Sometimes We Laugh, Sometimes We Cry, part 2
Many of them werre away from home for the first time in thheir lives; no wonder they missed Mom's cooking. One of them put it into a little song that he sang, accompanying himself on the guitar. He called it:
GI GRUB
You can talk about our GI grub,
As much as you doggone please,
But it would be a sacrilege
If you spoke of it on your knees.
The spuds are never done enough,
Or they're done too much, it seems;
And the gravy either will not pour,
Or it runs in enormous streams.
The cakes are tough and soggy;
You miust chew with might and main;
And after you've eaten plenty,
You never feel the same.
The worst of all is the GI stew,
It spoils your appetite;
And what's supposed to be the meat,
Might pass for meat at night.
And when we do get a little steak,
The solution of the mystery---,
Some tough old bull got tired of life,
And died in misery.
The chicken is always served half done,
The worst I ever ate;
Kicked gravy all over my trousers,
And tap-danced on my plate.
But GI Grub will fatten you,
And that's one consolation;
For if you don't gain naturally,
You gain by constipation.
We may not have liked all the details, but the CCC got the job done anyway.
There were a couple of years in between the CCC and my first extended military duty. I had been at Scobey, Montana, as pastor only a few weeks when the first call came requesting me to take a year's training with the Army. It was a telephone call, and the man told me what an interesting and even entertaining assignment it would be, and the thrilling experiences I would have. He emphasized the educational value of it all, then went on to tell me about the pleasant surroundings and especially the wonderful climate I would enjoy at Camp Roberts.
I hope that God is especially merciful to people who were careless with the truth in order to lure Reserve Officers into taking active duty training in those days; because if He isn't, I'm sure that that man is still trying to get the smell of sulphur smoke out of his hair.
I didn't have to go if I didn't want to, and I didn't want to. So I stayed on with my church until the next summer. I really had no idea, at that time, that I would ever be an Army chaplain. But during that winter Congress changed the situation. This time they didn't call to ask if I would like to go; this time it was a telegram, and it read: "You will report for duty at Camp San Luis Obispo, July 7, 1941." I didn't notice it at the time but that was the day Japan invaded China, and the United States troops landed in Iceland. There was a war on!
I requested a stay of seven days so that I could attend the Annual Conference of my church which met in Bozeman that year. Washington was so generous that I was granted fourteen days instead of seven, and there I was with an extra week, enroute with my family, and no money. I don't know how we would have made out except for a member of the church in Bozeman who gave me a job pitching hay on his farm for a few days. Whenever things get to going badly, even to this day, I just think of those blisters---and right-away I don't feel so bad.
So we drove on from Bozeman to Camp San Luis Obispo. On the way we got to thinking about what we had heard of living conditions near the Army installations. Housing was at a premium, we were told; we would have a hard time finding accommodations for my wife and the two boys who were still at home. So we stopped in Pocatello, Idaho, bought a trailer, pulled it to the Coast, and parked it at Pismo Beach. There, and later in Fort Lewis and several locations around Los Angeles, that little trailer was what we thought of when we spoke of "home" during the next five years.
Of course it is true that as I write I am seeing it all backward. We didn't know then that it would be five years. They called it "One year, Active Duty Training." It was the longest "one year" in the experience of any of us who were in it. But it had to be done, and we were elected to do it.
As I think of it now, I realize that those first few months were more wonderful than they seemed at the time. Chaplains gave lectures on morals, as a part of the indoctrination of the civilian soldiers. We did counseling on personal problems. We also led song fests and otherwise helped with recreation, for in those days there was as yet no provision for what later came to be known as the Special Services Division. Morale was as important as morals, and somehow they seemed to go together. And, of course, conducting religious services on Sunday was of primary importance.
Attendance was always a problem. We had beautiful chapels and fine equipment in the camps, but somehow I couldn't understand why, from a regiment of some 3,000 men, we couldn't seem to get more than 40 or 50 out to the Sunday service.
I said something about it to the sergeant-major one day. He was an old Regular ARmy man, and wise in the ways of the Military.
"Chaplain," he said, "you've got to figure it by the numbers. You know what I mean?"
"No," I said. "I don't believe I do. The only number I knnow about are the three thousand men in the regiment, and the forty or fifty that I see in church on Sunday."
"But there are some numbers in between," he offered. "They may not solve your problem, but if they can explain a part of it maybe it will help some."
I told him I would be glad to figure it by the numbers if he would show me how.
"O.K.," he said, "here is how ou do it. It takes four hundred and fifty men for the work details, no matter whether it is Sudnay or any other day, and about and hundred and fifty will be on sick call. that takes off six hundred. But the big number are the seventy-five percent who are on weekend pass. And that twenty-two hundred and fifty, added to your six hundred who are either working or sick, makes twenty-eight hundred and fifty tied up and leaves only a hundred and fifty to go to church. Of course, forty percent are of other faiths than yours---Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, and so on.
"Now you are down to seventy, and at least 20 of them are doing their laundry. As for the other fifty you and I both know, Chaplain, that half of them will be playing cards or shooting craps, and the other half are just too d--- lazy to get out of their bunks. When you figure it by the numbers, I think you are doing pretty well, Chaplain."
I still think the sergeant-major was pulling my leg, and if you can find where he made his mistakes you tell him about it. I do know that some of those numbers made trouble for other chaplains. Take for example the seventy five percent on weekend passes. That is where they were on December 7th, when Pearl Harbor was bombed and we got orders to move out immediately. We were to guard the area along the coast, north and south of Los Angeles.
I don't know how we did it; but we grabbed what we had to have, left the rest, and hoped someone would get it to us later. We got word to the men on pass by phone, by radio, and by special newspaper editions that all passes were cancelled and that all personnel should report to their units at once. Some made it before we left camp; others caught up with us in the convoy, and some made their own way claer to Los Angeles before they got back to duty. But in forty-eight hours we were guarding nearly a hundred and sixty miles sof coast line, some two hundred and fifty miles from where we started. Figure it by the numbers or any way you want; I say it was a job well done, and I was proud to belong to the outfit.
The first campsite for our regiment was in an orange grove out east of Los Angeles. It was good cover. No one could have told from the air that there was a regiment of soldiers under the trees. It was here that we first began to miss the PX privileges we had known in camp. You want to buy some razor blades or a pack of cigarettes or maybe just a bar of candy, and there is a store just across the street where they are for sale but you are restricted to the area and can't go across the street. It seemed silly but it had to be that way. We were ready to move out on thirty minutes' notice.
So this became one of the problems the men brought to the chaplain. And first thing I know, I was running errands for them. But it was getting out of hand, so I borrowed a civilian truck and brought the stuff in wholesale. I sold it as near what it cost as I could, but almost before I knew it I had several hundred dollars profit. I didn't know that to do about it, so I went and asked the CO.
"Colonel," I said, "I just wanted to do a good turn for a few of the boys, but this is getting on top of me. What shall I do with this money--how and to whom shall I report it?"
"Good heavens, Chaplain," he groaned, "don't report it to anybody, or you'll have us both in the penitentiary. Just get rid of it--and fast. I don't want to hear any more about it."
Well, there was one thing that needed to be done. No one had had a haricut for a month, and some of the fellows liooked like the Beatles--if there had been Beatles in those days. So we bought a lot of electric clippers, some barber shears and cloths, and got a barber college to donate some old barber chairs. We equipped some army trucks as barber shops on wheels, and provided free haricuts for every man in the regiment. I don't think it saved any souls, but it saved a lot of face and improved the appearance of the outfit a thousand percent.
Christmas was a bad day that year. We had moved over into Centennella Park and were still on an immediate alert . Even the men who liverd right there, within a few miles of camp, could not go home. We could have cleared the whole area and have been on our way in thirty minutes if a call had come. But it didn't come. So there we sat, waiting for nothing, everybody cussing his and everybody else's luck There was a light snow on the ground and rain in the air and we slithered around in the slush and shivered in the cold.
Then a big car drove up with a bigger trailer on behind. The trailer was full of fresh oranges. Out of the car came Billie Gilbert, the comedian, with his wife and her sister, and some other people from show business. They brought out boxes and boxes of homemade cookies, how many thousands, I don't know. And they went from company to company and distributed the presents, while Billie put on his funny routine with the big sneeze--which was especially appropriate in that weather.
And they didn't rush off. They stayed the day. "It's all right, Chaplain," Gilbert said. 'This is only one day. These boys will be putting in a lot more days for us." And sure enough we did.
Another time was over in Santa Monica. We were in one of the city parks there. There was to be a big-name variety show in the junior college auditorium. Tickets were to be sold to the public, the proceeds to to to the Soldiers Relief Fund. But something went wrong with the publicity, and the tickets weren't even printed.
I hadn't heard about it myself until a few hours before time for the show to begin. I got together a few before time fo the show to begin. I got together a few men and we took a truck to the auditorium. It would seat maybe three thousand, but nobody was there--nobody, that is, exceptt a handful of soldiers and a wonderful group of show people. I am sorry I cannot recall who they all were, but two stand out in my memory. I went backstage to the dressing rooms to say that I was sorry for what had happened, or for what had failed to happen. I didn't know whose fault it was, but someone had goofed.
"No one will blame you,"I told them "if you just go home disgusted. But there are two or three hundred servicemen here who will be mighty happy if you want to go ahead and give them a show."
They looked around at each other for a moment, and then Mr. Charles Laughton, of noble memory, said to Mr. Skelton, "What do you say, Red?"
And Red Skelton answered with a grin, "H---, lets' give 'm a show!"
So they did. And what a show! And I'll bet those few hundred fellows out front gave more applause than if the place had been packed with paying patrons.
And it was the same after we went overseas. These heroes of the entertainment world followed us into desolation and danger, careless of their own comfort and safety, doing their best to remind us that whatever the surroundings there is a place for a smile in every situation. I saw Joe E. Brown on Maui less than a year afer he had lost hs own son in battle and again three years later in Manila, still making merry and helping every one he met feel ten feet tall and that his job was really important.
This earliest duty in the Los Angeles area was nothing to be compared with what was to come later, but it was new and strange and we were unaccustomed to it. The installations, both military and industrial, for which we were responsible, were widely scattered. Chaplains found that many men could not come to church, so they too the church to the men. On one Sunday, I drove two hundred and sixty five miles and held short services in thirteen different places for groups of four to forty men. They were very informal. I used my accordion much as I had done back in the CCC days. We sang a little; we prayed a lot; but only a little aloud; and I kept my sermons short and to the point. Religion was coming to be more real than many of us had ever realized before. We weren't kidding now.
NEXT: Moving forward to danger.
