Sketch of typical Camp Howze barracks

Our fine home away from home. Adequate living space for a platoon of about 45 men, wouldn't you say? Admirable how few quarrels and problems there were, considering such close confinment over such a long period of time. Of course we were outdoors most of the time. Each company had its own mess hall. Each of us routinely had KP (Kitchen Patrol) duty. In my memory that consisted mainly of peeling potatoes and washing dishes, pots and pans. That was before the glorious dawn of dehydrated potatoes, dishwashers and such. The strictest mess hall rule was NO SHORT-STOPPING! Ito est (i.e., that is), no reaching across with hand or fork to grab something before it rotates your way. Such good manners! Our mothers would have been proud of us. Penalty for short-stopping: Get your arm whacked off. KP wasn't all that bad.

My first Sunday at Camp Howze, to worship and be alone with my thoughts, I found a spot out in a wooded area to sit on a log, read the New Testament, and meditate. Back in the barracks again, feeling loved of God and loving Him, I started feeling itchy. My introduction to chiggers. TEXAS chiggers. Bigger than chiggers elsewhere, I suppose, but tiny little pests that inflict outsized torment. How to make them back away out of your skin was a matter of profound discussion. "Burn'em out with a lighted cigarette." "Dig'em out with the point of your bayonet." Gettin'em out could be as painful as just lettin'em be. I soon learned the Texas paean in praise of the painful little buggers:

Here's to the chigger, it isn't much bigger
Than the tiniest point of a pin;
But the lumps it raises itch like blazes
And that's where the rub comes in.

I also learned, as the veteran G.I.s put it, "Texas is the only place where you can stand in mud up to your hips and get dust blown in your eyes." That's for the big guys. Us smaller ones got mud up to our necks. O.K. Texas hyperbole is contagious.

A daily duty was "policing the area" every morning to pick up every bit of trash, from cigarette butts to popsicle sticks to candy and... chewing gum wrappers. How disgusting! (This comment is for my grandchildren. I continually tell them, "We don't chew gum, a most disgusting habit. We don't chew gum, a most disgusting habit. Repeat after me, We don't chew gum, a most disgusting habit." So, of course, they like to chomp gum and blow bubbles right in my face, the little darlings.) Our rule was "If it doesn't move, pick it up. If it moves, salute it." How disrespectful of authority could we get?

The worst duty, usually a severe punishment, was cleaning the latrine. A communal shower, communal toilets. Nearly enough sinks and mirrors. Everyone had to shave every morning. Especially us young kids. Any sign of peach fuzz would have been very embarrassing. Electric shavers hadn't been invented yet. Some guys coulda stood a body shave, they were so hairy. Not me! The hair on my chest was just right for me, lonely little fellow though he was.

Remember Irving Berlin's World War I song? "Someday I'm going to murder the bugler...." Always live buglers, though we had state of the art 33rpm records back then. We used them to practice pronunciation in foreign language classes but couldn't record our voices. That came later, with the invention of wire recorders. The biggest mess of my life... When I was using one at the University of Utah, the wire came off the spools and ended up all tangled up all over the floor. Later we had 7" open-reel tape recorders, then casettes, and now we have CDs and DVDs. What next? A read/write memory chip embedded in our brains?

Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning, Oh! How I'd love to remain in bed For the hardest blow of all is to hear the bugler call: 'You've got to get up, you've got to get up, You've got to get up this morning!'" Someday I'm going to murder the bugler Someday they're going to find him dead I'll amputate his reveille and stomp upon it heavily And spend the rest of my life in bed! A bugler in the army is the luckiest of men He wakes the boys at five and then goes back to bed again He doesn't have to blow again until the afternoon If ev'rything goes well with me I'll be a bugler soon! Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning, Oh! How I'd love to remain in bed For the hardest blow of all is to hear the bugler call: 'You've got to get up, you've got to get up, You've got to get up this morning!'" Oh, boy! The minute the battle is over Oh, boy! The minute the foe is dead I'll put my uniform away and move to Philadelphia And spend the rest of my life in bed!

I was an expert clerk-typist, by training plus experience at the Army Supply Depot. So my official classification as an infantryman—apparently based on a critical national short supply—was Assistant Driver, Weapons Carrier. Wo ho! Wo ho! Hey! Wow! A weapons carrier (i.e., a truck)! I had driven once, around the block, in Vern Newman's new Oldsmobile (no automatic drives, only manual shift back then), giving him quite a scare. Vern was our much loved and admired Explorer Scout leader. It was my 15th birthday and this was his special treat for me. The effects of the Great Depression lingered. Our dad didn't have a car.

About a week after my arrival at Howze, I was appointed by our company commander to be his personal orderly—a position not found in the official table of organization. I had to accompany Captain Sunbake almost everywhere, serving no purpose. (So nick-named by the troops for his service in the Regular Army in Nicaragua, where he supposedly got his brains fried.) I mainly just sat in the back of his Jeep. The way the older guys gawked at me and snickered made me wonder what was going on.

I was very young-looking for my age. Youthful physiognomy was in my genes. One of our darling daughters, Teresa, still looked like a teenager after giving birth to six children. I still delight in kidding her. If I go to her door and she answers, I inquire, "Is your mommy home?" Once she accompanied her oldest son to get his driver's license and was told that a parent had to come. A sister would not do. Another time, when his mother took him shopping for a new suit, the clerk said, "I can see that your wife thinks this one looks great on you."

(Teresa may seem too young to command respect, but watch it! I once mentioned to her son Joey that his Mom is brimming over with character and a few drops had even fallen on me. Joey said he had been deluged with it. What a joker! Well, we know thanks to whom, in large measure, why he is one of the finest young men on earth.)

A few days later, the company was participating in maneuvers away from the barracks. I had my own pup tent and olive drab woolen blankets. The first night, before I could set up my own tent, the captain motioned me toward his large headquarters one. I innocently entered. With no preamble, Sunbake began to show me feelthy peektures. Thanks to the indirect lesson imparted in the eighth grade by a certain district music supervisor (who pointed his finger directly at me and called me a disgusting, dimwitted little clown for trying to round my lips as taught and apparently—in my deep desire to please the teacher and this alpha male—had rounded them a displeasing trifle too much), I wasn't totally, mindlessly, submissive to authority, although the Army was already rather mindlessly trying to drill that deeply into me. I mumbled that I didn't look at pictures like that and shuffled out of the tent.

Although I had only seen First Lieutenant "Abby" Abendroth—executive officer of our company—at morning inspections and drills, it took only one look to see what kind of man he was. I went directly to his tent and haltingly told him what had happened. I don't know whether Abby said eleven words or twelve to Sunbake, but the next day I was back with my squad. No "orderly," period, for the captain after that. No pervert, whatever his rank, could attempt to prey on vulnerable boys thinking that Abby might stand mutely by without coming to their defense. Later, in combat, it made me feel inexpressibly more secure knowing that Abby was there, doing things courageously, skillfully and right—it mattered not what lesser men might do or fail to do.

Can the greatness of a sergeant be overrated? A mere sergeant like Ardel "Sandy" Coulter? "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example," said Mark Twain. Among other remarkable things, in addition to being such a strong, sturdy, knowledgeable, sensible example, Coulter was great because to him you didn't have to be one of the boys to be one of the boys. You could refrain from smoking, drinking and cursing and still be one of his boys. You could be a "98-lb. weakling" (in the words of the Charles Atlas ads of the day that promised monstrous biceps, pecs and abs for a nominal sum) and be one of Sandy's boys. You were expected to seriously do your best, however.

Peer pressure can be so distorting, freakish, crushing. In today's gangs, you may have to disfigure or mutilate your body with unnatural things in unnatural places, do drugs, or even cut or shoot someone to belong. Sandy was peerless in controlling and rejecting pressure. "Everybody's different," he would say. "Thank the Lord!"

I was a reader. Another of Mark Twain's good ones: "Someone who can read and doesn't has no advantage over someone who can't." I was friendly enough, and appreciated the much good in the guys, but preferred to sit on my bunk reading rather than be with the gang that devoted lots of free time to gambling, smoking, drinking beer, cursing, and telling raunchy high tales and jokes. Once after a visit to the latrine, I reentered the barracks just as this gang, with tremendous outbursts of raucous laughter, was taking the Lord's name in vain in every unimaginable way. "Tone it down!" Sandy said. "Rugged's here."

Ardel gave me this nickname. No sarcasm. No irony. On Sunday afternoons after church services, I would go with the other guys to the U.S.O. club (United Service Organization— meaning Army, Navy, Coast Guard) in the nearby town of Gainesville, Texas but would head for the library in the basement. I was the only one there ever, as I recall.... Always alone, with one exception. Two of my buddies, Pollacks from Chicago, came staggering down the steps one evening with a bottle of whiskey.

"Hall, we're going to give you a little drink!"

"Thanks anyway, but my parents taught me not to drink and I'm not going to."

"You're going to!"

Older guys, bigger than I, they took me to the floor. One straddled me while the other attempted to force the bottle into my mouth.

I hate to even think of it or mention it, but something has to be said here. When I was 15, sliding on the ice down Kershaw Street hill, hands foolishly in my pockets, I fell and broke 2-1/2 of my upper front teeth plus shattering the tips of lower ones, giving one of them a very bad jolt. One of the last times I went to the dentist (We're talkin' 2002), he showed me an x-ray and reported what had to be done. "And what about my loose tooth?" "What loose tooth?" I had to wiggle it about with my finger to show him. Hey! What an amazing tooth. How admirable. It's still hanging in there after all these years (65 as I type this). The dentist explained what could be done and how much it would cost (a fortune!), so I said I'd just hang in there with it.

This tragedy happened just as I was beginning to notice girls in a different way! (I had no sisters and didn't quite know what to make of these attractive, beguiling, but strange creatures.) And now I had a horrible gap in my mouth. No girl would want to even look my way. Great Depression days.... No money for a dentist. For years, I would hardly open my mouth. My smile, especially for photos, was very tight.

At age 19, with good jobs becoming readily available because of the approaching war, I finally earned enough to get the job done. A good fit, a good match. As I aged, though, the false bridge remained a dazzling white while the other teeth yellowed somewhat. Made me a hit in Latin America. People always commented on my wonderful (genuine) smile. They are so kind.

While at it, I got some new eyes as well as new teeth. So this's what the world looks like? No wonder I'd missed those blinding fast pitches of Reed Evans and bobbled those easy grounders to second base (my favorite position). You have to be able to see the ball, not a blur. Reed's pitches were still a blur, however.

Some years later, as a professor, I attended a lecture by a much ballyhooed man (hometown boy makes good), who spoke of his recent visit to the Soviet Union. An event. The height of the cold war. Few Americans ever went behind the Iron Curtain. The man could say no good about the Russians. His every word dripped with derision. "You should see the stainless steel false teeth they have! Never saw anything so crude!"

I felt overcome with despair. Communism was taking over around the globe. A menace everywhere. How could "ugly Americans" hope to turn back the tide? What poor, miserable denizen of a "third-world" country, a "developing" nation, wouldn't give his or her eyeteeth for an American dental job? Totally out of the question. Who made affordable stainless steel teeth an option? The Soviets. What people could these "denizens" best relate to? Rich Americans? To the Russians, of course.

So when I hissed through tightly clenched jaws, "You'll have to break my teeth first!" I alone could understand what a loss to me that would be. I struggled desperately but they were too big and heavy for me. Fortunately, the sound of the struggle brought G.I.s running downstairs who pulled the Pollacks off of me. ("Pollack" was not politically incorrect back then. My two friends didn't mind referring to themselves as "Pollacks" at all.)

The next day, the two Poles were more than slightly hung over. I wasn't sure they had any clear notion what had happened in the library. A 25-mile forced march with full equipment was scheduled for that night. In the heat of a Texas summer. It would have been murder to do it during the day, though the Texas-size mosquitos wouldn't be out like at night. I must point out that the M1 rifle carried by a "98-lb. weakling" weighs exactly the same as the one carried by the 250-pound athlete. True also of gas mask, canteen, bed roll, ammunition, folding shovel, bayonet, steel helmet.... O.K., O.K. My shoes and socks weighed less.

Everyone knew that the "meat wagon" was following on our heels. No one wanted to experience the disgrace of having to be picked up by it. All marched steadily along for starters. Little by little, though, as mile after mile went by, guys started lagging behind. The heat and the humidity were just too much. Finally, the two Pollacks—well ahead of me in the ranks initially—fell back, fell back, until they were just ahead of me. Keeping up the pace, I finally had to pass them by.

Sgt. Coulter, who not only kept up but also went back and forth checking things out and offering encouragement, happened to be there at that moment. "Hey, look at Ruggèd!" he exclaimed. And "Rugged," I was, from then on. No one expressed it derisively. It just became a nickname like any other. Like that of Buck Private Charles "Half-track" Hall, for example. Because of his huge feet. Half-tracks are armored vehicles with tank treads in back and regular wheels and tires in front; hence, the name. Half-track's nickname should have been "IQ," he was such a brain. The poor Pollacks, thanks to their untimely swigs of whiskey, had to ride back to camp in the meat wagon—an ordinary Army truck covered by a tarp with benches on each side.

On boarding a bus one day (to Dallas, as I recall), I saw that there was only one other passenger. Not wanting to seem unfriendly, anti-social or shy (What Hall could be like that?), I went to the rear of the bus and sat next to the gentleman. The driver immediately began gesturing wildly to me—strange behavior beyond my comprehension. Finally he calmed down enough to signal that I was to come forward and it was explained that Whites could sit only in the front of the vehicle and Blacks in the back. It filled me with regret later that I hadn't defied the "law," but at the time I felt rather stunned, dazed, and bewildered. I had grown up in an area where there were very few Blacks and had never had one single Black acquaintance or friend. Darn! I could have been like Rosa Parks! How I admire her! By George, she was sitting where they didn't allow it and challenged them to try to do something about it!

On other maneuvers at Camp Howze, our platoon came upon a fenced-in area far removed from all else. Inside the fence, running an obstacle course, were African-American enlisted men supervised by White officers. Our eyes bulged out to see how athletic, fast, vigorous, and strong they were. "Wow!" some of us exclaimed. "I'm glad they're on our side!" How sad, I felt, that "we" had not been whole-heartedly on "their" side. How could this be? All Americans should have been—and ought to be now—like D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers: "One for all and all for one."

After taps and "Lights out!" I would kneel at the side of my bunk and silently pray— repeated in the morning before daylight and reveille. Live buglers back then. No recordings. Only "boogie woogie 'bugelers' of Company B," as in the popular song. One night as I prayed, the soldier in the next bunk staggered in blind drunk, stumbled over me and let loose a stream of base invectives not in harmony with the tenor of my prayer. After that, I knelt on the opposite side.

Before we shipped out for the ETO (European theater of Operations), we had a few days of furlough. Arriving at 526 27th Street, Ogden, Utah, I opened the door and heard my dearly beloved mother say, "Don't you step on my clean floor!" She was in the kitchen mopping and thought that my dad or Delbert had come home. On realizing it was her favorite son, she immediately stepped on her clean floor in a rush to take me in her arms and smother me with hugs and kisses. Favorite son? Of course! Don't you understand? It's the one in whom we've had to invest the most time and effort to get them on the straight and narrow. Now kindly don't inquire in which of my angelic favorite daughters* I've had to make an investment like that! John, the beloved... another reason why we gave him that name.... is absolutely, without question, our favorite son!

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*Re: our angelic daughters. These angels know that there were occasional squabbles. That's why I had the KKK (Kid Kontrol Korps). With my best imitation of wailing police sirens and blaring horns, the KKK would swiftly arrive on the scene and get them to laugh enough to calm down. Rule #1 in our family was Be calm!!!!
The law of unintended consequences: Now that our girls (Marjean, Wendy, Anna, Teresa, Carolyn** ) have read my words about the favorite child being the one on which the most time and effort has been expended to keep it on the straight and narrow.... not a one of them wants to be my favorite daughter any more. Sob!    **Alice, our last child, who died at three months of age, is an angel in heaven.

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