CHAPTER FOUR. THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 1942-1945
On March 23, 1942, the U.S. Army accepted my enlistment and I was sworn.in at a dingy recruiting office on Clark Street in Chicago and marched off to a train for Camp Grant near Rockford, Illinois. I was thirty-one, a college graduate, a drama instructor, and a single man. wore an old pair of trousers and a jacket. In a few days I was No. 16069267. From Grant I was sent to Camp Claiborne near Alexandria, Louisiana. There were four or five other camps within a short distance of Alexandria. The surrounding country was peaceful, rolling country with pine trees. We enjoyed starlit nights and sunsets.
Life at Camp Claiborne from March to October of 1942 was not pretty, or comfortable. How could you forget the parades with all the heat of summer in Louisiana uniforms? All the spit and polish and cleaning of equipment? All those inspections?
There was a bugler at Claiborne. I remember clearly our 1st Sgt. in Division Headquarters; yelling at us to drop our cocks and grab our socks. Latrines with concrete floors, S end and the line of stools at the other end. painted white and had bench type tables. There were some overhead fans. We formed lines for everything.
The Service Club for enlisted men was separated from the company area. It was a large white frame building with a day room that had tables for writing or playing cards or listening the radio. There was a pool table. Not far from the Service Club was the Post Exchange, the PX. where you could buy most of the things you needed like shaving cream, toothpaste, drinks, and 3.2 beer. The tents we lived in had wooden floors. We were moved to tents with dirt floors while wooden tar paper shacks were being built.
Early in my basic training at Camp Claiborne in Louisiana I met Edward Kroer. Neither of us know in what manner we met. I think we were both at that time in Service Company, the company in charge of food, clothing, supplies, bookkeeping, and the motor pool among things that are done to service a regiment. The 325th Regiment with its Lorraine Cross insignia was composed of several companies: Headquarters, motor pool supply (they issued rifles, backpacks and other equipment). Ed and I must have met in the chow line. He was younger than I and was also a college graduate. He came from Hammond, Indiana, south of Chicago. I lived on the South Side of Chicago. One time his mother came to visit him at Claiborne; when she went home she called my mother and they started a telephone conversation that lasted until both Ed and I were separated from the military in 1945.
When the 82nd was suddenly nominated to be airborne, Ed wanted nothing to do with gliders. While he was on furlough I enlisted him, at his request, in the parachute unit. One must understand that no one in the 82nd volunteered to be in the gliders. Men had to volunteer for the parachutes. I did and flunked the physical; they said I did not have enough teeth. Ed passed and was transferred out of the services company. He went to Fort Benning, Georgia, for training.
When he returned he went into the headquarters company. When he went into Normandy, he went in a glider. That is life in the Army.
We kept in touch through the following two years until I was surrounded in Holland and became a German prisoner of war. During that trying time for my parents and brother, Mrs. Kroer was a great help to my mother as they talked frequently on the phone. Through the 1990s, we still corresponded.
There were a number of men who were pleasant company. They had been business men or truck drivers or had other occupations in civilian life. They were beyond the age of twenty-one.
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