The
Army and Me
|
I enrolled at The Ohio State University in January 1949. OSU being a land grant university, Reserve Officers’ Training Cores (ROTC) was required for the freshman and sophomore years. The classes were taught by army officers or NCOs.
At the end of my sophomore year I had to decide if I wanted to continue ROTC for my junior and senior years. I said yes for two reasons. One, it looked like the chances were very high that I would enter the army one way or another so why not go in as a Lieutenant. The other was that for the last two years I would get paid $0.90 a day every day until I completed ROTC. That does not sound like much but considering that my room rent was $20.00 a month it paid my rent with $7 left over for other expenses.
I remember little about the classes. We did participate in parades now and then and the classes were somewhat harder than the first two years. Between the junior and senior years there was summer camp at Fort Sill Oklahoma, the home of the Artillery School. This was an interesting experience with enrollees from all over the country. The classes covered a large variety of military activities including marching, bivouacs, rifle training, loading and firing howitzers, without ear protection. We took turns as soldiers, platoon and company commanders and was fun, stressful and I actually learned a lot.
After commencement Kathleen Nitz pinned on my 2nd Lieutenant bars.
During
the summer of 1953 I got my request to enter the army at Fort Sill on
November 23rd. I borrowed a car from McD Ford and drove the 1,200
miles. On the way I
stopped at the farm of Isabel and Neal Sink near Van Wert Iowa. I spent
several
summers there starting at age 10. More about my farm days is in
another story,
I did not know how I should report, in uniform or civilian clothes. In fact I was not even sure what the correct uniform was. I reported in uniform and everything seemed to go OK.
The OBC was not easy, much more involved than summer camp. We had a lot of training like regular basic training including infiltration course with live ammunition over our heads while crawling under barb wire. I did not like walking through a battle ground with loaded rifles and a person next to but too far behind me so his rifle was pointing at me and his finger was on the trigger.
We had classes in all aspects of artillery, forward observer, locating enemy artillery, tactics, leadership, field exercises and more. Two incidents stand out from the classes. In the forward observer training a black Lieutenant appeared to be drunk and the captain in charge was not a fan of his anyway. Our target was a barrel a couple hundred yards from us. We were in a bunker and the artillery maybe a mile behind us. The student, looked out, gave the aiming command and the first shell actually landed inside the barrel. The captain was furious as he had intended to make an issue of his suppose condition. We shall meet this black Lieutenant again later. Secondly we had a written test on locating artillery using sound ranging. The question was: How do you position the microphones. Most students said “depends on the suspected direction of the enemy artillery”. But the only correct answer was “the direction of the sound source”. There were several other badly written questions/answers and I piped up that if I could not write better tests than this test was I might give the task to another. This is not the best thing to do in the army or any occupation.
The OBC ends and now have the wait to see where I will be stationed. It could be almost anywhere in the world and such a huge variety of positions. Where did I end up? Yes, teaching in the Sound Ranging section of the Department of Observation after telling them in the class that they could not write a test. I never heard anything from anyone about my comment.
I reported to the department of Observation and went through the pile of paper work. Next I went to the Sound Ranging department and reported to the commanding officer. What I discovered was that a new eight week class was scheduled to start in a few days. Prior to this I had hardly ever even made a talk in front of a group. The other officer who would share the teaching was off sick, thus I would have the full teaching load for this class. As it turned out he never did return to teaching a class.
In the OBC Sound Ranging was covered in about 4 days. As the class would run for 40 days I had a lot to prepare. Most days classes ran almost 8 hours. The students were normally enlisted men who were going to take the information back to their units. Their education ran from non high school graduates to a master degree. Once in a while I would have a foreign officer in a class. I specifically remember the first class I taught. About twenty minutes into the class I paused and thought, “Amazing. The students are actually listening and seem interested”. That thought was exciting to me.
The teaching method we were told to use was asking questions to the students and thus getting student participation. Only lecture if that was the only way to get a point across. This is the method I later used, when possible, teaching at The University of Akron. I like to get student feedback and do not like to lecture. Also I got some great ideas from my students.
The material covered in the class including, trigonometry, plotting, measuring angles, interpreting data, choosing terrain, communications and several other subjects. Our instructions were to teach by giving the students a series of steps to memorize and follow. Teaching the reasoning behind these steps was not part of the curriculum. This bothered me as for me to learn, understanding why and how something works is most helpful to me. I conferred with Captain Bursell and asked if I could add two classes explaining the reasons why the steps worked including the effect of wind and temperature and several other factors. He agreed the additional information could be helpful but could not overrule the general. He did approve adding the classes if it did not mean omitting any course material and if the students were not tested on the additional material. The good students volunteered that the two theory classes, added a lot to their understanding of the procedures. The others paid little attention since they were not going to be tested on the material.
Even though the students were taking the course to help teach their fellow students I was not permitted to fail anyone who enlisted but I could fail a draftee. I stressed that sending someone back to his unit who had learned nothing but still graduated would reduce the confidence of his unit officers in the value of the course. The rule stood. Another troubling fact was that it was against the rules on a test to ask a student to answer a multi-part question. The effect of this was I could not present the data that was needed to locate the artillery and ask him to perform the tasks to show the location. For example if this required 10 steps, if the student could not do step one correctly, or did nothing at all, he would get 90% on the test as the last nine could not be counted wrong. There was a way around this by testing each step separately. This did not test full understanding of the procedures.
There were also periodic orientations for visitors to Fort Sill. Several different stations were set up outside and the visitors rotated among them. Here the students could be anyone, but normally they were senior officers from the USA and foreign armies. About 3-5 minutes before the group would arrive at our station we would be informed about the expected length of the presentation. This could range from five to 25 minutes. My first one of these was about three weeks after I started.
Two things stand out about the orientation lectures. For part of my tour Fort Sill was the home of part of the army air corps. During these presentations it was common for helicopters to fly right over us and it was so noisy nothing could be heard. The second was very interesting. During a presentation a 2 star general asked me a question. There were maybe 30 people in the stands. The answer to the question was both Top Secret and Need to Know. I told him that and of course he said he had a higher security clearance than I. I told him I would take him to my commanding officer after the presentation. That was not enough to satisfy him. Captain Bursell, who was the commanding officers assistant, overheard the discussion and he talked to the general. I never asked or heard about the outcome. This captain through out my tour was especially helpful to me. We had many conversations and his thoughts, ideas and guidance were most helpful.
After the first eight week course the new instructors went to school ourselves. Here we had a short course on how to prepare, teach, write and give tests.
Now the routine has been set, eight week classes and the visitors orientation presentations. I found I actually liked teaching and most all of the things that went with it. I had students that after their class was completed came to me with very nice complements. Next will be a smattering of Fort Sill experiences.
When my commanding officer decided to make a major change in procedure or policy he would often get us all together to discuss the changes before they were implemented. At these meetings he encouraged active participation. All were free to make suggestions and to disagree with any aspect of his plan. But after the plan was implemented he demanded no gripes. This is the plan, carry it out. I liked that method as it made one feel we were part of the decision even if that was only a thought.
I have always had a difficult time remembering names and faces and there were so many new ones to remember. There was a party shortly after I got there. They assigned me to greet the officers as they entered. I was not too concerned until I was told all would be in civilian clothes. Now I had lost the edge of seeing their rank to give me a clue. I did get through the evening alive.
I played in the Fort Sill table tennis tournament and was able to win the singles and doubles. I played doubles with that black Lieutenant mentioned above. Then he and I decided to enter the state tournament in Norman or Oklahoma City, OK. In our first round doubles match that we lost in a close match. I looked around during the match and was almost shocked to see that we had several people closely watching. I could not understand why anyone would be watching our match. I later asked a couple people why. I do not think anyone there had ever seen a black and a white compete together. This was 1954 and was a different era. When we entered it never occurred to me that it would be anything unusual. I wonder why we were not listed as Civil Rights Leaders.
Two artillery firing range incidents stand out. The first happened in the OBC. I was in command of the group going out to a forward observer post (FOP) for practice. When we were about ¼ mile from the FOP a cluster of artillery shells landed directly where we planned to stand. This did get my attention!! The driver stopped the Jeep and we radioed headquarters. The guilty artillery unit was using the wrong days schedule. We waited till they called back and promised to quit trying to kill us. Then went to the FOP and completed our mission.
In the other incident a friend and I decided to drive into the range and walk up to The Block House on Signal Mountain. We drove in my car, wandered around and walked up to the block house. I was amazed at how many unexploded shells lay around. It was a great afternoon. Only after we returned did we find out that we had looked at the wrong schedule and that portion of the range was open for artillery fire. We were fortunate to say the least. The military is dangerous even in peacetime. There were injuries and fatalities both years I was there.
The
nuclear cannon was being tested during my stay. The same weapon the
general
asked about above. On one occasion due to a careless gun crew a
standard
explosive shell was sent out of Fort Sill into the edge of the city of
Lawton. No one was hurt and rumor had it that the commander of
the
group and the 2nd
in command were shipped to Japan and Alaska within 48 hours. At one point I might have been the longest serving 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army. The day I was due for promotion to 1st Lieutenant an order was received that no officer could be promoted without getting Secret security clearance. This order came about from the activities of Sen. McCarthy and his witch hunt for communists. This was a strange time. They dated my date-of-rank back to the original promotion date, but not my pay. If I had stayed in the army the date-of-rank would have been more important than the pay I lost.
In April 1955 I called Kathleen Nitz and asked her to marry me. We were married July 16th in Akron, Ohio and moved into a new duplex in Lawton, Oklahoma. This really enhanced the last four months of my active service. We did the normal sightseeing during these four months. Dallas, Rodeo, Indian reservation, carnivals, wild life refuge, and visiting with my army friends. She was active volunteering during that time. She volunteered at the army hospital taking books and cheer to the patients. She is still enhancing my life after all these years.
I completely rewrote an Army Field manual and it was being printed when I was released. I finished a movie script during my last week. I have no idea if it was ever used.
One morning in November I was told I had about a week before discharge. During a class that same morning someone came in to my class, said he was taking over and I was to start the release procedure.
The week or so it took to go home was our official honeymoon. We visited an army friend and the Alamo in San Antonio, a short visit to the French Quarter and docks in New Orleans, an undeserved traffic ticket in Mississippi, a couple days in Fort Lauderdale, and then the trek north. I, in all my wisdom, decided to drive through the Tennessee Mountains on the way home. I remember a one day drive. I drove as fast as it was safe and in a 10 hour day we made 225 miles. The scenery was beautiful and there was no urgency to get back to Ohio.
There was some thought about staying in the army, but I elected to return to Ohio and join father in the automobile business. Our lives would have been very different staying in the army but have no idea which path would have been better. At this time, only in science fiction can one look at parallel universes.
This completes a summary of my army service. I am glad I elected to go to advanced ROTC and enter as an officer. The experience has been valuable for my life time. The teaching, writing, leading, and other activities helped me prepare for the years that followed. This may have been the most important two years of my life. I got married. I do not believe I would have been able to get a part-time teaching position at The University of Akron without the teaching experience. Without the part-time teaching I would never have been hired as a senior Academic Programmer Analyst, a position I enjoyed and the benefits will last as long as Kay or I are alive. Speaking of benefits, the 2.3 years of army service time I purchased at retirement helped on my pension and cut my health care costs by half as it put me over the 15 year mark at the University. There are so many different paths one can follow.
PS: I decided, due to popular demand from Richard Bruce, to try to write something about ROTC and the two plus years in the army. The time period extends from fall of 1949 to November 1955. Since I had no notes this is what my brain was willing to release. I believe it is accurate though probably missing some very important thoughts. These events were a very long time ago.
|
Reviewed:11-12-2001 / 17 February 2012