany and arrived back at Fort Hamilton, New York in October 1960, I tried to re-enlist for Special Forces.  No dice.  The recruiting officer was a female warrant officer and she would not even consider signing me up for SF.  According to her, SF did not need my MOS [Military Occupational Skill] and she would not agree to send me for MOS training that would qualify me for SF.  She told me that I could only re-enlist for the Eighty-second "Almost Airborne" at Fort Bragg or the Hundred and Worst "Puking Buzzards" at Fort Campbell.  The Eleventh "Flying Red Assholes" had already been disbanded [small wonder] and it was no longer an option, even if I was crazy enough to have asked for it.  That lady was strictly by the book and she obviously had been instructed to return airborne infantry soldiers to the airborne infantry.

When the army found someone dumb enough to volunteer for that duty, they tried their level best to keep them there.  I guess they figured once dumb, always dumb.  So I asked to be assigned to the Eighty-second at Fort Bragg because that was where SF Headquarters was and they assigned me to E Company, 325^th Battle Group, Eighty-second Airborne at Fort Bragg.  "This might be a lucky sign," I thought.  After all this was my first airborne unit that I had been assigned to after I completed basic combat training.  Maybe I would get lucky and find a way into SF, if I was just next door so to speak.  After my furlough, I reported in to Echo Company and was assigned to the 106 section as a squad leader.  The gunner in the other 106 squad was none other than my old Hopi buddy from B Company, 505^th, William Timeche.  I’m not sure how Bill beat me there, I suppose that he didn’t take as much leave as I did.

[Bill made two trips to Vietnam where he was wounded while with the 9^th Infantry Division’s Pathfinders, but he lived to retire as a Sergeant First Class after 24 year’s service.  He now lives in Phoenix, Arizona.  I served longer with that little Hopi than anyone else.  We were in the same platoon, from the middle of October 1957 to April 31, 1961.  I served with SF guys longer than that, but not on the same B Team and, comparing SF to the infantry, that would have been the equivalent of a platoon.  I still have Bill’s service number memorized from when I was his Squad Leader during the late 1950s.  That damn little Hopi was like my brother and he still is.]

In early 1961, the President, John F Kennedy, sent out a written request throughout the military for SF volunteers and it stated that "all of the volunteer’s applications will be processed within 30 days.”  Thousands of guys in the Eighty-second volunteered for SF duty.  Sergeant Augustino "Chooch" Chiarello, also of Echo Company, and I were among them.  There may have been other SF volunteers from our company at the time, but I just don’t remember them.

There were so many sergeants from the Eighty-second volunteering to leave that chicken-shit outfit for a chance to make SF, I suspect the leadership became panicky and ordered their officers to process requests for transfer to SF slowly and try to discourage soldiers from volunteering for SF in spite of the President’s orders.  In other words, the officers who had sworn to obey their commander-in-chief, the President of the United States of America, deliberately disobeyed his lawful order.  At least Echo Company, 325^th sure as hell did.

Chiarello and I had to hound our administration sergeant for a couple of months and then finally our platoon leader told us, "Your papers are down at the Group Finance and Personnel Office ready to be signed, but there’s one catch.  You have to waiver your Pro-pay [Proficiency Pay] because you will have to change your MOS to be accepted for SF duty.”  [Pro-pay was thirty dollars per month.]

[The officer had lied.  A soldier earned Pro-Pay by holding the MOS and passing an annual examination while you held that MOS.  Legally, we did not have to waiver our proficiency pay and we knew it.  We were entitled to our Pro-Pay until we had qualified or failed to qualify in another MOS.  That was the regulations at the time, but fighting that newest Catch-22 would have probably meant spending a couple of more months in that outfit and enduring an extra ration of chicken-shit.]

I can't speak for Chiarello, but as for myself, I just wanted out of the chicken-shit Eighty-Second Almost Airborne.  We raced each other to Finance and gladly signed away our Pro-Pay just for the opportunity to be a member of SF.  I would have given a lot more than $30 a month to be out of that chicken-shit outfit.

continued