Growing Up After the Bomb

Six days sped by following my 18th birthday. During that time I reported to my draft board in Stockton, California, was classified I-A and was given a date to show-up in Sacramento for my pre-induction physical. After that I was sent back to Concordia to finish out the term and to graduate from high school.

We filled in our weekends by taking the orange Key System trains across the bay to the Golden Gate or Orpheum  Theatres, which always had a new feature film plus a stage show. Other times we would go to the Paramount Theatre in downtown Oakland.

Some Saturday nights were spent at the Trianon Ball Room hearing a big band such as ones led by such luminaries as Gene Krupa, Harry James or Duke Ellington. Of course, the Missouri Synod Lutherans who ran Concordia High School frowned on dancing. They felt that close dancing was immoral and would eventually lead to sin. The belief was that when a couple engaged in close dancing the dancers would have their pelvis area pressed together which could lead to unnatural sexual desires. I had to restrict most of my dancing activities to the occasional weekend when I was in Stockton. There I could slip into my tuxedo and attend a dance at the Golf and Country Club.

Aside from the fact I was preparing to go to war, all in all, everything was pretty good for me during my last semester of high school.

In my youthful exuberance to get into action, General George S. Patton, along with others, was one of my military idols. He promised as he headed for Germany, "Another General would take a month. I'll piss in the Rhine in a week." He kept his promise when on March 27th the 9th Armored Division captured the Ramagen Bridge. Immediately after that the 150th Engineer Combat Battalion put two pontoon bridges across the Rhine River and it was only a matter of days before the American army was at Frankfurt.  I even had the pleasure of seeing a picture of General Patton keeping his promise and pissing into the Rhine River as he had predicted. His units were always short on supplies including fuel for his tanks and other vehicles. After crossing the Rhine he sent a terse note to SHAEF Headquarters: "I have just pissed in the Rhine River. For God's sake, send some gasoline."

While I was in the process of reporting to my draft board I volunteered for immediate induction following our graduation on Saturday, June 9th. I was really tired of being stopped by MPs and CID personnel who thought I might be a deserter from the military. Finally, I had a draft card to show the authorities so they could ascertain that I wasn't a deserter.

Turning 18 had many plus benefits. This meant I was finally able to smoke on campus legally. At that time, being able to smoke in public was, if nothing else, a rite of passage. It also meant that I was about finished with my high school education and could now make the choice of going into the service and in that way doing something useful to further the war effort. I was truly anxious to trade my Levi jeans and 'Tee' shirt for an army uniform. We used to kid about Levi jeans and how they were similar to a cheap hotel. That is, neither had any ballroom.

My entire four years of high school had been consumed, in one way or another, by the war. My father, an army medical officer left for the South Pacific on February 2, 1942 and returned to the States just in time to attend my graduation. Unfortunately he came home a physically broken man having suffered a serious heart attack. The sad part is that he was only 50 years of age. All of those years in a tropical climate plus the mental and emotional strain of commanding a station hospital destroyed his health. The 13th Station Hospital was designed with personnel and equipment for approximately 200 beds. This complex slowly rose to a census of approximately 400 beds with little increase in the way of equipment and none in the area of personnel. This imposed a detrimental surcharge on the health of the personnel, which included the commanding officer.

The responsibility of running a hospital that large plus the daily care of hundreds of broken, sick and wounded young men out of engagements in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and other battle grounds of the South Pacific must have weighed heavily on him. I can well imagine he saw my brother or me on each litter that was flown into Townsville with the mud and grime of the tropics still caked on the patient’s boots and fatigues. I'm sure, each time he assisted in the operating room he couldn't help but imagine one of us under the surgical drapes of the operating table. I'm sure each death took its toll on him physically as well as psychologically. The 13th Station Hospital, known as the Black Cat lived up to its name.