Army Tales
I found serving in the peace time army of the 1980s to consist of periods of intense boredom followed by hard and stressful work, rinse and repeat, The best duty I ever had was at Ft. Hood (now Ft. Cavazos) in Texas. For a period of five months, I was assigned to headquarters company for the entire 2nd Armored Division. Many of the soldiers in the company had unique military occupational specialties such as cartographers who made maps. The rest of us were a hodge podge of skills, none of which we used since we were serving as drivers for the division staff from the commanding general on down. We also served as their body men which pretty much amounts to being their personal servants. I didn't mind. We also shared our barracks and chow hall with the Army band for the 2nd AD. Did you know the Army spends 500 million dollars a year on bands? Anyway, I worked for a very jovial Lt. Colonel in charge of integrating reserve component troops into the battle and training plan for the division. More on him later.
My time in division headquarters occurred before the big military spy scandals and those all involved Navy guys besides. To say that intelligence security was lax would be an understatement. I was a PFC (private first class) when I worked there. I had no security clearance and absolutely no need to know anything secret. My real military job was in the infantry as a mortar gunner. Well, one day one of the numerous staff majors came looking around for some free labor. He had to give a presentation not only to the division brass but also the Corps commanding general. This was long before there were laptops and projectors everywhere. What he had were slides printed on transparencies and he needed someone to flip them over on cue during his briefing. I had all the skills he needed, being able to stand up and shuffle paper but I in no way possessed the clearance to see what was on those slides. It didn't matter. He certainly wasn't going to flip them himself! We went together to the G2 (Intelligence) section, and he talked to some other officer while I stood there saying nothing. In the end I got a one-day temporary secret clearance to attend the briefing, be exposed to the information presented and flip those slides.
It wasn't two weeks later when another random officer came looking for me because he heard that I had carpentry skills. He wanted some map boards built in what they called the war room, essentially a giant safe containing the plans for the defense of western Europe by the 2nd and other Armored Divisions, tankers. There were secret and top-secret maps all over the walls and they were distinctly marked as such. It didn't matter. I got another temporary clearance granted and into the war room I went with lumber, sawhorses and a Craftsman tools.
In most of the Army the day begins with PT, physical training consisting of calisthenics and running, lots of running. The Lt Colonel I worked for didn't go in for all of that nonsense. He was a very competitive softball player. Different sections within division HQ formed softball teams and instead of doing pushups and sit-ups before work like the rest of the troops, we got to play softball five days a week, go back to the barracks for a shower and some chow and then we had to report for our real job. Never fear though. We also got an hour and a half for lunch. Our chow hall was one of the best on post because it's where all the brass went to eat when they weren't going to the Officer's Club for midday drinks.
I do not often wax nostalgic about my time in the military. I didn't like being separated from my family. I got stuck with some weird roommates in the barracks. The pay was really low back in those days, especially for lower rank enlisted troops with kids. I should have signed up for a different job than playing war. When I got out the best job I could find was working in a prison. Two of my children served and really capitalized on their military training. My son was a nuclear reactor operator on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and my daughter was an X-ray technician in a military hospital. They got good civilian jobs out that and that has always made me happy. I don't regret serving. I did get to see some cool places, like the Mojave Desert and meet some interesting people. I probably wouldn't do it again if I lived life over though.
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