{"id":1700,"date":"2019-08-28T17:38:13","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T22:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2019-08-28T17:38:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T22:38:13","slug":"a-pattern-begins-to-develop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1700","title":{"rendered":"A Pattern Begins to Develop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Prior to graduation from basic training, orders came down from above. Before we were provided with individual orders, a permanent clerk in the company read from a list the MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) and next base assignment for each of us gathered in the yard.\u00a0 No one wanted to be an eleven bravo (11B), which meant infantry.\u00a0 We all knew what that number meant.\u00a0 About one-third of the platoon was assigned an eleven bravo MOS and sent to Advanced Infantry Training across the base.\u00a0 Those soldiers were to report immediately upon graduation.\u00a0 (See FYI<\/strong> below.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was one of the fortunate ones.  I was assigned an MOS of ninety-four Charlie\n(94C) and sent to Fort Lee, Virginia.  I\nhad no idea what a 94C meant until the list came around to me.  94C meant meat cutter.  It\u2019s on my DD214 (a discharge form).  The Army has since rearranged the MOS list\nand meat cutter is no longer included \u2013 neither is cook.  Today, it is Food Service Specialist \u2013 92G.  And, of course, food specialists are mostly\ncivilians.  I was scheduled to have a\n30-day leave and report to Fort Lee, VA on the 31st<\/sup> day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some strange reason, I kept getting up early while on\nleave and continued running early every morning.  I drank some beers and did other wild things,\nbut for the most part, I seemed to be conditioned to continue my regimen of\nbeing healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I flew into Richmond, VA, on the date appointed.\u00a0 I took a limousine ride to Fort Lee, about 30 miles south.\u00a0 I checked in with 1st<\/sup> FASCOM Headquarters and Headquarters Company (after all these years I remember this outfit, but not necessarily the outfit in which I spent most of my time.)\u00a0 The military is full of acronyms.\u00a0 FASCOM stands for Field Army Support Command. \u00a0Our shoulder patch was nicknamed \u201cThe Leaning Shithouse.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1st<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have no idea how someone could design this emblem, or even approve it, without realizing that it looks like a yearly Halloween prank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clerk I first spoke with thought I was a joke.  \u201cReally!?\u201d \nHe said: \u201cWe don\u2019t have meat cutters on his base.\u201d  I think he told me that the Army hadn\u2019t had\nmeat cutters since World War II, or something like that.  He gave me a pillow, an assigned bunk, sheets\nand a blanket and led me to a ward for incoming and outgoing soldiers \u2013 it was\na temporary holding ward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ate in the mess hall 3 times a day, showered in the men\u2019s\nroom daily (latrines are only in the Navy and Marines), and attended roll call\neach morning, followed by police call (that\u2019s what it\u2019s called \u2013 you pick up\ntrash and cigarette butts).  No one\nnoticed I was the only soldier in the holding ward for longer than 3 days.  As a matter-of-fact, I was in that ward for 6\nweeks.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, an old sergeant (probably 40 years-old, but looked\n70) who was assigned to the temporary bay, asked if I wanted to go for a\nride.  Why not?  He drove out to the country.  He wanted to see a tobacco field.  So did I. \nHe walked up to a fence and picked a tobacco plant.  I didn\u2019t say anything, but I thought to\nmyself: \u2018Is this guy crazy?  We\u2019re in the\nSouth.  He could get shot trespassing\nlike that.\u2019  I don\u2019t remember what he did\nwith it.  I enjoyed seeing drying\nbarns.  I\u2019ve seen photos of tobacco drying\nbarns, but up close was a real treat for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent most of the time walking up to the PX and buying a Harold Robbins<\/a>\nbook.  [By the way, this past spring, at\na Planned Parenthood Book Sale, I purchased a used Harold Robbins book that I\nhadn\u2019t seen before.  The copyright was\n1976.  It wasn\u2019t available for those\nyears I spent in the Army.  I was\ndischarged 5 years earlier.]  Robbins\u2019 books\nwere thick paperbacks and took longer to read than some of the other\nofferings.  I would find a nice place to\nsit and read.  It was August-September,\nand the weather was pretty good for Virginia, even though hurricanes often\ntravel up the east coast during the latter part of the period.  I avoided the temporary ward.  However, I would occasionally read some of the\nbook on my bunk.  It wasn\u2019t like anyone\npaid attention to who was there and who wasn\u2019t. \nThis would become a pattern in my military career.  I was often placed in the backroom.  I have heard, \u201cgo hide\u201d more than once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staying away from soldiers who looked like officers was a\nchallenge.  I didn\u2019t like saluting.  Walking down a sidewalk one day I saw a\nsoldier coming toward me.  As sloppy as\nhe looked, I assumed he was an enlisted man. \nNope, a lieutenant.  He chewed my\nass out for not saluting him.  I believe\nthat most officers avoid saluting whenever possible.  This guy was arrogant.  I have heard more than once that the most\ndangerous thing in Vietnam was a lieutenant with a map.  To this day I cringe when someone calls me\nsir.  \u201cSir\u201d is an address of\nrespect.  There weren\u2019t that many\nofficers that deserved my respect.  More\non that in later blogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, someone found me.\u00a0 I had orders to report to a different company and they were going to make me a cook.\u00a0 I think the company was 260th<\/sup> Quartermaster Battalion.\u00a0 It could have been the 180th<\/sup> for all I can remember.\u00a0 Cooks don\u2019t fall out.\u00a0 That was a plus.\u00a0 No more getting up early in the morning, unless I was on the morning shift.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember cooking anything.\u00a0 I did make some salads \u2013 Jell-O and lettuce wedges.\u00a0 We had two staff sergeants \u2013 one on each shift \u2013 that were chefs in the citizen life.\u00a0 One was from Baltimore, the other from Boston.\u00a0 They cooked just about everything.\u00a0 And it was great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramon Ortiz was from Texas, and Julio Ortiz was from Puerto\nRico.  They were not related.  Both spoke Spanish, but the dialect was so\ndifferent that neither could communicate well in their native language of\nSpanish.  The three of us showed up in\nthe mess hall about the same time.  Ramon\nand I became pretty good friends for a few months.  Although he was married, he set out to\nPetersburg every weekend and came back to tell me about the women with whom he\nhad sex.  He was a good-looking Hispanic\nwith oil-black hair combed neatly from front to back, a natural brown hue that\nlooked like a great suntan, straight pearly-white teeth, and piercing dark\neyes.  I don\u2019t doubt many women were\ninterested in him.  There were many women\nto be had in town if you weren\u2019t picky. \nI was.  Ramon and I did not hang\ntogether on weekends, unless we were working. \nI did not like going to Petersburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cooks who were not NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers)\nshare a large room.  There may have been\nabout 6-8 of us.  In the beginning, most\nof us were Privates and Privates-first-class. \nLater, most of us were Specialists 4th<\/sup> Class.  I no longer remember many names other than\nthe two Ortiz\u2019s, but one guy from North Carolina went home every other weekend\nto his wife and child.  He came back one\nSunday night and told this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He got off the bus from North Carolina at the Petersburg Bus\nStation and was waiting for the bus that went to Fort Lee.  He ordered a hamburger and sat down in a\nbooth to eat it.  A woman came to the\nbooth and sat down opposite him.  She\nasked him if he wanted to buy some pussy. \nHe asked \u201chow much\u201d it would cost. \nShe said five dollars.  His\nimmediate response was: \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with it?\u201d \nShe got up and left.  He wasn\u2019t\ngoing to have sex with her, and he wasn\u2019t trying to be a smart ass.  It was just his demeanor and the manner in\nwhich he carried on conversations.  A\nreal Southern boy.  His time was up and\nhe was honorably discharged not too long after I met him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a month or so of finding my new home in the mess\nhall, the Quartermaster Company was moving out of the building it had been in\nfor quite some time, and began operation on the 3rd<\/sup> floor of a\nmodern barracks a few blocks away.  The\nmess hall was on the ground floor.  The\nnew location would be my permanent home for the next 15-16 months in the Army.  It\u2019s also where most of the comical and\nunbelievable things happened to me and around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll continue in between some serious blogs and other\namusement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FYI:<\/strong>  Years\nlater, I would travel to Washington, DC and visit the Vietnam Memorial.  I had a list of the people with whom I served\nin basic training.  Not one name was on The\nWall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to graduation from basic training, orders came down from above. Before we were provided with individual orders, a permanent clerk in the company read from a list the MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) and next base assignment for each of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[670,668,672,671,669,667],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-first-fascom","tag-fort-lee-va","tag-harold-robbins","tag-leaning-shithouse","tag-military-occupational-specialty-mos","tag-petersburg-va"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}