YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW

War clouds was looming in Europe, and things was picking up.They were hiring in different plants. The United States was buildingsubmarines, boats, tanks, anything that could be used in the army forEngland; it was called lend lease at that time. Hitler was expandingall of his operations. He was getting greedy. He took Finland; thenhe went into the Netherlands. He took Czechoslovakia, and Englandwas really taking a beating. Germany had all kinds of airplanes,tanks, infantry, and everything. They were occupying France at thetime, and they pushed the British back into the English Channel atDunkirk. A lot of them was captured. Some of them got back acrossthe English Channel on any type of transportation that would float.The United States was furnishing them as much as they could, butRoosevelt decided he wouldn't put any American troops on foreignsoil.

On December 7th, 1941, I was driving down the road on 112on Sunday morning, and I heard a broadcast that the Japanese hadbombed Pearl Harbor. I was on second shift and heard that night thatRoosevelt was going to make a speech, so I pulled my car down tothe tipple where I was working, and we all turned the radio on in mycar and listened, and he declared war on Japan. Back then they hadthe draft where you would go in and stay eighteen months and thenyou would come out. Well, a lot of them had spent their eighteenmonths, but when he declared war, they froze that and wouldn't letthem out and they started drafting anybody from 18 to 44. And theywere throwing up training camps all over the United States. They wastemporary camps. They set up a Camp Campbell at Hopkinsville. Wealso had some forts: Ft. Sill, Oklahoma; Ft. Hood, Texas. Well, Ft.Knox, Kentucky had always been a fort where most of the tankersgot their experience—their training.

Mr. Connery talked to me. I had gotten promoted up to a washeroperator. He said, "Vernon, when you get your papers, you call meor come in the office and I'll get you a deferment because that jobyou have is essential to the defense." When I got my papers, I didn'tsay anything to him. I just went ahead and went for an examination.Pretty soon I got called. I was supposed to report the first of October,1942, to the induction center in Evansville. I went into the office andtalked to Mr. Connery and told him I didn't want a deferment; I wasgoing to go, and that was the same thing as volunteering.

He said, "Sit down. Let me talk to you a little bit. I'm a WorldWar I veteran, Vernon, and I got gassed while I was over there." Iknew that he was always short of breath and wheezed and coughed alot. He said, "Good luck to you, and when you get discharged, if youmake it, you come back to Norton Coal Corporation and you've gotyou a job; it'll be waiting for you."

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I went to Hopkinsville, caught the bus over there to Evansville,and we were all examined there at the Armory. That was a bunch ofwild people I'll tell you—all kinds: farmers, people that had workedat the bank, people who drove trucks. You name it and they were onthat bus. So we went to Evansville. I'll never forget the World Seriesball game was on. I don't remember who was playing even, but weall sat outside and waited for them to call us in. (Editor's note: St.Louis Cardinals were playing the New York Yankees. This was game2 of the series. St. Louis won this game—and the next 3—to take theseries 4-1).

When they called my name, I went in, and there was a captainsitting at his desk and a sergeant. I'd always smoked when I was alittle nervous. Naturally, I lit a cigarette. I looked over at the captain,and he said, "Give the gentleman an ashtray." So the sergeant tookthe ashtray and shoved it over to me. I said "thanks" and knockedmy ashes over in it. When I looked back at the captain, I could tellI did the wrong thing because his face was getting a little red, and Inoticed some veins standing out on the side of his neck, so boy, I dugthat cigarette out right then and I'm thinking, "You're getting closeold buddy. Close to the army, because I see right now that you're notrunning your life. They're running it for you." But anyhow we wentahead and had our examination. He asked the ones that were theredid they want to go ahead in that day or did they want to take fifteendays off. Well, my preference was to take fifteen days and go in onOctober 15, 1942

Meantime they put us in a room. Everybody smoked, so somebodygot the nerve to light a cigarette, and it got stomped out on the floor.When they came in to take us all out, they looked and seen themcigarette butts there. That's when the sergeant blew his stack andmade every one of us get down on our hands and knees and pick themcigarette butts up and put 'em in a container and then sweep the floor.

When we got ready to go, we got on a bus and started back toHopkinsville. At Henderson, there was a tavern over there that soldwine, beer, whatever people wanted, so the bus driver stopped at theinsistence of some of the guys on there. Everybody bought a bottle,so by the time we got almost to Hopkinsville some of them waswild drunk and some was half drunk and the rest of us.... I dranka little bit, but I had to stay sober because I had to meet somebodyat Hopkinsville to bring me back to the farm. That was quite anexperience to go over there and be examined and come back.

That fifteen days passed real quick. First thing I knowed I'd donerun around some, and I was flat broke. I'm standing down there inDawson with nothing but ravelings in my pockets, and during theweek every body else is working. I really felt low. But anyhow whenI got ready to go back on the fifteenth, Daddy give me twenty dollars,and we caught the bus again at Hopkinsville, and we was supposedto go to Ft. Harrison in Indianapolis to the separation center afterwe went to Evansville down on Fulton Avenue to the depot. Thatwas the first time that I'd ever eat any army food, and that evening Inever will forget they had sauerkraut and wieners. That's what theyprepared for a bunch of people.

After we got through eating, they put us on a train and headed forFt. Benjamin Harrison at Indianapolis. We got there that night aroundeleven, and they started lining us up for a physical examinationbefore we went in to our barracks. The night was cool; we stood outin the rain and finally got inside. They was separating us; the onesthat had venereal disease they put over to the side, and the ones thatpassed was allowed to group up and be took to a barracks aroundthree-thirty.

We still had our civilian clothes; we never had been issued anyarmy clothes. I thought, "Man, they're going to let us sleep 'til ten oreleven o'clock tomorrow being's we's up all night."

The first thing I heard the next morning was a whistle blowingand someone hollering "hit the deck." We all jumped up, put ourclothes on, and they took us out before daylight to the mess hall.They let non-coms and all the officers eat first because they had totake us and process us. I never will forget there was a rookie thatjumped out and saluted the sergeant as he come out, and he stoppedand looked at him and said, "Son, you don't salute a sergeant, andyou don't salute nobody when you're in a line. You don't even have tosalute an officer when you're lined up." I seen right then we's goingto have some eager beavers.

We went on and ate and come back. They told us we was going toget our uniforms and our clothes issued over at the supply room. Atleast two sergeants and a couple of corporals was guiding us, showingus where to go. We started down a line, and they started giving usour uniforms, which included a shirt, socks, pants, two pair of shoes,caps, and raincoats, and all that jazz. They had two bags that you wassupposed to stuff them in. One was an "A" bag made out of denim,and the "B" bag was made out of khaki. We put that stuff in them,and then we got back to the barracks. The two bags was pretty heavy.They give us a box and told us to take our civilian clothes, shoes, andeverything we had, even our underwear, (which I wouldn't have doneif I'd known what I know now) and put them in the box.

When I put my uniform on, they only had two sizes—one toobig and one too little. Naturally, weighing 135 pounds and 5'7''everything was too big, but you rolled your sleeves up and your pantsand made do until you could get back later and trade with somebodyin the barracks and get clothes that would about half way fit you.

They put us on a detail out there; we were building walks out ofgravel. We used two by fours and gravel from a gravel pit not far fromcamp. Dump trucks loaded up and come back in and dumped it. We'dsmooth it out and make the walks. Every morning there would bepeople shipping out to different camps to permanent units. I'd go outevery morning and they wouldn't call my name. I was an alternate.In case one of the other guys didn't show up, I had to go. Every daythey'd go, so we went back to the camp. The sergeant said, "Vernon,looks like you're going to be stuck with us for a few days." He didn'tcall me "Vernon," I take that back. He called me "Private Parker," andhe said, "I'm going to make you acting corporal because you've beenworking on all these walks and you know where things go. A lot ofthese boys are new and you'll have to show them. Boy, he handed methat arm band with two stripes on it, and I thought, "Well, looka here,I ain't been in the army eight days and I've done made corporal!"

We was working pretty smooth there; then one morning theycalled my name to report down to the deportation area. When I gotdown there, they started calling our names to go load on a train. Youhad to carry your "A" and "B" bag. They had draw strings on 'em;and weighed about seventy pounds apiece—maybe not that much.There was one short, little fat guy in there I'll never forget. We startedmarching down there to the train and he said, "Sergeant, I can't carrythese damn things." The sergeant looked at him a minute and said,"If you can't carry them, drag them." He didn't go over and help himdo nothing. Anyhow, we got on the train and loaded up. Everyone'sname was called to make sure we all got on. I don't know how longit was before they served us lunch: wieners and sauerkraut again.

The train pulled out, and that night when it got dark, we didn'thave no berths or anything. We had to sleep in our seats like sardinesin a can. Next morning I woke up and looked out and saw licenseplates with Illinois and maybe Missouri on them. Pretty soon I seenTexas on an old car. I said, "Oh no, there's a lot of camps in Texas;that's where we're headed." That night we set in our seats and slept.The next morning I looked out, and we were still in Texas. That wenton for two days and nights. I thought, "This is a pretty good sizestate." I knew Texas had always been bragged on for how big it was.

Anyhow, the third or fourth night we got down to a siding andthey pushed us off. They unloaded all our "A" and "B" bags intoa big dump truck. The driver pulled out into the middle of a field.We marched up there to him and he said, "Every person has to findhis own bag." They was running in there grabbing and pulling andlooking for their name stenciled on it and their serial number, and Ithought, "Well, if I stand around here a little bit, they'll be findingtheir own, and pretty soon I won't have very many to go through."And that's exactly what happened. When it got down to fifteen ortwenty, it wasn't too much trouble to find my bag, so I did, andthey had trucks there to take us back to camp. We were assigned toMedical Unit 66, Medical Corps.

When we got to Camp Barkeley, Texas, it was late again in thenight and they had little huts lined up that held sixteen men to the hut.On one end they had a black tarpaulin building; they called that thelatrine. Next to the street they had another tar paper building whichwas bigger than all the rest of them. It was called the mess hall.

When we went into our huts that we were assigned to, therewasn't anything there but cots. Later they come driving up, andthey had a load of mattresses. There was no sheets and no pillow oranything. So we put the mattress on there and slept on that mattressthe first night.

The next morning it was so crowded. We were in B Company.A Company was to our left. They took one row of ours and half ofanother one. We took that half and we caught one more full row.When guys were falling out toward daylight, it was dark and I runout and wasn't familiar with any of the sergeants and didn't knowtheir names or anything. When I seen them falling in, I did too. Well,what had happened was we had half and half, and I was in the ACompany! Then I heard the First Sergeant calling "Parker, Parker" soI cut out and ran across the field and fell in. He said, "Parker. Late thefirst morning. I'll have to remember that name." I thought to myself,"I'd just as soon you'd forget it." But anyhow that was our first day,so they started giving us orientation, showing us about the campwhere the PX was, where the theater was, the mess halls, and otherlatrines where you could wash and clean up. That day we familiarizedourselves pretty well with the layout of the camp.

On the second day they divided us into platoons. I forget nowhow many sergeants, how many corporals. The rest of us all privates.They sent a cadre in from Mt. Forest, Tennessee to train us. Our firstsergeant was regular army. He'd been in and made a career out of it.He was strictly GI—really tough. We started drill and getting moreexperience. Come Friday or Saturday we had inspection, and all thethings we had been issued had to be laid out in an orderly manneron our cots. That's when I realized I wished I'd never worn theirunderwear because the only facilities we had to wash our clotheswas down in a sink where we'd shaved. When you took a shower, youput your pants over what we called duckboards and stood on them,and while you was showering, they was getting wet and soapy, andthen you rinsed them out. On that day when we had our inspection,nearly all of us failed because we had used their clothes. Right awayI seen that them should be kept as new as we could for inspection.That was the first week. That was the last time I ever displayed anysocks, handkerchiefs, or underwear that I had worn.

I was getting kind of used to it. After we settled in at CampBarkeley, we started a routine of things that had to be done in order toget us lined out properly. We had to have shots. We were all quarantinedfor ten days and not allowed to leave camp. After the ten days was up,most of us didn't have any money anyhow and hadn't been paid, butwhen we got our paycheck we could go to town, which was Abilene,the nearest place to go, and it was a college town. Sounds pretty good,but the only bad part about it was when you got ready to go, you hadto line up to catch a bus and stand in line for an hour. By the timeyou got ready to step on, they closed the door or it was packed fulland aisles was full of people standing so you waited for the next bus.

Then you went to town. You could go to the USO. They had booksand a few things, and you could get free coffee. If you wanted to goto the theater, you would stand in line, and when you got in, you'd beright in the middle of the show so you would stay until it was over;then you would stay and continue until you got to the part where youfirst came in. As soon as it was over, you had to get up and get out.

Then if you wanted to go to a restaurant, you would stand in lineagain for forty-five minutes at least. After you got in the restaurantand ordered a steak and finished eating, the manager was standingthere, so you didn't stand around and talk and you didn't sit there andsmoke. As soon as you finished eating, he ushered you outside, andyou went and stood in line to catch a bus back to camp.

After a while I got where I didn't really care about going becauseit was too much waiting and standing 'til you didn't really enjoy it.Places were there in the camp where we could get cokes and candyso a lot of times we'd just hang around. We had a day room wherelater we bought a radio (there wasn't no TV's back then), and we'dplay cards and set around and talk. It was quite a bit of an experience.

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We got a training schedule set up. You'd look on a bulletinboard by the CQ headquarters, and you'd find out what you was goingto be doing the following week.

The funniest part of it was the close order drill. I used to really geta kick out of it. We were all green. None of us knew anything aboutclose order drills and the routine of training. A lot of the soldiersdidn't have any co-ordination. They'd start marching, and one wouldbe out of step. He'd be taking long steps and the next one would betaking short steps, and we would just wind up in a tangled mess. Thesergeant would let us fall out and start again. Later we got pretty goodat it where we could stay in step. There was different orders you couldget to turn and reverse or whatever.