Last Chapter & Stationed @ Fort Gordon

C H A P T E R VIII

(1973-1978)





My assignment at Fort Gordon put me in the Signal School, teaching prospective radio teletypewriter operators, but before I began teaching, I had to go to an instructor school myself. Me and a young E-5 named Bill Barker had both arrived at the same time, so would be going to school together.

Bill and I were billeted in the same room in the barracks when we first arrived. He was a married man too, his wife being in Texas at the time. He was going to scout out the location here in Georgia, and when he found an apartment he could afford, would send for his wife and daughter.

It didn't take us long to figure out that we didn't want to live in the barracks. As a matter of fact, the first night we were there, we decided to go to the NCO Club and discuss our situation. I discovered him to be of a companionable nature and within three days, we had rented a small, two-bedroom trailer in Grovetown. We moved out of the barracks and into the trailer where we could have a little more privacy.

We both made it through the instructor school in about three weeks, got a certificate and card saying we were qualified to teach, and began teaching at Brant Hall.
At that time, we were teaching only O5B's and O5C's (radio operators and radio teletype operators), and were responsible for certain sections of their training. For example, Basic Electronics, Morse Code, Netting, Procedure, Typing, Voice Communications, Teletype Communications, and the various different types of radios that they would be required to learn. I was in the Procedure section, and Bill taught in a different area, so we only saw each other on breaks and after the work day.

It was our responsibility to make up our own lesson plans and plan and practice our presentation in a specific manner and on time. Of course, the lesson plans were subject to review before we taught them, to make sure that they followed established procedures. Other than that, we were given free reign as to how the material was presented.

Our classes were occasionally monitored, especially when we first began teaching. We were graded on our appearance, proper presentation skill, the completeness of the material covered, and class participation. These inspections were enough to keep us from becoming slovenly.

It became our custom, Bill and I, to go out bar hopping on Friday nights. We both enjoyed the atmosphere in the bars, playing pool and drinking with friends. I don't think either one of us had intentions of trying to pick-up any women for sex.

Saturday mornings, we would jump in Bill's car (he had driven from Texas) and head downtown for a little bar on 7th Street. There we would get a Bloody Mary to take the pain out of our hangovers, then I would switch to beer and Bill had his usual Scotch on the Rocks. At about 10 a.m., Fat Albert came on T.V. This was always our favorite cartoon program to watch on Saturday, so we would ask the bar maid, Helga, to turn up the volume. Since we were usually the only ones in the place at that time of the morning, she didn't mind, and as a matter of fact, became fond of watching the program also.

It wasn't supposed to happen like that, but after a couple of months, Bill and Helga became a thing. Our trailer wasn't presentable enough for entertaining ladies, so he would go to her place and I'd have the trailer to myself.

I suppose I should say a few things about our household chores. Bill wasn't much on cooking, so I did most of that. We both took turns washing the dishes and would have a good day cleaning and straightening out the house on Sundays. That was the day too, when we would bundle up our dirty clothes and take them to a laundromat.

After about three months in the trailer, we moved to a small two bedroom apartment - still in Grovetown - but it afforded a little more security. I told Bill to go ahead and invite Helga one day and I would fix them a fine Supper. I made stuffed peppers as the main course and they both enjoyed the meal, but I could tell that they were a bit awkward in my company. They soon excused themselves and left.

Shortly after this, Bill got word that his family was arriving, so the hanky-panky had to cease. They found a nice small place in Hephzibah, and I helped them move in. Bill was supposed to be locked-in to that assignment (he had just come back from Vietnam), but soon after Christmas of 1973, he got orders to Germany. They were gone before I knew it.

I didn't think to ever see Bill again, but some years later, in 1981, I got a call from him. He was at the Holiday Inn Motel out on Washington road, and he wanted to see me. I had been medically retired from the Army the previous year, and wasn't working, so I went there to get him. We came home and I introduced him to my wife and daughter, and we had a nice meal and caught up on what had been happening in our lives. He said he was just traveling around to see some of his old friends. He'd been out of the Army for a few years, not retired, but he said it got so that he couldn't take the Army life anymore.
According to Bill, his tour in Germany had been interrupted by him having to go back to Vietnam on the "Phoenix Program," a clandestine, U.S. program to seek out and kill North Vietnamese, VC, and other sympathizers that had been inimical toward our cause. He told me a whole bunch of gruesome stories that I didn't want to believe, but his telling of them, made them seem very real. He said his wife wasn't aware of this, she thought he had been in the field on an exercise.

Bill stayed with me for about four days, but then he had to move on. It was on a weekend, and he hadn't the cash to do any traveling, so he asked me if I would give him some money and he would give me a check in return. I said okay, and went to the ATM and got him the money. He gave me a check, but about a week later, I was called by the bank. The check had bounced.

The mystery was solved about a week later. His wife called me from Texas; it seems that Bill must have been having some kind of nervous breakdown. She claims that he had run away from her and his kids and she was calling all over to try to locate him. I gave her what information I had, but told her not to worry about repaying the money he had taken. I never heard from either of them again. I truly hope that Bill got help and returned to his family.

During Exodus 1973 (the named given the Christmas and New Year Holidays, because most of the troops went home on leave), the O5B and O5C course moved lock, stock, and barrel back to the old school area (the area it was in when I first came through here as a student in 1965). These were the old wooden, WWII buildings built in 1941 and immediately adjacent to the Commissary Annex, PX area.

My job had changed too, I found out. I was now working in
Student Records with Bob Valdick, another E-6 whom I'd gone through the NCO Academy with at Fort Riley, Kansas, back in 1968. It was our job to keep track of every student in the course; what grades he/she made on the various test and what his/her standings in the class were. Usually, the highest two students would get a promotion of one grade.