Shortest
It was a nine below zero,
windy morning in January of 1967. I was
at the Stork Barracks in Illesheim, West Germany. I was seven weeks into the army before I knew that Re-Up was not
an army brand of soft drink. My naïve
was great, but I did not care. When it
was to my advantage I could say that I graduated from high school at the bottom
of my class. Never mind that the high
school I attended was number one in North Central Accreditation in 1961, our
graduation year. (Side note: It will be the year 6009 before you can
invert the year and get the same number again.) Good old Scarsdale High.
It was my turn to go and get
the snacks from the post snack bar that was located some four hundred yards
across icy and muddy cobblestones. (The
mud came from the APCs and tanks that traveled, on occasion, through the main
area of the barracks from the 4th Armored Division. The “mission” was probably either repair or
to get the Commanding Officer’s groceries.)
(Speaking of mud: Do you know what a frozen turkey looks like when it
falls out of your bicycle basket and into mud?
The mud freezes on the outside of the plastic and if it was not so cold,
it would be funny.) There were nine of
us who regularly took turns going to get the Stars and Stripes plus pop
or snacks each morning. None of our
group in the basement of the Luftwaffe Hanger wanted to be out there in the
mud. We were not fighting to win in
Vietnam anyway. Despite this, we were
doing our job one hundred percent of the time.
After arriving at the smoke
filled and uncomfortably warm snack bar, I joined the line from the door to the
actual cafeteria line. As usual, I was
grateful to God that I was in Germany and not Vietnam at that moment. Slowly, the warmth of the room was putting
me into a dreamy sleep. I was so
grateful for my wife always helping me in Germany: baking cakes for Staff Sergeant Charbono, the 1st
Sergeant or Captain Cramer the Commanding Officer. Whenever some levee would come down from Brigade Headquarters for
my 45J20 mos for Vietnam, Staff Sergeant Charbono would find someone else for
the slot. I had it made. What could go wrong?
Staff Sergeant Charbono
needed both mine and my wife’s class six cards along with my work ethics. How else could we paint the whole supply
room for free? How else could we get
tents and needed supplies when Vietnam took everything we had, plus everything
on order? Being the boss of my life and
my duties, I did as I was ordered. I
never did anything illegal for him or anyone else. My baby son needed to have clean diapers every day, and to
accomplish that I gave my heart and mind but not my soul. You could barter for anything with American
Booze or German Cognac. Staff Sergeant
Charbono would sell the Ansbach Uralt Cognac back to the Germans, for they were
not yet able to stock it in their stores.
I finally got the
newspapers, hamburgers and cokes in tall paper cups. All this was on a tray you could borrow, just like the ones in
the mess hall. You could also use half
of a pop can shipping carton to be prepared for anything. I set the tray down to prepare for the long
walk back in the wind, snow and cold.
When I was ready to go, I waited for the next GI to enter and hold the
door open for me.
The first person to open the
door was a kid who did not hold it open for me. I moved back so that the door would not catch on my tray of
stuff. I was too late and the door hit
the pop carton which spilled one of the drinks. It spilled on the starched portion of my fatigues and ran between
my buttons. The door was spring loaded,
but the wind between the two buildings sometimes played havoc with it. “Thanks a lot kid!” I yelled as the meatball
looked back to see what I was referring to.
I exited at that moment with the help of a courteous GI who did hold the
door for me. When I reached the bottom
of the stairs, I heard: “Who are you
calling kid?” I turned around to see
this kid dressed up like an officer, complete with badges and the like. He had taken off his daddy’s coat inside and
was now standing out in the wind yelling at me. There were a lot of kids on the post dressed up like their
daddies. The majority of them were
pleasant kids who did their daddies proud.
In fact, I had the privilege of teaching the seventh and eighth grade
Confirmation Class at the post high school building with Father Zudima. “What did you say?” I asked as I pivoted
into the wind. (You know, this kid even
had a couple of clean service patches on!)
“I can’t wait until the military gets hold of this kid” I thought for an
instant. “I am not a kid, I am a West Point graduate. You are on report. What is your unit? What
is your name? Where is your hand
salute?” “My name is Griffiths and we
do not give salutes when our hands are full on this post, son.” I turned and walked away. He continued to yell into the wind, snow and
cold until he just faded away in the distance.
“Maybe he is an officer?” I thought for a millisecond or less. “Aw hell, he is still a jerk no matter who
he is.”
I did not think of this
encounter again until I put the nine dry newspapers down on Staff Sergeant
Charbono’s desk. On the front page of
the Stars and Stripes was a picture of this kid in the same uniform I
saw him in a few minutes prior. The
headline read: “Shortest West Point
Graduate Sent To United States Army Europe.”
“Sergeant, you know that old military adage about covering your
ass?” “Griffiths, what have you done
now? Don’t waste my time, I’ve been in
this army all day. Thanks to Sanzi, I
do love that expression.” I started to
tell him what had just happened.
“Stop!” he yelled. “This is
beautiful! Let me get the Top Sarge
down here so he can enjoy the moment with us.
Someone go get Sanzi also. Top
Sarge needs to chew someone else’s ass who is not in our unit, for a
change.” He ran out the doors, yes ran,
all 340 pounds of him. We loved him
just the same. He was the living Beatle
Bailey.
A few minutes later, the
following people all came in: Top
Sarge, the clerk of the day, Staff Sergeant Charbono, Sanzi and Sergeant
Klepper. 1st Sergeant Hooper
was a great guy and he listened for a few minutes. “Stop Grifffiths. I want
the Commanding Officer down here. This
is the first good thing this supply room has done since I’ve been here. He reached across Staff Sergeant Charbono’s
desk and called up to the duty room upstairs.
He told the Commanding Officer to:
“Get down here, you want to be in on this.” I just finished relating the whole story when the phone
rang. The Commanding Officer answered
the call and when he got off, he told us to let him do the talking.
A few moments later,
Specialist, 4th Class Carmichael led the 2nd Lieutenant
into the room. The Army’s shortest
Lieutenant began to speak. (He had left
his coat upstairs.) Captain Cramer
interrupted him: “Lieutenant, please
remove your Class A hat inside the company area and listen up.” The Commanding Officer and Captain Cramer
gave him the longest and loudest ass chewing I ever heard in that man’s
army! He went the whole nine yards
about “esprit-de-corps” and we are not the enemy here. Also included was talk about how without men
like Griffiths, Sanzi, Regan, Goode and Carmichael the whole damn system would
not work. For one day, it made me glad
I took the draft. The Captain then had
the Lieutenant escorted to the street by the 1st Sergeant.
“OK Griffiths, your college
education saved your ass today, but I will not do it again. Between you and Sanzi, I have started to
like this job.”
P.S. I want this read to me on my death bed.