Camp Dix

During the Korean War, inductees from New York City and surrounding areas were usually sent to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, a staging center, and from there to Camp Dix, also in New Jersey, for basic training.  Most soldiers at Dix were assigned to the 8-week basic training course and then to 8 weeks of some school or other.  This meant that they did not go into the infantry as did graduates of the 16-week basic training course.  But they could still be sent to Korea and end up on the front lines.

 

First Night

     Sometime during our first night at Dix the soldier two bunks down from me cut his wrists and when he was found the next morning he'd bled to death.  I vaguely remembered him as a big shambling kid who didn't look as if he was from the city but more likely from some upstate farm.  I wondered what fears caused him to commit suicide.   Maybe it was just depression over being plucked from his sunlit farm life and being plunged into the murky waters of the Army.

     For a few minutes that morning, there was a big commotion in the barracks as sergeants and officers went in and out, grumbling about having their normal routine interrupted and about all the paperwork that would now have to be done.   Then the medics came and took away the body and by the time we got back after breakfast at the mess hall everything had been cleaned up, as in a nursing home when a patient dies, and was back to normal.  After the first week of basic, nobody mentioned the suicide again.

 

The Squad

     Sergeant Broils, our company sergeant, was a hulking 230-pounder whose sadistic tendencies had been honed by many years as a noncom.   In the first week of basic training, he picked squad leaders.   These, as might be expected,  were the biggest guys among us and also pretty much the dumbest.

     The guy whose squad I was in didn't seem that bad.  His name was Scott Jewell and he looked like an athlete, although less like a wrestler than his fellow squad leaders.  The word was that Jewell was a college graduate who'd played on his school's tennis team.  Broils may not have realized this as he referred to anyone who'd gone to college as a "fucking faggot."

     Dave Fineman, whom I'd met at Kilmer, was also in my squad.  He was of average size with a thin face and mild brown eyes behind thick-lensed glasses.  Dave had a master's degree from Columbia and had planned to be a teacher before the Army drafted him.  At Kilmer, he was always reading a book, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," which he'd smuggled in with him as a kind of protest against being in the Army.

     Another college boy in our squad was a tall, thin fellow named Peter Dudley.  He had a round childish face and long thin arms and legs which seemed to be always flapping around like the Scarecrow's in the "Wizard of Oz."  Dudley told me in confidence that his family had wanted to keep him out of the Army  and, having money, they probably would have succeeded.  But he'd felt it was unfair that poor kids were drafted while rich kids like himself could get deferments and so had chosen to serve his time.

     The first few weeks of basic training were spent in classrooms, in marches and in innumerable hours of close-order drill.  Sergeant Broils took great pleasure in picking out those clumsy recruits who couldn't seem to get the knack of drilling.  He'd make these poor guys left march, right march and about face over and over again.   If he was in a really bad mood, which was most of the time, he made them run around the field with rifles at port until they were ready to drop.

     As was inevitable, Dudley became Broils' chief victim.   Broils seemed to take Dudley's lack of coordination as a personal affront, and the harder Dudley tried to please him the madder he'd  get.   He'd scream at Dudley, curse him up and down, make him do push-ups and sometimes even slap him on his helmet.  I'd thought Jewell might have some sympathy for his fellow college graduate but, taking his cue from Broils, he was always on Dudley, too, and always gave him the worst work details.  Maybe, as an athlete, he also couldn't stand Dudley's clumsiness.

 

Sergeant Threadgill

     The sergeant in charge of our platoon, Sergeant Threadgill,

was a trim light-skinned Negro (as they were called then), who was almost as contemptuous of us as Broils.  But Threadgill had a certain style.  He did everything quickly and well and was tireless, able to march for miles without visible effort. 

     In our fourth week, Threadgill took us out to a field where we sat in a little grandstand while he demonstrated how to take apart and put together, blindfolded, an M-1 rifle.   One morning another group of soldiers was already occupying the grandstand when we got there.   Threadgill went to check and when he came back he said, "Well, we have to wait because the boys from the Officer's Candidate School are there."  He paused for a moment, then he said, "Officer's Candidate School.  Sheeeeeiiiit."

Passes

     After that fourth week, halfway through basic, we were given weekend passes but not before a uniform and footlocker inspection.   Dudley of course had flunked the inspection and Broils had put him on KP for the weekend.  I'd already changed into my good uniform when I found out Fineman also hadn't gotten a pass.   Broils had found "Portrait of an Artist" in Fineman's foot locker and had said that having a book there was against regulations.  I was pretty sure this wasn't true, although the Army being what it was you couldn't be certain.  In any case, it was enough for Broils and who was going to argue with the company sergeant.

     I took a bus into Manhattan, then the subway to the Bronx.   My mother had of course prepared my favorite meal.  I went out Saturday night with some friends.  When I went to sleep in my old bedroom it was strange not to have 40 or 50 other bodies, with all their smells and noises, in the same room with me.

     After Sunday dinner I took the subway back to Manhattan and got on the bus to Dix at the Port Authority building.   To my surprise, Fineman was also on the bus.  "I thought you didn't get a pass," I said.

     "I didn't."

     "Then what are you doing here?"

     "I went home anyway."

     "Jesus, that's AWOL.   Why was it so important to get home, to see a girl or something?"

     "I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

     "You went AWOL to go to the Museum of Art?  You're crazy."

     Fineman smiled but didn't reply.  We didn't talk much on the way back.  I'd heard that the military police sometimes checked for passes when the bus got to Kilmer, but sometimes not.

     The bus pulled to a stop and, as luck would have it, an MP climbed on.  He went down the aisle looking at passes.  When he came to me, I fumbled around in my pockets, pretending to be looking, having some idea that if I stalled long enough maybe he'd get tired of waiting and let us go through.   But he said, "Quit fooling around, soldier.  Find your pass or you're AWOL."

     I pulled out my wallet and showed him the pass.  "Okay," he said.  "Next time don't be a wise guy."  Then he said to Fineman, "Let's see it."

     Fineman smiled and said, "I don't have a pass."

     "What, are you kidding me?"

     "No.  I don't have a pass."

     "Okay, get up and come along with me."

     Fineman stood up and looked at me.  "Don't worry," he said.  "It was worth it."

 

The Rifle Range

     The next week we marched out to the rifle range every morning and  spent all day firing at targets.   It might actually have been a slight improvement over the interminable close-order drill but no one in our company had ever fired a rifle before and Broils couldn't stand our ineptitude.  He raged up and down, yelling at us to squeeze the trigger, not to jerk it.   As always, Dudley was his chief victim.   Dudley couldn't seem to get the hang of it.   His rifle would jump off his shoulder every time and his shots flew over the target without ever hitting it. 

    Broils screamed at Dudley that he'd learn to shoot a rifle or spend the rest of his time in the Army pulling KP.  The more Broils screamed at him the worse Dudley did.  His rifle shook when he tried to aim it and he looked close to crying.  I thought of the kid from upstate who'd committed suicide the first night of basic.  Jewell didn't help matters by getting on Dudley every night when we returned to the barracks.  He'd tell Dudley he was disgracing his squad.  Jewell himself had the highest rifle score in the platoon, helped out, some of the guys said, by a little upward adjustment with his pencil.

     While we were going out to the firing ranges, Fineman would stay behind, sweeping out the barracks and cleaning the latrine.   After Broils had threatened him with a court martial for the crime of going AWOL over the weekend, Fineman had been put on a week's company punishment.  Every night, Jewell would look at the latrine and, like a fussy housewife, say it wasn't clean enough, then order Fineman to clean it up all over again.

     The big rifle inspection came toward the end of the second week of going to the ranges.  The Captain would be coming through the barracks to see if each man's rifle was clean.  Broils promised that any man found with a dirty rifle would start basic training all over again, probably the worst thing any of us could imagine.

     After Broils left, Jewell got on us.  He told us he didn't want any man in his squad to fuck up.   We spent the next hour cleaning like crazy.  Finally, the Captain came through.   We all stood at attention with our rifles.   As he came to each man, he took the rifle, looked down the barrel and handed it back.  Amazingly, everyone's rifle, even Dudley's, passed inspection.

     The next morning, when Jewell went to put on his boots, he found them full of water.   "Jesus," he screamed.  "They're ruined.  They're ruined."  Then he glared around.  "Who the hell did this?"  He looked at Dudley.  "Did you do it, you stupid fuckup?" he barked.  Dudley shook his head.  "I'll find out," Jewell said.  "When I do I'll beat the crap out of whoever did it."

    The next day at the rifle ranges, Broils came over to Dudley.  "Okay, asshole," he said.  "This is your last chance.   If you fuck up again, it's permanent KP, I guarantee you."  He started to walk away.   Dudley looked up at Broils, aimed his rifle at him and pulled the trigger.  The sergeant went down instantly and blood oozed from the top of his head.  There was a moment of stunned silence with everyone frozen as if in a tableau, then Threadgill ran over to Dudley.  "Let's have that rifle, soldier," he said in a calm voice.  Dudley handed over the rifle without resistance.  Threadgill then kneeled down by Broils.  "A little better," he said, "but he still jerked the trigger, luckily.  It looks as if the bullet just grazed Broils' scalp.  He should be OK."  

     In the next half hour, the MP's came and led Dudley away.  An ambulance also came and Broils, now on his feet with a bandage around his head, was driven away.  We resumed firing our rifles.  For the rest of the week, there was a lot of speculation on what would happen to Dudley but then everyone's attention became focused on where we'd be assigned after basic and, like the suicide on our first night at Dix, the incident was forgotten.

 

Lottery

     One morning two weeks later we were marched to a big auditorium in the center of the camp.  This was where we were to get our future assignments.  "What do you think?" I asked Fineman after we were seated.

     "It's a lottery.  They probably put everyone's name in a big barrel and pull them out at random."

     "Come on," I said.  "We're college graduates.  Why did we take those tests at Kilmer?  We'll get something where we can use our education."

     "Wait and see."

     A captain stood on the stage in front and started calling off names.   It was strangely like a high school graduation ceremony except that the assignments could have serious implications, like getting killed or not.  He called off names for cooks' school, truck drivers' school, clerk-typists' school and other schools, then he said that everyone else would go to field lineman school.   My name hadn't been called, meaning that I was I was among the many going to field lineman school.  I couldn't believe it.

     I had only a vague idea of what a field lineman did.  I pictured someone climbing up a pole in a field and doing something with a wire on top of it.   One thing I did know, field linemen were always sent to Korea.  So, added to my picture of a figure on top of a pole, were bullets whizzing all around.

     "How can they do that to me?" I asked Fineman.

     "What did you expect from the Army?"  he asked.  He himself, with his master's degree, had been assigned to I&E, Information and Education, where he'd wind up with some teaching assignment.

     I realized how naive I'd been.  I may have been a college graduate but to the Army I was just another body.  So, what now?  After all, I wasn't a Dudley, who, with his parents' influence, was probably going to get a Section 8 discharge back to civilian life, where lack of physical coordination wasn't such a great handicap.  "What should I do?" I asked Fineman.

     "Maybe you can get into I&E."

     "I only have a bachelor's degree."

     "So what.  In the Army, you can teach as well as the next guy."

     This sounded reasonable.  "I'll have to talk to somebody," I said.

     "I know somebody.   He's only a PFC but you can try him."

     The next morning, as we were marching off to someplace or other, I spoke to Threadgill, now our company sergeant.  I told him it was important for me to get over to I&E. 

    "What's the matter?" he said.  "Too educated to be a field lineman?"  Threadgill always knew what was going on.

     "No," I replied.  "But I'd just as soon be doing something else."

     He gave me a long hard look.  Finally, he said,"Okay.  I'll give you one hour."  He scrawled something on a piece of paper.  "Here," he said, handing it to me.  "If anybody stops you, show that to them."

     I walked quickly to the I&E building and asked to see the PFC whose name Fineman had given me.  Luckily, he was there.  I told him that I was a college graduate and planned to become a teacher and asked if there was any chance of getting reassigned to I&E.  He brought me over to a lieutenant, introduced me and explained my situation.   The lieutenant, who looked more like a college professor than an officer, told me he's see what he could do. 

     I waited while several phone calls were made, nervously aware that my one hour was quickly going by.  Finally, the lieutenant came over and told me he was afraid he couldn't swing I&E for me.  "But we can get you into clerk-typist school," he said.  Clerk-typist school, I thought.  Well, it was better than being a field lineman.

     "Okay," I said quickly. "Thanks."  We shook hands again.  I thanked Fineman's PFC friend, then I ran back to find my platoon.

Saying Good-Bye

     We had packed our duffel bags and were about to leave.  At the end of basic training, everyone had gotten a three-day pass.  Fineman and I were going to our homes in New York before going back to our Army schools.  I'd been assigned to a clerk-typist school in Indianapolis and Fineman to an I&E school in Washington, DC.  "It's too bad they couldn't get you in," he said.

     "That's okay.  I've always wanted to improve my typing."

     "Did you hear about Jewell?"

     "No, what?"  In all the commotion of getting myself reassigned I'd forgotten about Jewell.

     "He did so well at the rifle range he got a special assignment to a 16-weeks basic training course and after that he'll be assigned to the infantry."

     "No kidding."

     "Yeah, he was pretty upset about it.  He even went to see Threadgill but the sergeant told him it was tough titty.   Threadgill asked him if he didn't want to go to Korea and get a chance to shoot some gooks.  Threadgill was in Korea three years so Jewell couldn't say anything to that."

     "Yeah.  That was funny about the water in Jewell's boots.  I almost couldn't keep from laughing."

     "I thought that was pretty funny myself."

     "You mean you did it?  I thought it was Dudley."

     Fineman smiled.  "It was pretty juvenile.  On the other hand, maybe it was something James Joyce would have done.  Oh, I almost forgot."   He handed me his book, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."  "I've finished it.  You can read it in between typing classes."

     We picked up our duffel bags and left to catch the bus to New York.

The End