John Delach

Since we were members of the 242^nd Signal Battalion, upon graduation from basic training, we faced two alternatives where we would receive our advanced training on communications. One was located here in the Fort Dix training area. The other, more intense, was located at Fort Gordan in Georgia. Fortunately, we were ordered to remain in Fort Dix.

This decision was a God-send! If we had been ordered to Georgia, going home on weekends would have been an illusion. Fort Dix made it a reality. Bill had rented an off-base parking spot and a driver would bring his car onto the base every Friday afternoon. He’d give me a lift to an exit on the Long Island Expressway where Mary Ann would meet me. On Sunday, she would drive me to the Port Authority Bus Terminal where I’d catch my ride back to Dix.    

Our stay in that training company was almost the reverse of my basic training.

First off, an incredible yet tragic event happened as we were moving into our new quarters. On our second day there, our new First Sergeant in charge died of unknown causes. The army couldn’t replace him so the company clerks took over our training schedules and all of us cooperated with their schedule to the fullest.

Good grief, only an idiot wouldn’t cooperate. We were guaranteed weekend passes without any exceptions so long as we kept the peace and reported to our weekly communication classes. As Sargent Campbell had told us, “You guys (reservists) are a summer breeze. None of you ever go AWOL or have run-ins with MPs or the police.”

The army calls specialty training achieving proficiency in our MOS or our job description. MOS, stands for Military Occupational Specialty. We were linemen. But, when researching this piece, I called on my cousin, Bill, to recall ours. We both agreed that it was between 312 and 318, and most likely 316.

When I looked up army MOS during the Viet Nam War, I was shocked to find that the army categorized a lineman as MOS 36. Whatever, 316 or 36, that was my army job.

Curiously, 90% of my training in communications school had nothing to do with what we were expected to do back in C Company of the 242^nd Signal Battalion! Nobody cared, including us. Our goal was to graduate and go home.

We learned how to operate an army telephone switchboard, lay down and hook up field wire, not our job back in Co. C in the 242. The army actually tried to teach us how to communicate using signal flags.

One training task tested my ability, and not in a nice way, pole climbing. The pole I had to climb was 30-feet tall. (Another reason to thank why I didn’t have to train in Fort Gordon. (The word was out that they had 90-foot poles there.)

To climb the poll, I had to fasten climbing gaffs to the bottom of my two boots, fasten leather chaps over the legs of my pants and fasten a working belt around my waist that included a safety belt that I deployed when I reached my working area.

A gaff is a triangular piece of steel that protrudes from a steel plate that we attached to the bottom of our boots with leather straps. When climbing a pole, we’d raise our free leg and kick the gaff into the pole giving us traction to lift our other now free leg. Repetition let us climb the pole one leg at a time.

We had to be careful to anchor each thrust at a 45 degree angle to guarantee it was secure. We were warned to always lean back and never to get to close to the pole. Otherwise, we faced the risk of gaffing out which world send us shooting down the pole. If that happened, our only protection to the multitude of splinters would be our chaps and heavy-duty gloves.

Once we reached the top, we’d attach our safety belt, remove our gloves and go to work.

Our final exam only had us climb the pole, set up as if we were ready to go to work, Circle the poll instead, remove our safety belt, put on our gloves and descend back to the ground. When my turn came, I successfully climbed the pole, circled it and began my descend. About half way down, I made a mistake and gaffed out! I dropped about ten-feet in a shower of splinters before I came to a stop. disgusted and defeated, I quickly finished my descent, stopped at the bottom of the pole, removed my gloves and gaffs, grabbed my climbing equipment, returned it to storage and walked away. Fortunately, I received a passing grade and I never climbed a poll again.

We graduated in May making our active commitment less than four months instead of the six months we signed up for.

In the following editions I will report on the unusual experiences of being in the reserves.                                  

When we arrived at Fort Dix in early February of 1967, we began basic training  by living in transient barracks under the supervision of sergeants who would become our drill instructors (DIs) once we transferred to the permanent home of our new basic training outfit, Sierra Company.

Their job for now was to make sure we accomplished every task needed to begin this journey. First up, haircuts with electric razers set at zero. Fortunately, my cousin, Bill, had alerted me so I arrived with a short crew cut.

We were issued duffle bags. It didn’t take long to understand why as we began to fill them with:

Uniforms, underwear and socks of different types. Two or three fatigue pants and shirts, a Class A uniform, hats, boots and even glasses. Field jackets, Class A overcoats, gloves and anything else deemed appropriate.

Visits to doctors and dentists filled in a good deal of our time as transients. Finally, we boarded buses loaded down with all our stuff and were driven to the home of Sierra’s barracks. After we piled out from the buses, stacked our stuff where told, we lined up in formation so we could meet the newest prick who would control our lives for the next eight weeks, our First Sergeant, Gutman. Sergeant Gutman announced his presence like a major tornado wrecking a town in Kansas. Gutman guaranteed that he now had ultimate control over our very beings.

Hyperbole, of course, but nobody was stupid enough to challenge him. Actually, I found my own escape from his control by silently mimicking his Hitleresque pronouncements. We went to breakfast as a unit and as we entered the mess hall, each of us had to sound off with their Service Number. If a soldier mumbled his number, a sergeant would demand that he repeat it louder. One morning, soon thereafter, when my turn came, I inwardly grabbed a breath deep in my gut. I used the same voice that I used to torment officials at Giants games and let fly, “Sergeant, Private 3-3-1-9-0-7-0 reporting.”

Back in the day, I had trained my voice so that my taunts filled Section 12 at Yankee Stadium. Now my voice filled a mess hall.

Gutman loved it and I became his celebrity that made my life that much easier under his reign of terror.

Our basic training schedule was a winter cycle. The Army restricted what we could do outdoors. Despite this restriction, Gutman announced that we should prepare for a three-day bivouac where we would live outside, eat outside and maneuver outside. I will never know who dropped the dime on him, but the Army’s Inspector General came down on our First Sargent with fire and brimstone forcing him to back off.

His revenge came swiftly. We were too early in our training cycle to be eligible for weekend passes, but being close to Long Island, many of us had visitors on Sunday, our day off. Mary Ann, my fiancé and my mom would visit on Sundays.

About 9 am, Gutman announced that we would be in lock down that Sunday.

Before we knew about his edict, several trainees had left with their buddies or girlfriends. My buddy, Bill, from the 242 was one of them. Gutman arrived after Bill had left, but he was there when Mary Ann and my mom, arrived. I explained my dilemma  to our First Sargent knowing full well that he had exceeded his authority.

He relented so long as we stayed in a parking lot close to the barracks.

When Bill returned, I told him the shit-kickers were coming down on him and so they did. They made the next week the longest of his life with KP in the morning, all kinds of shit during the day and KP at night. I did everything I could to lessen his load, but it was Bill’s strong spirit that got him through it. F***k Gutman, Bill beat you.

The rifle assigned to us was the M-14, the successor to the M-1 Garand rifle that had been in service since World War II. The M-14 entered service in 1958, but by the time we received it, the M-16 assault rifle was already being used by our troops in Viet Nam.

I liked the feel of the M-14 and got high marks demonstrating how to maneuver with it. Unfortunately, my score at the qualifying line fell a few points short of expert that cost me my first weekend pass.

My worst experience came on the grenade range. The supervisors quickly moved us along from station to station. This caused me to lose focus, a weakness I live with. All of a sudden, I was called into the pit to throw a live grenade. The instructor placed a grenade into my right hand, pointed me in the direction where he wanted me to throw it and ordered me to pull the pin. I put my hand back into a throwing position and looked at the target area. In my state of confusion, I saw nothing to zero in on. I threw it, nut not very far.

Next thing I heard was a loud speaker announce, “Short round.”

The instructor ordered me to hit the dirt and mumbled, “Son of a bitch”

He stood looking at it for a few seconds, then hit the dirt too.

It went off with a loud bang, but without doing any harm.

I looked at the instructor. I thought of apologizing, but I realized he was in no mood to hear anything from me.

The rest of basic training melted away, but before we graduated Bill and I and a couple of other guys had dinner with Sergeant Campell. He said, “I love you reservists. Admittedly, you can be pains in the ass, ask too many questions and don’t like the Army way of doing things.”

“But, you guys are a summer breeze when compared to raw draftees. None of you ever go AWOL have run-ins with MPs or the New Jersey Police, or turn on each other including with knives. I’d pick you reservists any time.”

On the Outside Looking In will not publish on August 21, but will return on August 28.

When I arrived at Fort Dix to begin basic training, I found that most of my fellow mates who I shared our barracks with were also National Guard or Army Reserve enlistees who had been members of their home units for one or two years. Most of us had joined these units to avoid the draft in 1965 and 1966.

I joined the 242^nd Signal Battalion based in Hempstead, Long Island in the spring of 1965 shortly before I graduated from college. My cousin, Bill, was already a seasoned veteran and had already served his six months in active duty at Fort Dix in Bordentown, NJ close to Philadelphia, PA. At the time I joined my unit, the reserves were operating in a relaxed peace-time mode.

Bill drove me to the armory where I met the First Sargent of Company C, Harry Coogan. Harry was a nice guy with an excellent sense of humor. He operated in that same relaxed atmosphere. He had several openings available and he signed me up. Harry welcomed me to the unit and said that I would go to basic training that fall.  

Little did we realize that coming summer of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson would turn our country’s advisory actions in Viet Nam into a full-scale war against the North and open the draft so he could send hundreds of thousands of young American men into that dirty little war.

Johnson and Co’s actions filled the Army’s training centers with as many draftees as they could handle and then some. All of a sudden, young men eligible for the draft flocked to join reserve units. The 242^nd Signal Battalion was no exception. Every unit filled their quotas and started turning away new enlistees.

We reservists were relegated to training units within our companies. It sucked and nobody liked the concept. We were a waste of time and resources. Over time, it became obvious that we didn’t have a place in the line to go away for training, so at least in Company C, the brass integrated us into the organization.

I joined Bill’s unit that was led by two sergeants, Freddie B and Mike M. With the call-up to war, the army tightened up on our operations and overnight, the relaxed atmosphere disappeared. More weekend drills replaced Monday night meetings and the enforcement of stupid Army disciplines became prevalent. One weekend up at Camp Smith in upstate New York, I got nailed for sideburns, the length that exceeded Army regulations. Stupidly, a sergeant actually measured the length! Mine failed and I was issued an Article-15 for punishment which meant absolutely nothing as far as I was concerned.

The Commanding Officer in charge when I joined the 242, called it quits and said goodbye to us all. His replacement, who shall remain nameless, was a total shit head. If we had ever had to do something serious like go into combat, one of us had to frag him before he killed us all. I knew it was bad when Harry Coogan called it quits and retired.

I finally got the call to active duty early in February of 1967. I reported to the corner of Park Avenue and Thirty-Third Street in front of the old armory to board a bus going Fort Dix. I was part of a small crowd of 25 to 30 reservists on our way to basic training. It was an unseasonable day.

We found our way to a barracks for transient troops for our introduction to the Army.

That night it snowed and it didn’t stop snowing for the rest of February.