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!”

If you are going to be an Army officer, there are certain additional duties that come with the territory.  The good news is you don’t have to pull guard duty and you don’t have to be the observer during the urinalysis drug testing.  But, you will from time to time be assigned as the Officer of the Day.  This means that you will report to the post or command headquarters at the close of the business day and spend the night “in charge.”

As a brand new Army JAG Captain, my name came up to be the Officer of the Day for III Corps and Fort Hood.  Counting III Corps and the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions, there were about 40,000 troops at Fort Hood, Texas.  At about 1630 hours (4:30 PM), I reported to the Corps G3 Operations Office for my briefing.  Then, lugging a large three-ring notebook, which contained all of the answers I would need, I headed for the duty officer area to settle in for the night.  Some duty officers might be impressed with their authority.  I was just hoping not to screw up.  I met the NCO who would assist me and it turned out that it was his first time also.

I studied the three-ring notebook and most of it made sense.  If the local police called about a GI who had gotten in trouble, I call the military police.  If I received information about the death of a soldier’s relative, I notify the soldier’s unit.  I transmitted messages to the right people.  I could do that.  The only thing that was confusing was the stuff about alerts.  Some alerts were paper drills to see how quickly the on-duty G3 officer could come in from his quarters, open the safe, and respond with the correct response code.  In rare cases, it would require the entire post to report for duty.  The whole subject was fuzzy to me.

My NCO and I split up the duty so that each of us could sleep for a short while.  At 0345 hours
(3:45 AM), a Specialist Four reported to me from the Communications Center.  He had a message from Fourth Army, our higher headquarters.  I looked at the message and it said, “Execute Operation Blue Bell.”  I was clueless.  I got out my three-ring notebook and there it was, but it was written in “operation speak.”  I wasn’t sure what to do.  My NCO knew a lot about motor pools, but he was no help on this message.  The Spec Four was still waiting for a response.

At that particular moment, I remembered that some type of close hold activity was going on and that there was a G3 Major sleeping in the G3 shop.  I told everyone to give me a minute and tore up the stairs.  When I woke the Major, I scared the daylights out of him.  When he finally became oriented as to where he was, I showed him the message.  It turned out my Major was a one-trick pony and this wasn’t his trick.  The clock was running!

I went downstairs and looked at the notebook again.  Then I said to the Specialist Four, “What do you think the message means?’  He said, “I think we need to alert the entire command.”  I said, “OK, go ahead and do it.”  Forty thousand troops were being awakened at 0400 hours.

The whole episode reminded me of the book, Catch 22.  It’s a great book about what can go wrong in the military.  In this particular Air Force unit, all the important decisions were being made by
Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen in the Communications Center.  When Generals Peckem and Dreedle (the commanders in charge) could not agree, each would prepare a letter to higher headquarters advocating their position.  The letters would go through the Communication Center where Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen would review them.  He would then forward the letter he agreed with.  He would destroy the other letter.  In my case, I may have been the Officer of the Day, but the only one who knew what to do was the Spec Four in the Communication Center.

About 15 minutes after the alert went out, I received a call from the Chief of Staff of the 2nd Armored Division.  He asked the question I didn’t want to hear.  He said, “Captain, are you sure this includes the 2nd Armored Division?”  Then came my brightest moment.  I said, “Sir, it’s a Blue Bell alert.”  He thanked me and hung up.  At that moment, I knew that I wasn’t the only one who was clueless as to what a Blue Bell alert was.

It turned out that my Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen in the Communications Center knew what he was doing and we had done the right thing by alerting the entire post.  I got off duty at 0700 hours and went home, cleaned up, ate breakfast and went to my office.  When I arrived, the Sergeant Major said, “Captain, you missed the alert this morning.”  I said, “No I didn’t Sergeant Major, but I almost did.”

One of the great things about the military is that where ever you are assigned, there is a good chance that you will run into friends you have served with before and, also, you are guaranteed to meet new friends.  In the late Sixties, I was wrapping up three years in Germany and knew I would be going to school for a year. and then on to Vietnam.  The school was in Chicago and we decided we would live in Evanston, but Carole had to decide where she and the kids would live while I was in Vietnam.  She selected Schilling Manor.

Schilling Air Force Base in Salina, Kansas ceased operations in 1965.  There were over 700 family housing units and I believe it was about the same time that the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas was getting ready to deploy to Vietnam.  If my facts are straight, many of the wives from Fort Riley moved 50 miles west and opened up Schilling Manor.  It became a waiting wives home.

Schilling Manor turned out to be an excellent choice.  Three years in Germany reading the Stars and Stripes Newspaper hadn’t prepared us for what we found in Chicago in 1969.  The Chicago Seven trial was in progress and there was a lot of ill feelings toward the military.  They (student & faculty) shut down Northwestern when the Army went into Cambodia.  Carole found a great group of like-minded wives at Schilling (Also, Salina is a little different from Chicago).

Schilling Manor was attached to Fort Riley for support and before you knew it, there was a commisary, PX and medical and dental support.  By the time Carole and the kids arrived in 1970, it had been running smoothly for a number of years.  They had figured out security for this large housing area void of husbands.  Each house had four or five outside lights and they were required to be turned on every night.  It looked like 10 o’clock in the morning.  Couple that with a civilian security force driving around and there weren’t many problems.  If a car showed up in the housing area with a Fort Riley decal, it was quickly checked out.  It the GIs were up to no good, their commander knew about it the next morning.

After completing my tour, I had about a month before I had to report to my next assignment.  This gave me a chance to meet some of Carole’s close friends.  One we will never forget was an Air Force wife named Ruth.  Ruth was going to join us on a shopping trip to Fort Riley.  We also planned on picking up some booze at the Class VI store.

At that time many of the Class VI stores were run by either the Officers Club or the NCO Club.  The Fort Riley Class VI store was operated by the O-Club.  Ruth kept insisting that she believed you had to be a member of the O-Club to buy liquor at the Class VI.  Each time Ruth mentioned that, I would tell her that they were not going to keep an officer, in transit (between assignment), returning from Vietnam from purchasing liquor.  She felt very uncomfortable about going to the Class VI.  This was a big Class VI where everyone used a shopping cart.  I told her that when it was time to check out, she could get right behind me and just do what I did.

When we were done shopping, we headed for the check out line.  It was a long counter with three cash registers spaced along the counter.  Only the last register was in operation, so we stood in line waiting our turn (Ruth close behind me).  Ruth was extremely nervous.  I was the next customer.  Just then a man came out of the office and went to the second cash register right in front of Ruth.  He looked at her and said, “Will it be cash or charge?”  Ruth immediately responded, “I’m not a member.”  I was so startled that it took me a minute to respond.  I said, “Cash” to an obviously confused clerk, who then, checked her out.

As soon as we got outside, I looked a Ruth and said, “I’m not a member?”  Ruth smiled and said, “Well, I’m not.”  You can see why we will never forget Ruth, nor the many other experiences at Schilling Manor.

I  spent  most of my formative years in the Army.  I was a JAG Officer for about 28 years.  When I mention JAG, peoples’ eyes light up and I know they have seen the JAG TV program.  So, I have to explain to them that I never flew a jet, captured terrorists, nor disarmed a nuclear weapon.  And, if the TV show had followed the highlights of my career, it would have been cancelled after the second week.

I had two tours in Germany and my second tour was in Frankfurt.  My family was with me and we were assigned to military family quarters outside of Frankfurt in the little town of Bad Vibel.  Little US conclaves like ours were quite common throughout Germany.  All of the family quarters in Germany had a lot in common.  For example, every light had the same type of globe covering it.  I can still see them and I am sure you can too.  The globe screwed into the fixture.  When a light burned out, it took me 30 minutes to unscrew the globe.  Paint had run down into the threads and I had to scrape the paint out with a knife.  It took a lot of pressure to unscrew the globe.  The second time it happened, I went through the same drill.  I scraped and then wrapped the globe in a dish towel.  As I applied pressure, I heard the globe cracking.

Time to call housing maintenance.  I don’t do cracked globes.  I had visions of three hours in an emergency room, a large portion of which I would be spending explaining how it happened.  One call later and a German maintenance man showed up with a brown paper sack and a hammer.  He put the sack over the globe and smashed it with the hammer.  A new light and a new globe and we were back in business.

The next time a light burned out, I went through the same drill.  It probably only lasted 20 minutes this time.  I didn’t feel the need to hear glass cracking to call for help.  This time, a different German maintenance man, but it looked like the same sack and hammer.  I couldn’t believe it.  Every time a light burned out in family quarters, it cost Uncle Sam a new light and a new globe!

As a general rule, it is not good to be the hero of something you are writing, but I broke the rule here.  I concluded that each time the family quarters were painted (about every three to four years), all the globes were sealed.  If the painting contract required the painters to remove the globes before they painted, the globes would not be sealed by the fresh paint.

At that time the Army had what was called the Suggestion Awards Program where they would actually pay a soldier money for coming up with a suggestion that would save the Army money.  I figured out the number of family quarters in Germany and multiplied it by the number of globes in each unit and then multiplied that figure by the number of German maintenance men walking around with brown paper sacks and hammers.  I multiplied that by the cost of a globe and determined that we could save enough money to put another brigade in Europe.

The moral of this story is that you will never get rich submitting suggestions to the Army.  My suggestion was approved and I received a check for $83.72.  Why such a strange amount?  Because the Army withheld taxes from my hundred dollar prize.  The only thing I regret is not framing the check.