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.