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COMBAT MEDIC
Nonfiction, None Needed
By Vernon L. Parker iUniverse LLC
Copyright © 2013 Betty Jane Kirby, Tom L. Parker, and A. Dale Parker
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-0843-9
CHAPTER 1
YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW
War clouds was looming in Europe, and things was picking up. They were hiring in different plants. The United States was building submarines, boats, tanks, anything that could be used in the army for England; it was called lend lease at that time. Hitler was expanding all of his operations. He was getting greedy. He took Finland; then he went into the Netherlands. He took Czechoslovakia, and England was really taking a beating. Germany had all kinds of airplanes, tanks, infantry, and everything. They were occupying France at the time, and they pushed the British back into the English Channel at Dunkirk. A lot of them was captured. Some of them got back across the English Channel on any type of transportation that would float. The United States was furnishing them as much as they could, but Roosevelt decided he wouldn't put any American troops on foreign soil.
On December 7th, 1941, I was driving down the road on 112 on Sunday morning, and I heard a broadcast that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I was on second shift and heard that night that Roosevelt was going to make a speech, so I pulled my car down to the tipple where I was working, and we all turned the radio on in my car and listened, and he declared war on Japan. Back then they had the draft where you would go in and stay eighteen months and then you would come out. Well, a lot of them had spent their eighteen months, but when he declared war, they froze that and wouldn't let them out and they started drafting anybody from 18 to 44. And they were throwing up training camps all over the United States. They was temporary camps. They set up a Camp Campbell at Hopkinsville. We also had some forts: Ft. Sill, Oklahoma; Ft. Hood, Texas. Well, Ft. Knox, Kentucky had always been a fort where most of the tankers got their experience—their training.
Mr. Connery talked to me. I had gotten promoted up to a washer operator. He said, "Vernon, when you get your papers, you call me or come in the office and I'll get you a deferment because that job you have is essential to the defense." When I got my papers, I didn't say anything to him. I just went ahead and went for an examination. Pretty soon I got called. I was supposed to report the first of October, 1942, to the induction center in Evansville. I went into the office and talked to Mr. Connery and told him I didn't want a deferment; I was going to go, and that was the same thing as volunteering.
He said, "Sit down. Let me talk to you a little bit. I'm a World War I veteran, Vernon, and I got gassed while I was over there." I knew that he was always short of breath and wheezed and coughed a lot. He said, "Good luck to you, and when you get discharged, if you make it, you come back to Norton Coal Corporation and you've got you a job; it'll be waiting for you."
* * *
I went to Hopkinsville, caught the bus over there to Evansville, and we were all examined there at the Armory. That was a bunch of wild people I'll tell you—all kinds: farmers, people that had worked at the bank, people who drove trucks. You name it and they were on that bus. So we went to Evansville. I'll never forget the World Series ball game was on. I don't remember who was playing even, but we all sat outside and waited for them to call us in. (Editor's note: St. Louis Cardinals were playing the New York Yankees. This was game 2 of the series. St. Louis won this game—and the next 3—to take the series 4-1).
When they called my name, I went in, and there was a captain sitting at his desk and a sergeant. I'd always smoked when I was a little nervous. Naturally, I lit a cigarette. I looked over at the captain, and he said, "Give the gentleman an ashtray." So the sergeant took the ashtray and shoved it over to me. I said "thanks" and knocked my ashes over in it. When I looked back at the captain, I could tell I did the wrong thing because his face was getting a little red, and I noticed some veins standing out on the side of his neck, so boy, I dug that cigarette out right then and I'm thinking, "You're getting close old buddy. Close to the army, because I see right now that you're not running your life. They're running it for you." But anyhow we went ahead and had our examination. He asked the ones that were there did they want to go ahead in that day or did they want to take fifteen days off. Well, my preference was to take fifteen days and go in on October 15, 1942
Meantime they put us in a room. Everybody smoked, so somebody got the nerve to light a cigarette, and it got stomped out on the floor. When they came in to take us all out, they looked and seen them cigarette butts there. That's when the sergeant blew his stack and made every one of us get down on our hands and knees and pick them cigarette butts up and put 'em in a container and then sweep the floor.
When we got ready to go, we got on a bus and started back to Hopkinsville. At Henderson, there was a tavern over there that sold wine, beer, whatever people wanted, so the bus driver stopped at the insistence of some of the guys on there. Everybody bought a bottle, so by the time we got almost to Hopkinsville some of them was wild drunk and some was half drunk and the rest of us.... I drank a little bit, but I had to stay sober because I had to meet somebody at Hopkinsville to bring me back to the farm. That was quite an experience to go over there and be examined and come back.
That fifteen days passed real quick. First thing I knowed I'd done run around some, and I was flat broke. I'm standing down there in Dawson with nothing but ravelings in my pockets, and during the week every body else is working. I really felt low. But anyhow when I got ready to go back on the fifteenth, Daddy give me twenty dollars, and we caught the bus again at Hopkinsville, and we was supposed to go to Ft. Harrison in Indianapolis to the separation center after we went to Evansville down on Fulton Avenue to the depot. That was the first time that I'd ever eat any army food, and that evening I never will forget they had sauerkraut and wieners. That's what they prepared for a bunch of people.
After we got through eating, they put us on a train and headed for Ft. Benjamin Harrison at Indianapolis. We got there that night around eleven, and they started lining us up for a physical examination before we went in to our barracks. The night was cool; we stood out in the rain and finally got inside. They was separating us; the ones that had venereal disease they put over to the side, and the ones that passed was allowed to group up and be took to a barracks around three-thirty.
We still had our civilian clothes; we never had been issued any army clothes. I thought, "Man, they're going to let us sleep 'til ten or eleven o'clock tomorrow being's we's up all night."
The first thing I heard the next morning was a whistle blowing and someone hollering "hit the deck." We all jumped up, put our clothes on, and they took us out before daylight to the mess hall. They let non-coms and all the officers eat first because they had to take us and process us. I never will forget there was a rookie that jumped out and saluted the sergeant as he come out, and he stopped and looked at him and said, "Son, you don't salute a sergeant, and you don't salute nobody when you're in a line. You don't even have to salute an officer when you're lined up." I seen right then we's going to have some eager beavers.
We went on and ate and come back. They told us we was going to get our uniforms and our clothes issued over at the supply room. At least two sergeants and a couple of corporals was guiding us, showing us where to go. We started down a line, and they started giving us our uniforms, which included a shirt, socks, pants, two pair of shoes, caps, and raincoats, and all that jazz. They had two bags that you was supposed to stuff them in. One was an "A" bag made out of denim, and the "B" bag was made out of khaki. We put that stuff in them, and then we got back to the barracks. The two bags was pretty heavy. They give us a box and told us to take our civilian clothes, shoes, and everything we had, even our underwear, (which I wouldn't have done if I'd known what I know now) and put them in the box.
When I put my uniform on, they only had two sizes—one too big and one too little. Naturally, weighing 135 pounds and 5'7" everything was too big, but you rolled your sleeves up and your pants and made do until you could get back later and trade with somebody in the barracks and get clothes that would about half way fit you.
They put us on a detail out there; we were building walks out of gravel. We used two by fours and gravel from a gravel pit not far from camp. Dump trucks loaded up and come back in and dumped it. We'd smooth it out and make the walks. Every morning there would be people shipping out to different camps to permanent units. I'd go out every morning and they wouldn't call my name. I was an alternate. In case one of the other guys didn't show up, I had to go. Every day they'd go, so we went back to the camp. The sergeant said, "Vernon, looks like you're going to be stuck with us for a few days." He didn't call me "Vernon," I take that back. He called me "Private Parker," and he said, "I'm going to make you acting corporal because you've been working on all these walks and you know where things go. A lot of these boys are new and you'll have to show them. Boy, he handed me that arm band with two stripes on it, and I thought, "Well, looka here, I ain't been in the army eight days and I've done made corporal!"
CHAPTER 2
We was working pretty smooth there; then one morning they called my name to report down to the deportation area. When I got down there, they started calling our names to go load on a train. You had to carry your "A" and "B" bag. They had draw strings on 'em; and weighed about seventy pounds apiece—maybe not that much. There was one short, little fat guy in there I'll never forget. We started marching down there to the train and he said, "Sergeant, I can't carry these damn things." The sergeant looked at him a minute and said, "If you can't carry them, drag them." He didn't go over and help him do nothing. Anyhow, we got on the train and loaded up. Everyone's name was called to make sure we all got on. I don't know how long it was before they served us lunch: wieners and sauerkraut again.
The train pulled out, and that night when it got dark, we didn't have no berths or anything. We had to sleep in our seats like sardines in a can. Next morning I woke up and looked out and saw license plates with Illinois and maybe Missouri on them. Pretty soon I seen Texas on an old car. I said, "Oh no, there's a lot of camps in Texas; that's where we're headed." That night we set in our seats and slept. The next morning I looked out, and we were still in Texas. That went on for two days and nights. I thought, "This is a pretty good size state." I knew Texas had always been bragged on for how big it was.
Anyhow, the third or fourth night we got down to a siding and they pushed us off. They unloaded all our "A" and "B" bags into a big dump truck. The driver pulled out into the middle of a field. We marched up there to him and he said, "Every person has to find his own bag." They was running in there grabbing and pulling and looking for their name stenciled on it and their serial number, and I thought, "Well, if I stand around here a little bit, they'll be finding their own, and pretty soon I won't have very many to go through." And that's exactly what happened. When it got down to fifteen or twenty, it wasn't too much trouble to find my bag, so I did, and they had trucks there to take us back to camp. We were assigned to Medical Unit 66, Medical Corps.
When we got to Camp Barkeley, Texas, it was late again in the night and they had little huts lined up that held sixteen men to the hut. On one end they had a black tarpaulin building; they called that the latrine. Next to the street they had another tar paper building which was bigger than all the rest of them. It was called the mess hall.
When we went into our huts that we were assigned to, there wasn't anything there but cots. Later they come driving up, and they had a load of mattresses. There was no sheets and no pillow or anything. So we put the mattress on there and slept on that mattress the first night.
The next morning it was so crowded. We were in B Company. A Company was to our left. They took one row of ours and half of another one. We took that half and we caught one more full row. When guys were falling out toward daylight, it was dark and I run out and wasn't familiar with any of the sergeants and didn't know their names or anything. When I seen them falling in, I did too. Well, what had happened was we had half and half, and I was in the A Company! Then I heard the First Sergeant calling "Parker, Parker" so I cut out and ran across the field and fell in. He said, "Parker. Late the first morning. I'll have to remember that name." I thought to myself, "I'd just as soon you'd forget it." But anyhow that was our first day, so they started giving us orientation, showing us about the camp where the PX was, where the theater was, the mess halls, and other latrines where you could wash and clean up. That day we familiarized ourselves pretty well with the layout of the camp.
On the second day they divided us into platoons. I forget now how many sergeants, how many corporals. The rest of us all privates. They sent a cadre in from Mt. Forest, Tennessee to train us. Our first sergeant was regular army. He'd been in and made a career out of it. He was strictly GI—really tough. We started drill and getting more experience. Come Friday or Saturday we had inspection, and all the things we had been issued had to be laid out in an orderly manner on our cots. That's when I realized I wished I'd never worn their underwear because the only facilities we had to wash our clothes was down in a sink where we'd shaved. When you took a shower, you put your pants over what we called duckboards and stood on them, and while you was showering, they was getting wet and soapy, and then you rinsed them out. On that day when we had our inspection, nearly all of us failed because we had used their clothes. Right away I seen that them should be kept as new as we could for inspection. That was the first week. That was the last time I ever displayed any socks, handkerchiefs, or underwear that I had worn.
I was getting kind of used to it. After we settled in at Camp Barkeley, we started a routine of things that had to be done in order to get us lined out properly. We had to have shots. We were all quarantined for ten days and not allowed to leave camp. After the ten days was up, most of us didn't have any money anyhow and hadn't been paid, but when we got our paycheck we could go to town, which was Abilene, the nearest place to go, and it was a college town. Sounds pretty good, but the only bad part about it was when you got ready to go, you had to line up to catch a bus and stand in line for an hour. By the time you got ready to step on, they closed the door or it was packed full and aisles was full of people standing so you waited for the next bus.
Then you went to town. You could go to the USO. They had books and a few things, and you could get free coffee. If you wanted to go to the theater, you would stand in line, and when you got in, you'd be right in the middle of the show so you would stay until it was over; then you would stay and continue until you got to the part where you first came in. As soon as it was over, you had to get up and get out.
Then if you wanted to go to a restaurant, you would stand in line again for forty-five minutes at least. After you got in the restaurant and ordered a steak and finished eating, the manager was standing there, so you didn't stand around and talk and you didn't sit there and smoke. As soon as you finished eating, he ushered you outside, and you went and stood in line to catch a bus back to camp.
After a while I got where I didn't really care about going because it was too much waiting and standing 'til you didn't really enjoy it. Places were there in the camp where we could get cokes and candy so a lot of times we'd just hang around. We had a day room where later we bought a radio (there wasn't no TV's back then), and we'd play cards and set around and talk. It was quite a bit of an experience.
* * *
We got a training schedule set up. You'd look on a bulletin board by the CQ headquarters, and you'd find out what you was going to be doing the following week.
The funniest part of it was the close order drill. I used to really get a kick out of it. We were all green. None of us knew anything about close order drills and the routine of training. A lot of the soldiers didn't have any co-ordination. They'd start marching, and one would be out of step. He'd be taking long steps and the next one would be taking short steps, and we would just wind up in a tangled mess. The sergeant would let us fall out and start again. Later we got pretty good at it where we could stay in step. There was different orders you could get to turn and reverse or whatever.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from COMBAT MEDIC by Vernon L. Parker. Copyright © 2013 Betty Jane Kirby, Tom L. Parker, and A. Dale Parker. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
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