AT TWENTY- ONE PER
During World War II, when I was invited to became a member of the Armed Forces of our nation to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies, the prevailing rate of pay for draftee soldiering was all of twenty-one dollars per month.
We survived.
Many of us wondered how we could possibly get along on that amount of money each month, but we quickly realized that military economics and civilian same-thing are never the same.
I was duly examined one cold November day, I remember and with a bus load of men from my Staunton, Va. Area. The usual run once around the room put your clothes back on and wait. After being declared sane by one grand old doctor I used to know back in the days when he sat in the local drug store back home talked back to the radio. I was sent to what was then called Fort Lee ,Virginia.,near Petersburg, Virginia, which was again being called “Camp Lee” as it had been during World War I since it was again being over filled with human bodies sent there to be trained in the ways of the army.
Some of the old barracks from 1917's trainees where still in use at the start of World War II. but we were lucky enough to get a brand new, pine-smelling one. The style was the same, but it was new. We moved in. Two Floors I was lucky again and got a first floor bunk about half way down from the Non Com officer's room at the end. The community showers and other facilities were at the other extremity. We were Company A and the Mess Hall was just across the company street from our bunk house.
In that situation we then began a rigorous thirteen-week campaign to change civilians into soldiers .The small, tan-colored field manual we were issued called lour lot “Infantry Training, Basic.” We were infantry and would be trained as such. We were also Infantry Medics and, as such, would not be trained for or with firearms, according to the dictates of the Geneva Convention which went along with those decaying 1917 barracks we felt.
Feeling varied on that specific branch of service most expected to become good medics, but the army changed along the way. When there proved to be more medics than were needed., we were make-over troops trained in some other field of work by on-the-job training and sent out as cadres of a mixed sort. My lot sent me - a shadow of my former self and probably as healthy an individual as I have ever been in my lifetime – to Langley Field, Va..
I will never forget the day we were told of that sensational change of pace for all of us The entire battalion on he drill field between he long rows of look-alike barracks and a full Colonel took his place on a flat-bed cart to make a speech. He wasted no time: “Men!” he yelled, “this entire battalion has been transferred into the United States Army Air Corp and, if I were you, I wouldn't ask any damned questions!!”A fine speech. It brought a flood of cheers, laughter and some unbelief. Our company comedian,
jumped on the platform and let loose with aloud and happy “horse neigh” which must have been heard , at least in Petersburg, perhaps in edge of Richmond!
About generous hunk of us were were sent to Langley Field, Virginia. They installed us all in a hanger on the flight line. What could anyone do with six hundred medics they did not need?
We found out gradually. The pay was better, too - fifty dollars per month.
A.L.M. February 14, 2003 [c631wds]
