Travel, Hospital WW II ~ Army Style

All aboard....

Going from Los Angeles to Boston/Fort Devens, Mass. by train was my last cross country train ride, in the Army or otherwise. Boredom reigned supreme which we all (the other GI's and myself) filled with looking out the window, sleeping sitting up and telling war stories, mostly true but with some bullshit, aka embellishments, thrown in for fillers. A simple fucking gun shot wound became an example of heroism.

At the Fort Devens hospital, a guy by the name of Woody Daher from Lansing, Michigan and I became Best Friends Forever.

It was from Fort Devens that I was discharged from the Army after a shiny new Army doctor asked me one morning how I felt. I told him that I felt like shit. Why not? He didn't really care. Army doctors always asked you how you felt, while you knew that they didn't give a fiddler's fuck about how you felt.

I organized on the hospital ship a routine that drove the doctors a little crazy. Every morning a doctor would come into our ward.We stood by our bunks while the doctor asked each one of us how we felt. A different guy, each day, would say 'Not so good Doc', knowing that there wasn't a God damn thing the doctor could or would do.

Drove the doctors a little nuts but not so nuts to quit asking that fucking ridiculous question. Me, as the routine organizer, and the other guys loved the unbelievable look on the doctor's faces.

One morning at Fort Devens when the doctor asked me that ridiculous question, I said that I felt like getting the hell out of the fucking Army. I could barely walk, even with a limp but I wanted to go home. I wanted my Ruptured Duck on my suit coat lapel, not stripes on my blouse.

I was in love, also known as letting my little head run my big one. I had been training it back to the Big Apple every weekend to see my girlfriend, fantasizing about having sex (getting laid) with her. Turns out that I had to marry her to get that done but we did have great times with plays plus basketball and hockey every weekend at the Garden.

The doctor told me that The Army was keeping me in until the disability pension board reviewed my 'case' to see how big a pension I had earned. I told the doctor to have the Army shove the pension where 'the sun don't shine'.

Two days later Woody Daher and I were in the Separation Center. We had just heard a boring lecture about our options which included filling out a form about disabilities incurred in the service. I said to Woody, "Let's go to the movies". He responded by calling me an idiot and convincing me to go to the room to fill out the form.

Once out of the service a government check arrived. There was a scandal in those days with unearned government checks being sent to undeserving people so not wishing to go to fucking jail I didn't cash the check. After the third one arrived I phoned the VA to discover that I was declared 30% disabled.( Physically not mentally).

Today that monthly WWII disability check is of great importance to me.Woody Daher? Tried to track him down a few years ago. Sadly, Woody is looking up at the grass.

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Growing Up, Travel (Not First Class)

"Bernie doesn't get ulcers. He gives them".

Words of wisdom from my first ex-wife, The Princess. A 10 year marriage that lasted 27 years.

At 20, when the bullet went through my leg my leg on Okinawa, in 1945, at 21 years of age, I grew up in one hell of a hurry. Realized that I was not going to gain immortality by living forever.

My life of travel, while in the Army, started with my going from Fort Dix in Jersey to Fort Sill in Oklahoma to Fort Worden in Washington State.12 weeks in the Army and I had already spent over a week on trains, aka 'fucking cattle cars'.

The Army moved me around a lot. After being transferred from Camp Hayden in Washington State to the 241st. Signal Corps Co., I became a man in motion.

With a general idea, based on rumors, that we were going to Hawaii, we shipped out from Seattle and headed West on a troop transport, aka 'merchant ship'. About one day out a wild ass storm broke out and the ship heaved and lurched like a whore on Saturday night. We fucking land lubbers did a lot of vomiting.

After a few days of feeling like shit we headed back to Seattle. The ship needed repairs. And so did we.

Discrimination was part of life on a troop ship with officers getting privileges and GI's like me getting bubkas. Hell, we had to scramble to get a seat for a movie aboard ship. The officers had a reserved section. The blacks were forced into their own segregated viewing section.

We made it to Hawaii and Schofield Barracks, then aboard a form of LST to Okinawa. Hello gun shot wound. Only hurt for a minute. Effects have lasted a fucking lifetime.

Landing Ship, Tank (LST)

Hospital ship to Saipan for a few days. First day aboard, in strolls a Navy Steward with a tray of orange juice.We all got jacked up until we found out that our ward was a short cut to to the officer's ward. For sure our recovery didn't need orange juice, even canned.

Another ship from Saipan, back to my outfit and Okinawa. Followed by yet another ship in a typhoon going to Seoul and for occupying Korea. Not quite as much vomiting.

Aborted hospital airplane ride to Yokohama and that theoretically was to take us Stateside. The wings of the airplane had, along with my ass, frozen over.

But God takes care of drunks and fools and they put my sorry ass on a hospital ship back to Wilmington, California and Camp Haan, with a drunken one day lay over in Hawaii. I had 45 days of shooting craps, playing cards for O'Henry bar slices and swapping bullshit 'How'd you get hit?' stories.

Actually the camaraderie of all of us gimpy, goofy, shot up, full of shit GI's is memorable. 45 days for that non-cruise like trip.

Four days of a dead sober, boring, fucking train ride to the Fort Devens, Mass Hospital from Camp Haan, California and eventual discharge from the Army.

Three years in the Service of continuing wandering and wondering, while having the privilege of serving my country and being rewarded with a head full of great experiences and the memories that go with them.

Redundantly: From Fiddler On The Roof: 'Those were the days my friend.We thought they'd never end.'
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Wartime Planes and Trains

How the hell do you sleep while standing up?

It's easy. You lean against a fucking wall, close your eyes and you doze off. It's something like masturbating. Easy to do at 20. Not so easy at 85. GI's standing and sleeping were as common as an old shoe.Officers got chairs, we got walls.

Wartime traveling was always an experience especially for a GI. There were so damn many of us that the only time you felt special was when you went home. But getting home once in a three year span certainly didn't give me the chance to get a big head.

It took the book 'The Greatest Generation' for WWII guys and dolls to be recognized for who we were and what we did.

My first train ride, while in the service, was on a rattler and shaker going from Fort Dix, New Jersey to Ft.Sill (Lawton) Oklahoma for basic training. Sleeping sitting up became a learned art form and was a relief from the fucking boredom of sitting and doing nothing on a train for three days with a bunch of guys you didn't know and weren't sure that you cared to know.

But it beat the hell out of 'short arm' inspections where you dropped your pants and drawers and gave your schlong a few tugs to prove that you didn't have a 'dose'. If your dick dripped, the doctors would ship your ass to the hospital. The second 'short arm' inspection of my army career of  'short arm'  inspections was pure bullshit. It happened when we checked into Fort Sill after a three day train ride. While abstinence may make the heart grow fonder it can't generate gonorrhea.

Going from Fort Sill, after basic training, to Fort Worden,Wash. was different. Not being part of a group of GI's, traveling alone, made me feel like a big shot for a few days. I didn't have to try to to contain my non-filtered opinions. Trying to avoid my First Sergeant, who by definition, was an asshole, was not necessary.

Took the ferry, which was forever more terrific, from Seattle. Arrived at Fort Worden, when some noncom or officer took an instant dislike to me and I was assigned to be on permanent KP.

Washed more fucking pots and pans, mopped more floors and peeled more potatoes than one Bronx Jew should have had to do. Peeling spuds wasn't all bad though, since it was done sitting down.

After a month of that bullshit (24 hours on, 48 hours off) I made enough noise to be sent to radio school outside of Sacramento.The train ride from Seattle to Sacramento was terrific.The train went close by Mt.Shasta, a beautiful, mind boggling sight for this city kid. Summertime with snow knocked my brains out.

After radio school, another day on the Southern Pacific. Leaving California, even hot, dry Sacramento was kinda sad for me but with my new talent as a dot-dash guy KP duty was, thank God, history.

Getting from Fort Lewis to NYC by way of Minneapolis in 1944 was no small stunt. Taking four days and nights for the trip by train would chew up eight of my ten day furlough real easy. 'Fly away' was the only logical solution to beating eight days and nights sitting on a train.

So I went to the airfield, put my ass on the floor and waited for my name to be called for a ride on an Air Force transport plane to Minneapolis, to see my 'special friend'. When it happened, I was ecstatic, even with a fucking orange crate for a seat for the ride.

Then the shocker. After a few hours out this voice spewed out over the speaker, the bad news.We were landing and the few other GI's and I were being unloaded in fucking Wyoming. The last time that I even thought about Wyoming was in my grade school geography class. It could have been on the moon along with its Cowboys and Indians.

Then I sat on the floor for another bunch of hours in the station in Wyoming until some plane landed for a stop on the way to Minneapolis and we were good to go. A night and day in Minneapolis and off to New York for me on a train.

Going back to Seattle from NY, by train, was a drinking experience as a few other GI's and I enjoyed my duffel bag full of booze. Great train ride even with the layover in Chicago to switch trains. In those days there weren't any coast to coast trains. Kinda like going from one fucking cattle car to another except that each trip was an adventure in killing time.Why GI's didn't die of boredom is a surprise to me.

Trying to go from Korea back to the states on a 'hospital' Air Force plane turned out badly. Standing in the plane we were boiling from head to waist. Below the waist we were fucking freezing. The wings started 'freezing up' over Osaka so back to Seoul we went, a little worse for the wear. But shooting craps in the hospital latrine was better than than being on that fucking airplane.

Did get back to the States on a hospital ship, shooting craps, playing cards and writing letters all the way while being looked down on with disgust by the officers.We lowly GI's, in turn, didn't think a whole hell of a lot of the officers. The letters were sent to the States in bunches from our stops.

Wrote my folks every day.Writing daily letters on that 45 day boat ride was a real challenge, great training for developing my bullshitting abilities. But I was up to the task. Sometimes I think that I invented bullshit. And so do my closest friends.

You can take the guys and gals out of the Army but you can never take the Army out of the guys and gals. Or the Marines, Navy and Air Force.

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