Fifty four years have passed since the
assassination of President Kennedy. Old NFO has put up an interesting post.
On that day our company, training to be
Combat Engineers, were marching back
from the ranges where we had finished training on the M-2 .50 caliber machine
gun. It was a miserable day with freezing sleet that became a big snow storm.
Our dilapidated WWII era barracks weren’t
much warmer. Often the butt cans froze. As we were sorted ourselves out, the
company clerk came running by shouting,
“The president has been killed”.
Soon the few radios some troops had were
turned on to the commercial stations and we listened to the news. All of us
started packing our duffel bags and within a few minutes we were prepared to
move out. Several of us started re-cleaning and oiling our M-14s.
Then the rumors started. Fort Leonard
Wood was locked down. No one could get on or get off. Dependents off post
shopping weren’t allowed back in. (Yeah, a training base in the middle of the
Missouri Ozarks was a major first strike target).
Next no shit! rumor was all trucks were
being staged for something. Since I was one of eight trainees who went to truck
driving school at the start of the cycle, why wasn’t I called for driver duty?
The rumors kept coming. The only “hard”
news was what we heard on the commercial radio stations.
In the Army, and I assume the other
services, no one important is dead until the official order is read to the
assembled troops. For President Kennedy, that day was bitterly cold and windy
with hard packed snow. We all marched in Class As to a convenient gravel pit
that provided some shelter and the battalion commander read the order.
The battalion had a female officer, a
Major, and she was in a skirt and wearing low heels. The Sergeant Major offered
her his arm and together they gingerly slipped and slid down the road to the
bottom of the gravel pit. Poor woman, talk about freezing your ass off.
Training resumed, the rumors died down,
and we finished our training. We weren’t denied access to newspapers but they
were only available at the PX, not convenient from where we were housed.
Another situation that allowed rumors to
flourish was an all inclusive cruise on the good ship USS General Maurice Rose
crossing from the Brooklyn Army Yard to Bremerhaven. A miserable trip,
scheduled for nine days, took fourteen.
Part of the lunacy the military breeds
was roving guards, armed with night sticks, patrolling the berthing areas and
decks accessible to we unwilling passengers at night. WTF?
Soon another no shit! report was a
submarine had surfaced alongside us and one of the night guards threw his night
stick at the submarine. Yeah, he was getting an Article 15 for losing the night
stick.
Rumors, how they start, how they
circulate, and how people respond has been studied forever. How each of us
responds is up to us. Me, being cynical, want hard proof before I start discombobulating.
One part of me understands the military
approach to busy hands, less mischief. I was probably a poster child candidate
when I served. Understanding doesn’t lead to liking shit details. Still, the
practice worked. All the time spent avoiding shit details was time not spent
stirring shit.
The JFK assassination and racial turmoil
were two things that stick in my memory. Undoubtedly the racial turmoil in
Germany wasn’t by accident. It was to the communist’s benefit to weaken the
army they might need to defeat and creating racial turmoil was cheap.
I got out just as Vietnam was stating up.
Not sorry I missed that.
