Called to Controversy

by Ruth Rosen

  Moishe stared at him for a moment, then swallowed hard and said, “You tell anybody what I did, and I’ll tell them why. I’ll tell them what you’ve been saying, how you’ve been keeping my mail from me. Maybe some of the guys will back me up.”

  Whether it was fear of exposure or a decision to chalk up the beating as retribution for weeks of harassment, the sergeant didn’t report Moishe, nor did he bother him again. His only revenge was to assign the teenager to guard the motor pool for thirty-six straight hours the next day. Halfway through that triple shift, Moishe fainted and ended up in the hospital with exhaustion, but he knew the entire incident could have ended in a far worse scenario. Before long, he found the memory of his violent outburst sickening, and it engendered an abhorrence for fighting that remained with him for the rest of his life.

  Moishe hadn’t bothered to tell his parents when he signed up for the National Guard. They were accustomed to seeing him in uniform—he’d been participating with the ROTC since he was fourteen. They could hardly be blamed if they didn’t notice the difference between Moishe’s activities with ROTC and the National Guard. The uniforms were identical except for the color of the piping on the service caps. All Ben and Rose knew—from what Moishe told them and what they could observe—was that his extracurricular activities with the military were teaching him discipline and building his confidence.

  From the start, Moishe enjoyed his training. His high school, like many others at the time, offered students a choice between gym class and ROTC. Since Moishe did not go in for competitive sports, the choice was obvious. And whereas he considered himself a failure as an athlete, he did quite well on the rifle range. With a little practice, he earned sharpshooter medals, achieving the highest qualification ROTC gave for small arms.

  ROTC provided many opportunities, including a series ten correspondence course to become an officer. He did well in these classes, went on to the series twenty, and was designated as first lieutenant. (He later stated, “I don’t know what in the world that meant because I never bought an officer’s uniform.”)

  Having grown up in the shadow of WW2, Moishe was keenly interested in military science and tactics. He was glad that Germany lost WW2 because Hitler would have killed all the Jews if he could. Other than that, Moishe described his attitude in the following terms: “I’ve always been interested in the military, but when it came to war, I wasn’t mad at anybody. Not even the North Koreans. If the North Koreans were angry at the South Koreans, that was their problem. If the Koreans had invaded America, well, that would have been different. I would go and fight. But I learned something in high school that I never forgot: George Washington warned us against getting involved in foreign wars.”

  Moishe’s interest in the military was based on strategy and the satisfaction he felt as he learned various skills. He also liked the gear. He wasn’t interested in using weapons against people, but he enjoyed learning to operate them much as he’d enjoyed learning to operate a camera or other piece of fine equipment. His experiences with the military—like his experience as salesman—proved him more than competent and gave him confidence: a precious commodity for a teen.

  Some of the guys Moishe knew began joining the National Guard, and it wasn’t long before he, too, was approached during ROTC by his sergeant and a recruiter. He learned that in the National Guard, he would be expected to go to a weekly drill wherein he would march for two hours, listen to a lecture, and collect three dollars for his time. Then he would go for a full two weeks in the summer and get paid for that, too. Better yet, if he signed anyone else up, he would get five dollars for each person who joined.

  And so Moishe lied about his age and signed on the dotted line. He later recalled,

  My reason for joining the military was purely mercenary. And I figured if it was anything like ROTC, it would be interesting and maybe fun. I signed up quite a few people who probably joined for similar reasons.

  Some of the drills were on Sunday, and they took us out to Camp George West, which was near Golden, Colorado. They introduced us to our primary weapon, a 105 mm howitzer. We used dummy shells and learned to operate as a squad.

  As far as Moishe knew, the two-week summer drill would be mostly more of the same, only it would be every day—and of course he’d be away from home. But when the unit was federalized—taken into the regular army because of the Berlin crisis—the summer drill became much more. They were to help with the Berlin Airlift. However, the attorney general of Colorado didn’t want to release the National Guard to the U.S. Army, so he obtained a stay and Moishe’s unit remained in Colorado at Camp Carson.

  Moishe considered it a happy coincidence that all this occurred just as school had let out. His girlfriend, Ceil, had been sent back East for the summer. (Her parents, concerned about how serious the relationship had become, thought it wise to separate the couple for a while.) Other than working part time as a stock boy, he would have spent most of his time with her. Instead, he’d work full time for better pay, and he wouldn’t miss Ceil any more than if he’d stayed at home. It didn’t occur to Moishe that now that he was actually in the army, it might not be so easy getting out.

  Everyone was restricted to the base, except for one weekend when they were allowed to go to nearby Colorado Springs. For the first time in his life, Moishe received “real mail” and greatly enjoyed the letters people sent him. Notes from his mother, from Ceil, and from another friend allayed feelings of homesickness. Ceil’s letters were the most frequent and the most highly anticipated.

  Moishe was in headquarters battery of the 168th Field Artillery, which was part of the 157th Regimental Combat Team. Because the numbers at the camp had diminished so greatly following World War II, Moishe was in what they called a cadre, that is, units that were not full. His unit had sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and so on, but no privates. So, the officers had to do everything. Moishe’s official job was head of the communications section, which meant that he would lay down telephone wire. “We also reported on the artillery,” said Moishe.

  In addition to the official work of communications for the Field Artillery, like everyone else, Moishe was required to fill in the gaps where they didn’t have enough personnel to cover other tasks. For example, there were no real cooks in the field kitchen. When asked if he had any cooking experience, Moishe truthfully answered that his experience was limited to frying hamburgers and making soup. He said, “Little did I know, this was going to get me stuck in the kitchen one day a week. But we had to eat.” He also learned how to give injections because his cadre had no medics.

  Moishe’s military career lasted less than six months. When the school year began and Ben Rosen realized that his son wasn’t coming home, he wanted to know what the army was doing with a sixteen-year-old boy. He went to the attorney general of Colorado and let him know Moishe’s true age. After that, Moishe said that he was “unceremoniously dumped.” There was some embarrassment because he had been designated as a reserve lieutenant. Before long, Moishe was thankful that his father had gotten him discharged; if he hadn’t, by the time Moishe was eighteen, he’d have been sent to Korea with the 157th Regimental Combat Team, which suffered one-third casualties, most of which were serious wounds that took the soldiers out of action.

  Following his discharge, Moishe finally saw a doctor about an ongoing medical issue. His father used to joke, “Martin is not afraid of work. He can lie down right beside it and go to sleep.” And it was true that once Moishe reached adolescence, he was continually dozing off. He really did work hard and never fell asleep in the midst of vigorous physical activity. However, if he were simply sitting or even standing, waves of sleepiness would overtake him so that he had frequent inadvertent naps. Oddly, he awoke feeling very refreshed, though the episodes sometimes lasted only a few seconds and never more than a few minutes. Moishe usually had about thirty seconds of warning before nodding off. Often, it was in the middle of a conversation, and he would sometimes excuse himself in what must have
seemed a very peculiar manner.

  The doctor made the diagnosis of narcolepsy. The doctor also informed Moishe that he probably had a low-grade depression, which he thought might be connected with the narcolepsy.

  A prescription of Benzedrine seemed to address the narcolepsy adequately, and Moishe no longer experienced sudden drowsiness and irresistible urges to sleep. Nor did he respond to the drug as anyone without his condition would have. The Benzedrine did not make him “high,” keep him awake at night, or give him extra energy: it simply ended the narcoleptic episodes.

  This would have made life at school a whole lot easier, but Moishe did not return to North High School. His father felt that at sixteen, he’d had enough education and should be ready to work full time. He would have preferred that Moishe work for him, but if not, he felt it was time for his son to make a living. Ben had not needed to finish high school to become a successful businessman. He therefore did not place a great deal of value on schooling, at least not at that time. However, his brother, Dave, a partner in the business, did.

  One day, Moishe’s uncle Dave told him, “Benny [referring to his brother], he’s a smart man, but you’re like me, and if you don’t go back to school, I’m going to beat the —— out of you.” He went on to tell Moishe, “Your dad’s wrong, and I’m right. I don’t want you to grow up to be a bum like me.”

  Moishe was surprised to hear his uncle refer to himself as a bum. He was a veteran who’d been drafted early, and before that, he had run a “house of ill repute” in Cheyenne. He had also been a construction worker in San Diego. In fact, David Street in San Diego was named after him. Following Dave’s discharge from the army, he went into business with Ben. Eventually, though, Dave quit the junk business and bought a bar. He never had children, and perhaps that made him especially fond of his nephews and nieces.

  Moishe took his uncle’s advice/threat about school seriously. He enrolled in night school, and between those classes and some of the extra courses he’d taken before he dropped out, he managed to finish high school at the same time as the rest of his class. He did not, however, care to pay the rental fees for the cap and gown to walk across the stage with everyone else. High school had been, in many ways, incidental to his education.

  EIGHT

  Power is ability. Ability is organized energy.

  —MOISHE ROSEN

  Moishe liked the sights and smells of the sporting goods store. The place was crammed with merchandise, much of it in boxes stacked against the wall, reaching nearly to the top of the 16-foot ceiling. Rolling ladders rumbled quietly, like a ride just starting up at an amusement park, allowing stock boys to retrieve items that were up high. Rows of glass counters encased more expensive merchandise—fishing reels, guns, binoculars, and cameras.

  Moishe enjoyed being a salesman. He liked most of the people who came into the store.* He asked questions to learn about their interests, and regarded them as friends. If one of “his” customers came in while he was serving someone else, Moishe would flash a big smile and say, “Be with you in about five minutes.” Usually the customer would wait patiently even if another sales person was available.**

  There was one type of customer Moishe did not like—the kind who made a game of getting the lowest price possible, just for the sake of what Moishe considered, “one-upsmanship.” He and the rest of the staff at Gart Brothers shared an unspoken understanding that any customer who was greedy or arrogant was fair game. They wouldn’t cheat the person, but they’d make sure he didn’t get a good deal. But all a person had to do was ask Moishe’s advice about a piece of merchandise and the young salesman felt honor bound to point out which pieces of equipment were the best value for the money . . . even if it meant taking a lower commission.

  At the moment, there were no customers, and Moishe found himself puzzling over a series of strange events that had occurred over the last few weeks. He had been encountering an unusually high number of dishonest customers, and he could not figure out why.

  It began when a man brought a fishing rod up to the register, and suggested to Moishe in a low voice, “How about if you and me become business partners? This rod is $15, but you could ring it up for $5, I’ll give you $10 and you can keep the difference. I save $5 and you make $5.”

  Moishe, not wanting to offend the customer had suggested, “If you want, I can talk to my boss about a discount.” Oddly, the man simply bought the fishing rod for $15.

  Over the weeks, several others suggested similar schemes. Moishe had turned all these suggestions into proper sales, but many of the items were later returned for refunds.

  In fact, that very day Moishe had commented to one of the partners that he could not understand why so many items had been returned. For just a moment, Moishe thought the partner had looked a bit uncomfortable, but then he shrugged and walked away. Moments later, he returned.

  “Boss wants to see you,” he said, jerking his head in the direction where Nate Gart was standing.

  Moishe looked at his boss inquisitively.

  Gart glanced at his well-polished shoes for just a moment, then locked eyes with Moishe. “You know your friend Mike (not real name) next door?”

  “Sure, what about him?” Mike had been let go from his job and had asked Moishe to talk to Nate about hiring him. Knowing the guy had a wife to support, on Moishe’s recommendation Nate had employed him at his pawnshop next door.

  “You know how I’ve been asking you if you’re sure the guy’s a straight shooter?”

  Moishe nodded. “And I vouched for him, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did. And I’m sorry to tell you, Mike’s been stealing from me. I got proof. But the fact that you recommended him, insisted he’s honest . . . well I had to check you out. You cost me a lot of money.”

  Moishe looked at Nate in astonishment. “You hired people to check up on me?”

  “What else could I do, Martin? Put yourself in my position. When things look suspicious, you gotta check ‘em out. You gotta be sure, no matter how much you like the person.”

  Moishe nodded. He understood: bosses can’t let personal feelings cloud their judgment.

  Moishe felt his life was really on track. He was in love with a beautiful girl who’d agreed to marry him. He had a good part-time job where he felt he could reasonably expect to advance. Once he was confident that he knew something, Moishe could act quickly and decisively. He knew he was a good salesman, and he was getting better all the time. He learned very well when the topic interested him, and he remembered what he learned and was quick to apply it.

  It hadn’t been easy, changing the direction of the life he knew his father wanted for him. He couldn’t blame his dad for hoping he would go into the family business. What does a man build a business for, if not to provide for his family and pass it down to his children? Moishe was only fourteen and a half when he decided to look for other employment, but he was tall for his age and often passed for an older boy. He was also more knowledgeable than might have been expected because he’d begun taking college-level courses from the Emily Griffith Opportunity School. The first course included a section on how to find employment. This gave him the information and confidence to take his father at his word when he’d said that Moishe could work elsewhere.

  It was an autumn day when Moishe put on his sport coat and went to a nearby Denver manufacturing plant to apply for part-time work as a clerk. It would be a good change from the junkyard and might lead to other things.

  The personnel director at the plant seemed to like Moishe, but refused him, saying, “You’re qualified enough, and I’d like to give you a shot at the job, but there’s one problem. Our company has never employed anyone of your race before, and I don’t think it would be wise for you to be the first.”

  Disappointed, Moishe figured he had better stick to a Jewish-owned business and, hoping to cheer himself up, thought, What would be a fun place to work? It occurred to him that a sporting goods store would have all kinds of interesting m
erchandise—things that he might like to own—things that would be fun to sell to others. Federal Sporting Goods was owned by Joe Alpert, who was Jewish. Hadn’t there been a Help Wanted sign in the window the last time he walked past? Moishe went to the store, asked for a job, and was hired as a stock boy at forty cents per hour.

  If Ben was surprised that Moishe had gotten a job, he didn’t show it. He simply said, “Well, you’re going to have to give three dollars a week now to help with household expenses.” That didn’t bother Moishe, who later recalled,

  It was a good deal for me because I could go after school and work from five to nine, and then I could work all day on Saturday. That’s really when I stopped going to synagogue. And at forty cents an hour, I had money left over. When my father found out how much I was making, he raised what he asked of me to six dollars a week. But I still had some left over. And I got raises.

  Mr. Alpert expected all the employees, even stock boys, to wear a jacket and tie. Consequently, customers often mistook Moishe for one of the sales staff. He frequently helped customers, then took them to the store’s only cash register to have their purchases rung up by a “real” salesperson. But if there was no one at the register, the customer had to wait. Moishe pointed out that this did not seem good for business, and finally, Mr. Alpert told Moishe that if no one was at the cash register, he could ring up the sale.

  After his stint in the National Guard, Moishe found that his position at Federal Sporting Goods had been filled. Ben hoped Moishe would come back to work at the junkyard, but Moishe knew by then that he would never again work for his father. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Don, stepped up to the plate and was, as Moishe later described him, “the good son.” Moishe watched his brother grow in their father’s favor, receiving attention and approval in connection with his steadily increasing commitment to “the yard.”