One of the old lines is, “What is the difference between the Army and the Boy Scouts?”  The answer is “The Boy Scouts have adult supervision.”  I truly love the Army and am proud to have served for 28 years.  But, if you are going to be a career soldier, you better keep your sense of humor.  The Army does things (with its lack of adult supervision) that can drive you crazy.  We used to say, “When something goes wrong, the first thing that must be done is to fix blame.”  While it was said “tongue-in-cheek”, it really was close to the truth.

Back in the 70’s, I was teaching at the JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia.  In those days, if we had hand-out material that had a number of pages, we would have the material printed for us at the print plant at Fort Lee, Virginia.  Five years ago, we would feed the material into a copying machine and it would come out copied, collated and stapled.  Today, the material would be posted on-line and the students would go to a web site and read the material.  But, back in the 70’s, the print plant was pretty efficient.

During the same period, there were a lot of Vietnam protests near or actually on military posts and bases.  I taught a seminar to the Advanced (Graduate) Class on the legal aspects of handling protesters.  The courts had decided there were freedom of speech and right of assembly issues in how we dispatched the protesters (you could remove them from post, but you shouldn’t drop them off at a gate that was 30 miles from the gate they entered).  Anyway, these young JAG officers needed to know how to advise their commanders and I had assembled some pretty good material to help them.

The materials for the students had been sent down to the print plant and hadn’t come back.  I checked because I was running out of time.  They advised me that our supply sergeant was taking a truck to Fort Lee the next day and he would be bringing back my dissent seminar material along with a whole lot of other stuff.  That next day, the materials were picked up at Fort Lee and brought back to the JAG School.  The following day, the materials had vanished.  By the time the School figured out what had happened, all the materials were buried in the county landfill!

I was furious.  Remember the first rule – fix blame.  I went to my boss and told him it was inexcusable for all those brand new materials to have been trashed.  Somebody had to be responsible.  He sat me down and calmly explained to me what had happened.

Mr. Merritt, the publication section director, was going through all of the School’s Department of the Army publications.  Many were obsolete and he intended to pitch them.  The School’s janitorial service worked each night.  I believe they came in about 11:00 PM and worked till about 7:00 AM.  Mr. Merritt spoke with them just as they were leaving on the day in question.  He told them he would be spending the day gathering up obsolete publications to be thrown away.  He would pile all the old publications on a large table.  This particular table had wheels, so it was great for moving material from one end of the hall to the other.  Mr. Merritt requested that when the janitors arrived for work that night, they should wheel the table down the hall to the dumpster and throw away the obsolete material.

Mr. Merritt worked diligently and filled the table.  At 5:00 PM, he went home.  I know, I know.  You are already way ahead of me, but I need to fill in a few more pieces.  At about 7:30 PM, our tired and hungry supply sergeant returns from Fort Lee.  He needs to empty the truck before he can go home.  He walks down to the Publications Section and finds the table he needs to use for transportation, but it is covered with DA publications.  He removes the material and neatly stacks it against a wall.  Then, he wheels the table down the hall to where he has the truck parked.  He unloads all the new material onto the table and wheels it back to publications.  By now it is well after 8:00 PM, so  he locks the place and goes home for a late dinner.

The janitorial personnel at the JAG School are wonderful people.  They took such pride in keeping the building spotless and we treated them like family.  On that infamous day, they showed up around 11:00 PM and followed Mr. Merritt’s instructions.  They made sure that all the material on the table made it into the dumpster.  Of course, the dumpster was emptied first thing the next morning and the Fort Lee print plant material had taken its last ride.

My boss looked at me and said, “Jack, who do you want to punish?  Everybody did exactly what they were supposed to do.”  I went back to my office and reflected on the situation.  Then, after a short while, I relaxed.  After all, I had fixed blame.  There wasn’t any.

I walked back to my car after a University of Virginia football game.  No, I was not a student.  Just the week before, I had taken command of The Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville.  Walking with me was Hugh Overholt, The Judge Advocate General and Fran Gilligan, the Deputy Commandant.  There was a pause in the conversation and General Overholt said, “Jack, I think it is time to go after the LL.M. again.”

I couldn’t believe my bad luck.  The JAG School had been trying, off and on, to get a master’s degree for their Graduate Class students for at least 30 years.  The one-year Graduate Course had previously been called the Career Course and, later, the Advanced Class.  The LL.M. effort had been dormant for some years and I had just cut short my tour in Germany to come back and figure out how to be commandant.  And now, General “O” is piling on the quest for the LL.M.  Where was my squire, Sancho Panza?

About 23 years earlier, as Basic Class students at the JAG School, a few of us decided to stay in Charlottesville and not take leave over the Christmas holiday.  The JAG School put us to work.  Bill Suter (presently the Clerk of the Supreme Court) and I were assigned the task of preparing a paper explaining why the then Career Course students should be awarded an LL.M.  Bill and I thought we did a good job, but realistically, it was probably a “make work” project that just got filed away.

After General Overholt had returned to the Pentagon, we got busy on the LL.M. project.  We went about it in an orderly process and put David Graham, our Chief of International Law in charge.  We realized that we needed a “champion” in Congress to push our bill through.  There was a high ranking congresswoman from western Maryland who was the Chair of the appropriate subcommittee on Armed Services.  She was invited down to the JAG School to see our operation and to speak to the Graduate Class. 

When the JAG School was built on the grounds of the UVA, it included quarters for the students and guests and dining facilities (We’re not talking a mess hall).  It included VIP quarters and a special room up in the club for entertaining special guests, like our congresswoman.  Our sergeant major ran the club (ah, those were the days).  He could prepare a prime rib that makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  Our plan was to have the congresswoman for a special prime rib dinner and then, she would speak to the Graduate Class the next morning.

The evening started out great.  The wine was flowing and our congresswoman was delightful.  All the key officers at the school were present and she was regaling us with things that were happening on the Hill.  We were right on track

Some months before we sat down to eat, a whacked out GI wandered around his barracks in Germany mad at the world.  He announced to anyone who would listen that he was going to go out and kill a German taxi driver.  He then, went out and with eager premeditation murdered a German taxi driver.  He was tried by general courts-martial, convicted and sentenced to death.  Guess whose congressional district our GI and his family lived it?  Yep, my congresswoman.

That night at dinner, she proceeded to tell me that she was looking into the case and she had found out that the JAG officer who defended the case had never been in court before.  There it was, an outrageous statement that I knew was false.  But, it wasn’t any of my business.  I needed to let it pass.  Whenever my good friend, Fran Gilligan, hears something he knows is false or just doesn’t believe, he smiles and says, “Oh, is that so”, like he had just learned something new.  But, I couldn’t do it.  I responded to the congresswoman that I really didn’t know much about the case, but I did know quite a bit about the Army and the JAG Corps and that there was no way they would try a soldier in a capital case without providing him with a seasoned defense counsel.  She replied that it was the defense counsel’s first capital case and I explained that capital cases were extremely rare in the Army.  Things then got really quiet and I had a chance to reflect on what a jerk I was.  I tried to make small talk, but it went nowhere.  Here, we bring our champion down to the JAG School to prepare her to fight for our LL.M. and I have her stewing.  Not too swift.

Before the evening ended, I apologized for my conduct.  The next morning, before I introduced her to the Grad Class, I apologized again.  Her sculpted smile told me I wasn’t making any headway.  She gave an excellent speech to the class and then closed by saying, “Your commandant has apologized for taking me to task last night.  I haven’t decided to accept his apology, but I want you to know that I am still determine to see that all of you receive an LL.M. for the work you have done this year.”  Everyone in the class stood up and applauded – me the loudest.

Congress passed our statute and that particular Graduate Class and every class thereafter received a Master of Laws degree.  I would like to tell you that I really learned my lesson and that in the future, I have been more diplomatic.  Yeah, I’d like to tell you that.

Today, JAG officers come into the Army as captains.  Not so when I raised my right hand.  We came in as first lieutenants with the understanding that we would get credit for our time in law school and be promoted to captain in 18 months.  My particular class ended up getting stuck on the bottom of a promotion list that took 21 months.  We were then told that Congress would correct this three month error.  Can you imagine anyone being so naive as to believe that one?

Then there was the vague promise of professional pay.  Doctors, dentists and even veterinarians in the military receive pro-pay, but not lawyers.  Every few years, some congressman would throw a bill in the hopper to give JAGs pro-pay.  We would get all excited and the bill would go nowhere.  Many of my JAG contemporaries would argue that what we did was more important than some veterinarian going around inspecting meat or vaccinating horses.  My approach was different.  I insisted that all the other Army officers held us in contempt because they thought we got pro-pay, so we might as well get it.  We never did.

Shortly after I made captain, the III Corps and Fort Hood Office of the Staff Judge Advocate (JAG Office) held a picnic at Belton Lake.  It was kind of neat.  It was a typical picnic with hamburgers, hot dogs and beer.  Sometime during the middle of the picnic, an enlisted man from the office came up to me.  He was short and stocky and I knew who he was, but didn’t know him well.  He took me aside and said, “Sir, can I speak to you man to man?”  I figured he had a personal problem and I was quite willing to help, so I said, “Sure.”  He then proceeded to tell me that I was a worthless SOB; that I was arrogant, and not half as smart as I thought I was.  I was stunned.  Because I had told him we could speak “man to man,”  I wasn’t sure what I could do (maybe that proved his point about not being half as smart – ).  I got away from him without doing anything stupid.  Life was a lot simpler when you could just punch a guy out.  The picnic had lost its excitement.

After leaving Fort Hood, I spent six months at the Presidio of Monterey learning how to speak German and then, I was assigned to the 4th Armored Division Headquarters in Goeppingen, Germany.  Most of the 4th AD troops were stationed closer to the border, but we were about 30 miles east of Stuttgart.

I had been promoted to major in less than six years, so I guess I should quit complaining about the three extra months as a first lieutenant.  My early promotion to major had a lot to do with the Viet Nam War build-up and very little to do with my accomplishments.  It did, however, cause me to be the Division Duty Officer one Saturday/Sunday.

Early Sunday morning, we were visited by the provost marshal.  He was a big strapping lieutenant colonel who looked like he had played tight end for a major university.  He was literally hauling a drunken GI.  The drunk, a tall skinny soldier, could hardly stand up.  The colonel told us that he was just out for a morning stroll and he saw this GI fall off the sidewalk and roll down a rather steep hill.  He wanted us to find out the soldier’s unit and have someone come get him and take him back to his unit and put him to bed.  The colonel was just interested in the soldier’s safety.

After the provost marshal left, my NCO got on the phone and located the man’s unit.  During this time the GI was carrying on about how he wasn’t drunk and could take care of himself.  Finally, he looked at me an said, “Sir, can I talk to you man to man?”  I immediately said, “Absolutely not!”