each week was spent clipping horses at the stables. The horses weren't clipped in the winter, except for roaching manes. It was possible to get hurt clipping horses, too, because many of them didn't like it, but those who fought the idea were held still with ear or nose twitches.
Since I was broke, I didn't take any Saturday passes. I was waiting for payday, but payday came as a shock. Payday was a holiday, but it was a cavalry-style payday, meaning that we had to groom horses from 7:30 to 9:30 A.M. before marching back to the troop area for pay call.
Sergeant Brasely made his famous payday speech, and as I learned later, it was the same lecture every payday.
"If you're going to get drunk, get drunk. If you're going to get fucked, get fucked. But whatever you do, don't get drunk and fucked. If you do, you won't take precautions, and if you d0n't take precautions, you'll get a dose of clap. Some men'll tell you that a dose of clap's no worse than a bad cold. That's a goddamned lie. You'll be told by some men that they've had eight doses of clap and got rid of every dose but the first one. That's closer to the truth. Clap will make an old man out of you before you're thirty. So just remember the simple rule. If you're going to get drunk, get drunk. If you're going to get fucked, get fucked. But don't get drunk and get fucked at the same time!" .
Parker, the actor, was appalled by the first sergeant's speech. He had never heard anyone talk like that before, using such strong language. I told him if he ever got the clap and had to see Sergeant Brasely, he would probably hear language a lot stronger than that.
The shock came when we went through the pay line. Except for a book of show tickets ($1.20), laundry ($1.50), and dry cleaning ($2.00), and 25¢ for the old Soldiers' Home, I had a good chunk of pay coming to me. To my surprise, I was only handed $1.50.
"There's been some kind of mistake, Sergeant Brasely," I said.
"Not at all. The rest of your pay will be held until you finish basic. Step back a pace, salute the captain, and get the fuck out of the orderly room."
Back in the squad-room, Furler, Micaloni, and I met and talked about the situation. We had all received just $1.50. When pay call was over Corporal Royale gathered the platoon together and explained:
"Everyone gets a buck-fifty, and that's all. That's for your toilet articles, and if you smoke, Bull Durham. The rest of your money will be held in the troop safe. At the end of ninety days, when you finish basic, you'll all be given a three-day pass and the rest of your money. On the tenth, for those who feel the need, I'll be able to issue you a three-dollar book of canteen checks. But that's the way we work it here."
"That's one thing you can't do," Furler said angrily. "Hold back a man's pay. I'm entitled to my pay and I want it."
"That's tough shit," Corporal Royale said.
"He's right, Corporal," I said. "You really can't hold a man's pay for him against his will. There're regulations against it."
"But we're doing it," Corporal Royale said. "Any more questions before I give out passes?"
"Does the captain know about this?" Micaloni asked. Corporal Royale smiled and shook his head. "Do you think, you fucking wop, that we could withhold your pay `thout the captain knowing about it? I know how you feel now, but I'll tell you one thing: when you get your three-day pass and three months' pay at the end of basic training you'll thank me for holding it for you. So smile as you come by me now to get your pass, or I'll tear up your fucking pass."
I smiled when I took my pass, although I didn't think I would use it. After lunch I slept all afternoon. Then I borrowed a dollar from Parker, whose mother sent him money in every letter she wrote to him from Glendale, and I went into town with Micaloni and Furler. We each bought a package of tailor-mades, Dominoes for ten cents a pack, and then went down to Cannery Row. The sardine factories were in full operation, as they would be until midnight or later. At the first factory, where there was a covered overhead conveyor belt from one building to another, we started wheedling sardines, calling up to the sardine queens. These women ignored us at first, but they finally weakened and tossed down twelve cans of sardines.
We bought some onions, three loaves of Italian bread, and a gallon of zinfandel at the Chinaman's store on the Row, and went down to the curving Monterey beach. We built a driftwood fire, tore the insides out of the loaves of bread, and packed the loaves with layers of chopped onions and sardines. Sitting around the fire, we ate the sandwiches and drank the wine. It turned out to be a very pleasant payday, even though we didn't have enough money to get laid.
"This sure as hell beats the marines," Furler said. "My ass is sore as a boil from riding, but at least they don't have us on a four-on, eight-off schedule. That's something I never got used to in the marines. A four-hour watch, followed by eight hours off, sounds easy enough, but it isn't. You always have a lot of things to do during your off hours, and then, there you are, back on another four-hour watch before you know it. Except when I was on leave, I never had enough sleep. The four-on, eigh-off just goes on and on, month after month, and you think you'll go crazy."
We had plenty of things to talk about, as the wine loosened us up a little. None of us had thought that our training would be so hard, for one thing, or that Corporal Royale could get away with so much. For example, when Shimer moved his head while executing a right shoulder arms, Corporal Royale hit Shimer in the back of the head with a rifle butt, knocking the kid unconscious.
"He shouldn't be allowed to get away with shit like that," Micaloni said.
"In boot camp, anything goes," Furler said. "In a lot of ways, it was much worse than this at Parris Island. None of our D.I.'s ever hit anyone with a rifle butt, but they did things like making a man dig a six-by-six-foot hole to bury a cigarette butt. Here, at least, there's no chickenshit.
Everything's done for a man's own good. You'll notice that no one ever moves his head any longer when we go through the manual of arms. Sometimes a hard lesson is a good one for everybody."
"As long as it was Shimer," I said, "and not one of us."
We laughed at that. The wine had mellowed us, and the juicy sandwiches and the crackling fire had made us a little sleepy. Although we had all complained at first about the nine P.M. bedcheck, we were so fatigued each night that we were all ready for bed before nine. So at nine-thirty we kicked out the fire and made the long climb back up the hill to Machine Gun Troop.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE FIRST MONTH OF TRAINING WAS THE HARDEST. After a week with just a blanket and surcingle we got to put on our saddles, but without stirrups. The third week we were allowed to put the stirrups on the saddles, and what a difference they made!
"Stirrups," Corporal Royale said, "mark the beginning of modern warfare. Before stirrups were invented, men couldn't wear armor. And then, after armor was invented, someone had to invent gunpowder to blast through the armor. So stirrups were the tuming point for professional warfare. Now, kick your feet out of your stirrups again, pick up a slow trot, and I'll check for the correct length."
We could all ride at a normal trot now without falling off our horses. But from time to time we still had to ride at, a slow trot without stirrups. Then, after we got into posting, we discovered that we all had to tighten our stirrup straps another notch because we were learning the forward seat, the seat developed by Colonel Chamberlain at Fort Riley, Kansas. With your back arched, and leaning forward slightly, and with your shoulders pulled back, it seemed like an unnatural position at first. But once you learned how to do it, it was not tiring, and it was quite comfortable.
With shortened stirrups, and with your heels down, your knees were almost welded to the saddle skirt. We also added the curb bit and chain to our bridles, which meant an extra set of reins. We had to learn how to hold four reins with one hand, and with both hands. If, by chance, a man didn't have the four reins held correctly in the ring, Corporal Royale would ride alongside of him and knock him off his horse with a blow to the neck. I was never knocked off, but Hammond, Burns, and Wilcox were knocked off on
the first day we had four reins.
We learned various drill formations, in and out of the ring, and some basic dressage. We had to learn how to make our horses go sideways, backwards, and take diagonals; and to mount and dismount from the off side as well as the near side. Then, while one man led our horse, we had to run beside him and mount at the trot. By the fourth week we were taking long rides through the woods, staying four feet from head to croup as we rode in a column of twos, and learning how to duck tree limbs. (A horse doesn't give a damn; he will ignore the fact that you're on his back and scrape you off if he can when there's a low-hanging limb.)
Trotting at nine miles per hour (an extended trot) was hard on the kidneys. After six weeks of riding I noticed that I was pissing blood in the morning. I wasn't the only one in my squad, so I mentioned it to Corporal Royale.
"Don't worry about it," he told us. "If you weren't pissing a little blood by now, after six weeks, I'd worry that you were doing something wrong. Your kidneys are settling down, that's all, and so are your other organs. You're going to have lower back pain, too, and that's to be expected. But after six months or so, every internal organ will shake down nicely and you'll no longer be bothered. You ass won't hurt, either, unless we ride twenty-five or thirty miles in one day, as we do when we go on maneuvers."
I was reassured, but not much. It hurt my back to bend over in the mornings to lace up my boots, and it's scary to have blood in your urine. I didn't relish the idea of having a sore ass for six months, either. But at least we knew that there was nothing physically wrong with us.
In the evening our recruit platoon had to stand retreat at five P.M. , although the regular troops did not. Our rifles were inspected and Corporal Royale looked over our uniforms. If a button was inadvertently left unbuttoned, he cut it off with his penknife and handed it back to sew on again before the next formation. Our boots, now dyed cordovan, had to be polished as well. We were off duty on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, just like the other troopers on straight duty, but if a man was gigged at these retreat formations, he had to clip horses on Wednesday or Saturday aftemoon as punishment.
After the eighth week, however, Sergeant Brasely inspected the platoon only one night at retreat, and after that he excused Furler, Micaloni, and me from the daily retreat formations. We were P.S. men, so we were given this small privilege during our last four weeks of training.
We ate at live-thirty, but supper was usually light because the big meal each day was at noon. If you ate a big dinner, you weren't very hungry at supper. But by eight-thirty or later a man would get hungry again, and it was tough to be broke and hungry at the same time. There was a small off-post café down the alley about three hundred yards away from the barracks. It was possible to slip through the fence at this point and get to the café. There were four small tables and a counter without stools, and the old lady who ran the place would give a man jawbone, up to one dollar a month. I got jawbone there the second month of training, but when the tenth of the month came around I had to pay Parker back the dollar I owed him. After paying Parker I only had one dollar in canteen checks left, and I needed that for Bull Durham and a new chin strap for my campaign hat. Because I still owed the old harridan a dollar, I could no longer go to the café at night, and I would hallucinate about her ten-cent hamburgers, piled high with fried onions, sliced tomatoes, and mayonnaise. At these times I truly resented the withholding of my pay. Some guys, if there happened to be fruit for supper, would sneak out an apple or an orange to eat later. But if the mess sergeant, "Thin Slice" Nevell, caught you, he'd gig you.
Thin Slice Nevell wasn't our regular mess sergeant. Our regular mess sergeant, "Hambone" Jones, was on a ninety-day re-enlistment furlough. Sergeant Nevell was a section leader, the junior sergeant in the troop, and he was filling in until Jones got back. In the cavalry, if a man has three stripes, he is expected to do any job that calls for three stripes. However, except for the first two weeks of each month, Sergeant Nevell didn't do a very good job of feeding us.
There were 120-some-odd men in the troop, and the mess sergeant was allowed forty-three cents a day for each man in ration money. He was given this money on the first of each month, and we ate very well at the beginning. Then, by the third week, when Sergeant Nevell realized he was running short, either through inept management or by feeding us too well during the first week, the meals became starchier and skimpier, and meat practically disappeared. During the last week he was big on beans, artichokes, and mashed potatoes, and instead of roast beef or pork chops for dinner he served fried baloney slices. It was easy enough to see how Nevell had earned his nickname. But he got better at it as time went along, and on Fridays he always served us abalone steaks instead of fish. Very few soldiers like fish, but it's traditional to serve fish on Fridays because of the Catholics. By serving us abalone instead, he maintained the seafood tradition and made everybody happy.
***
BECAUSE WE WERE STILL IN RECRUIT TRAINING WE WERE excused from K.P., but not from all other troop details. In addition to clipping horses, which was considered part of our training, we often had to groom the horses that hadn't been exercised in the morning.
One Thursday afternoon Wilcox and I had to help the stable orderly, a P.F.C. named Hampe, unload the semi-trailer of hay and straw and stack it in the barn next to the stables. Hampe had a harelip, partially concealed by a ratty moustache, and it wasn't always easy to understand his garbled instructions. But we watched him closely and tried to handle our hay hooks the way he did. A bale of hay is 240 pounds, and a bale of straw is 120 pounds. Unloading the straw bales wasn't all that hard because a man can manhandle 120 pounds without too much trouble, but with the hay bales it was a different matter. The idea is to let the bale itself do most of the work and merely act as its guide, so to speak. Hampe, who had more muscles than brains, handled his hay hook with genuine artistry. He would knee a 240-pound bale of hay off the truck bed, jump down while the bale was still in midair, and then sort of dance the bale into the barn, steadying it here and there with his hook the way a male dancer handles a twirling ballerina. Once inside the barn, these bales had to be piled right up to the ceiling, and once again, when Hampe used his hay hook, it looked as if these bales were anxious to climb up there to please him. I got better at it before the afternoon was over, but Wilcox, the poor fucking Mormon, almost broke his back and strained a muscle in his side so bad that Hampe made him lie down for a half hour before continuing work. That night, after a long, hot shower, I was so stiff and sore I went to bed at six-thirty and didn't
move a muscle until the next morning.
I mention this hay detail because I'm certain that Hampe also put in a good word for me with the stable sergeant, telling him that I was a willing worker, and that was one more reason I ended up as Wheeler's replacement shoeing horses. As a stable orderly, Hampe worked a seven-day week. He was directly responsible for feeding all 160 horses, although the other members of the stable gang helped him hay and alfalfa them in the afternoon, and they also helped him muck out in the mornings. But Hampe was the only one who fed them oats twice a day, and he had to drive the wagonload of manure down to the railroad spur line and unload it onto the gondola. Using a pitchfork to throw heavy loads of straw-filled horseshit up on top of a gondola was a two-hour job, not counting the time it took to harness both draft horses to the wagon and drive down to the spur line in Monterey. Then when he got back, he had to unharness the horses, groom them, clean all of the hamess equipment, and wash the wagon. No one ever saw Hampe standing still. because he always had something to do, and he never got a day off. But the T.O. slot for stable orderly called for P.F.C., and a guy like Hampe, with his harelip, would never be able to get a promotion doing straight duty because it was next to impossible to understand what he was talking about—at least until you got used to him.
By the end of ten weeks I knew how to ride a horse. I still had a long way to go, and I knew it, but I was confident that I could stay on an
animal, and I could jump the two-foot jumps without fear. I was anxious to try three-foot jumps, but Chesty wasn't that much of a jumper. Chesty was about 1200 pounds, and I was 165, so I had to ride him to get him over the two-foot jumps. The stubby G.I. spurs we had started wearing at the end of six weeks of training were a great help. When you wanted to move from a walk to an extended trot or a light canter, they made all the difference.
As our training drew to a close we talked about where we would go and what we'd do on our three—day pass. Parker invited me to go down to Glendale with him and stay at his house, but I turned him down. Micaloni and I agreed to go to Salinas together instead, rent a hotel room, and spend our money on whores, steaks, and bourbon.
Micaloni, after his two years on the concrete battleship in the middle of Manila Bay, wanted to make up for his deprivation, and I didn't want to spend most of my three days hitchhiking back and forth from L.A. A three-day pass was just that, because they didn't give us the weekend with it, which would have meant five days. We had exactly from six A.M. Monday until Thursday morning at six.
Before basic ended I had asked Corporal Royale if I could be assigned to his regular squad when training was over. It wasn't just a matter of picking a bastard you know over a bastard you don't know, it was something I had thought out. In a machine gun squad there are seven men or more: the corporal, squad leader; the number one gunner, a P.F.C.; the number two gunner, assistant, sixth class specialist; the number three, ammo carrier, private; and three horseholders, all privates. I had already figured out that Corporal Royale was next in line for the first available sergeancy as a section leader (in charge of two machine gun squads). When Corporal Royale was promoted, "Tootie" Colwell, the number one gunner in his squad, would probably make corporal. That would leave the number one gunner's spot up for grabs. Skinner, Royale's number two gunner, had failed to qualify on the machine gun during the last range season, and there was no way that they would make him a number one. In the day-room there were a dozen cavalry field manuals, and when I had nothing better to do I had been reading them. I read and reread the manuals on the .30 and .50 caliber machine guns. I had already memorized the parts of the machine gums, the gunner's rule, and the leader's rule, and I was determined to make expert on both machine guns when the time came to go to the range again. If Royale made sergeant, and if Tootie Colwell made corporal, and if I happened to be in that squad, I wanted to be the number one gunner and get that P.F.C. stripe.
Something About a Soldier - Charles Willeford Page 22