Home Front to Battlefront. Frank Lavin
than to have your leg muscles paining and your shoulders rubbed sore, and come to some rough or sandy ground and realize you still have four more miles to go, but can do absolutely nothing but continue to march, and march at top speed. Then towards the end your eyes start to smart from the sweat washing through them, and you hope you won’t stumble because you’re sure you won’t be able to start up again. But the funny thing is once you’re back and you put down your pack and gun, the relief takes all the tiredness away and you don’t throw yourself down on your bunk as you so ardently desired out on the hike. You lay down for two or three minutes, drink a quart and a half of water, usually, and start joking about the hike. Yesterday we got a big laugh out of the company commander riding past in a jeep saying “all right, men; close it up.” That is we got a laugh out of that back in the barracks; it wasn’t very funny while it happened.
However, we are very fortunate in our company officers. All we have is eight second lieutenants. One of them will be a captain soon and several will be first lieuts. They are all excellent men, and the older soldiers who were transferred from some other branch all say so too.
I did start to tell you the daily schedule, so I’d better continue it; when we get back to the barracks we have chow, retreat, mail call and then we are off til nine-fifteen, or I should say 2115, when the lights go off, theoretically, that is. So far in two weeks, I’ve just had that period off on three different days. Somebody always gets an idea to do something, like the night before last the sergeant had us up til about eleven (2300) drilling because he didn’t like the way we looked. That, of course, didn’t help our condition out any on the hike yesterday. And then we were in quarantine until yesterday (2 wks) and had to go to medics and be inspected every night. And then there were many other things such as waiting in line for three hours to get a G.I. haircut (Didn’t I tell you I decided that as long as I could only have an inch and a half of hair I might as well do it up good? I now have a slight buzz on top of my cranium and look like a fugitive from SingSing.) and taking a lot of tests. By the way, they picked about 1/10 of our company to register for A.S.T.P. and I was one of those chosen. I won’t know for some time though if I’m accepted or not, so don’t go telling anyone. I have another cheerful note—about a week ago one of the lieutenants called three of us from the company and told us we would “probably see a better side of the army” and to be sure and get nothing on our records.
I hope I haven’t surprised you by what I said about the marches. They aren’t going to hurt me. Besides I have been in perfect health ever since I got in and if it wasn’t for the lack of freedom I would like this just as much as school. I’m happy, healthy, and wealthy enough.
No, I don’t need anything else. In fact I don’t even need what I asked for. They gave us some coat hangers, we have foot powder. I managed to get an electric plug at Camp Hood when I went to the hospital there (broke my glasses and that’s the only place I can have them fixed—no they won’t fix them—I take that back—they’ll give me two more pairs) and my new shoes probably won’t fit me. At least my old ones don’t. The army knew what it was doing when it gave me a “D” width.
I can get magazines here so don’t send me any. I won’t have a chance to read them anyways. No, I didn’t get anything from Aunt Dodo, and I’ll write everybody very soon. Don’t forget to keep tearing interesting articles from the Rep. They told us to watch out for those German prisoners, but I haven’t seen any yet. Send me some gossip. A very happy birthday, Fred. Love –Carl
. . .
Carl was discovering what every GI discovered. As described by military historian Peter Kindsvatter:
During the tearing-down phase, the recruit, for the life of him, could not see what any of this unpleasantness had to do with preparing him for combat. Learning to shine shoes, march, salute, pull kitchen duty, and make a bunk in a military fashion did not strike him as useful skills. After several weeks of such training the recruits hit a nadir. They were demeaned, frustrated, and angry. They had worked hard but received little in the way of positive reinforcement, and they certainly did not feel like soldiers. . . . Yet just when the trainees’ frustrations hit a high point and their morale a low point, things began to change, albeit almost imperceptibly at first. The tear-down phase ended and the buildup began.9
. . .
Wednesday June 23
Dear Mom,
I was on guard duty for the first time—two hours on, four off, and so on for twenty-four hours. It wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t like to do it too often. I’m getting to be a seasoned soldier now. I’ve had K.P. too. It was for officers’ mess and I really left a mark for myself; first by knocking over a stack of dishes, and, secondly, by running the entire length of the mess hall with a dish of mustard for one of the officers before I found out that while I was in the kitchen getting it, the major had gotten up and was giving a talk. Oh well, it’s little adventures like that that make life worth living!
Fred, your daily schedule is exactly like mine—two days a month. The other two Sundays I either go into town or they think of something for us to do to keep us from getting homesick. Five of the six weekdays this week I got up at 4:30 instead of 5:00. We’ve been firing on the range and it takes a lot of time. A score of 134 is what we have to have to qualify. I got a 131 but if I ever get my glasses fixed, I’ll get about 150. The only trouble is the noise. It’s hard to hear anything for about 12 hours after we shoot. Can you imagine the noise 200 guns all shooting at once would make?
I’ll probably be transferred to another unit here at camp in a week or two for A.S.T.P., Lt. E says. It’d better be soon because every week the hikes are getting tougher. We had an eight miler Thursday and it’s been very warm the last few days. This time eight guys fell out. Before the hike we had some tactical maneuvering and our squad got lost and had to ford one river three times. We arrived fifteen minutes late and didn’t get a rest at all before the hike and then at the beginning of the hike we had to run across a 300 yard bridge, so with the wet shoes, no rest, and all that double-timing we weren’t in too good a shape to march eight miles. But we did.
If you take any snapshots send them to me. I don’t have any pictures at all of anyone. We get paid in a week and I’ll get some pictures taken of me then.
By the way, I wasn’t one of the seven soldiers killed by the truck here, in case you’re worrying. Five of them were Ohio boys, but none that I knew.
Fred, as soon as you start in your life as a sailor, write and tell me all about it. I want to know what it’s like.
I’m sending this airmail so you should get it before you leave. I hope you all enjoy yourselves.
Love Carl
. . .
They say the one name you remember in the military is the name of your drill sergeant. But the name never stuck with Carl. What Carl did remember was that basic training was basic training. He spent a lot of time on ten-mile marches and fifteen-mile marches. Those were terrible.
Basic training included physical conditioning, close order drill, parades. The first reaction was, what’s the point of this? Why do we have to march in parade—we’re going to be in combat? And yet it sank in. There was a parade every Saturday. At first it was ridiculous. But then the more Carl did it, the more it sank in, the more he got the feeling of being part of the group.
A postwar study by Walter Reed Army Medical Center described basic training as a process of “learning carried out simultaneously on two levels. In the narrower sense, basic training was a straight-forward process of teaching the trainee specific combat skills. In the broader sense, basic training was an ‘acculturative process’ in which the trainee learned ‘the basic mores, canons, and customs of the military subculture, and the arts of living and cooperating with a large group of his fellow men.’”10
That didn’t mean that Carl, like any teenager, stopped cutting corners. Back in Canton, Carl enjoyed doing some carpentry work, almost as a hobby. He had done a bit of it before. And he could see that some carpentry work needed to be done around the place and he talked the first sergeant into appointing him battalion carpenter. Carl got razzed a bit