Harold Snodgrass' Obituary
My Last Byline
By
Harold R. Snodgrass
Excerpts from memoirs with some notes by wife Carol Ann
To my dear friends, former students and family,
By the time you read this I'll have made my way beyond the pearly gates. I died of a brain aneurism on Saturday, December 13 with my wife Carol Ann by my side. Having Franciscan hospice to guide her allowed me to die at home as I wanted. She says that if any song exemplified me and my life it is Frank Sinatra's My Way. I thought you might like to read a re-cap of my life or as referred to in the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis -" what did you do with your allotted days to walk this planet in that space between when you were born and when you died.
Let's see-¦my life began on a wheat ranch in Spokane County, August 6, 1926. I'm the oldest child of Clarence and Millie Snodgrass. About every two and a half years thereafter, they presented me with a new brother or sister to play with. Alice (Blattner) came first. Then, Glen (he was killed in a house fire rescuing his children), then Betty Jean (Savov) and Dale was the last of The Snodgrass Kids.
Mom ran a boarding house while my dad finished college to become a teacher. She told me I was such a pest as a -Å"Terrible Two year old- to her student boarders that they hung me up on the clothesline by my overhaul suspenders.
I learned to read before I went to school and was known quite well by the local librarian after I read all the books I could borrow from friends and neighbors. While I was in grade school I read all of my fathers set of the S. S. Van Dyne Mystery books. Little did anyone in my family realize that my love of reading would set the stage for my later becoming an English and journalism teacher.
Besides reading, exploring new places with friends on my bicycle and swimming were my favorite things to do in those growing up years. I won many blue ribbon swimming awards while I was in my intermediate years in school.
When I turned 12 I joined Boy Scout Troop 6 which met in the Edison Elementary School gymnasium (the basement had basketball hoops and passed as a gym in those days) on Monday evenings. Al Hughes was the scoutmaster and Wes Owens was his assistant. I finished my Boy Scout career with 28 merit badges and an Eagle Scout badge.
My father died when I was young during the depression. Mom and I were both thrilled when Henry Hoskins knocked on our door and asked if I'd like to become a paper boy for the Tacoma News Tribune. My first paper route started with 45 customers. With a lot of door knocking I soon had the route up to 100 customers. Back in those days the TNT had a policy of loaning newspaper carriers the money to purchase a bicycle. I got a $35 Schwinn balloon tired bike with a basket in front. With the $5-6 a week I was able to make I was able to pay my new possession off in a couple months. Henry Hoskins came to me and asked me to add another route which I built up as well, and won a lot of the incentive prizes offered by the TNT. I must have gotten printers ink from my hands into my blood and into my heart those years because most of my future was spent in one capacity or another related to journalism. I have always blessed my friend Henry Hoskins for giving me that first opportunity to work when every penny helped in a household of six with no father during depression times!
In those early years I worked at anything I could get and as WWII progressed there was plenty of work for teenagers who wanted to work as the men were off to war. I set pins in a bowling alley on S. Tacoma Way, tried working in the shipyards on a gang of rust scrapers. The pay was good but the working conditions horrid in the bottoms of the double hulled ships under construction. I believe it must also have been the most boring job ever created! Finally I went to work for South Tacoma Chevrolet. After school I was a -Å"parts gofer- for the busy mechanics, then after they closed for the night I swept out.
One of the mechanics at South Tacoma Chevrolet got drafted and put his 1934 Model B Ford coupe up for sale. I was sure glad I'd been thrifty and was able to give him $150 as well as pay off his debt of $150 at Gamer and Waterhouse for the new engine he'd put into the car.
I didn't have a drivers license -" in those days if you could get to work and say you were 16 no one cared as long as you did your work!
In the summer of 1942 Henry Hoskins tracked me down and offered me another job, conditional on my getting a drivers license and auto insurance when I turned 16. He was now assistant circulation manager and had sold William Lyness, on the idea of creating a night crew to insure customer satisfaction. The first four on the night crew were Jack Helms, Jack Lyness (son of the circulation manager) Paul Allison and me. We were called Kick Chasers. Each of us owned a vehicle. It was our job to deliver missed newspapers if a carrier missed someone. Sometimes we found whole routes missed. This job taught us how to find unusual addresses in Tacoma. We could tell taxi drivers how to find unusual streets. This and other jobs I had through my lifetime helped me become a good tour guide for visiting friends and relatives (a gift my wife Carol Ann really appreciated!)
Some kids dropped out of high school to earn big money in the shipyards. Others came to school half asleep after working a swing or graveyard shift. I chose to stay with the circulation department through high school. Before long Helms and Lyness were off to war and I was designated chief night clerk as we added new -Å"kick chasers-. As -Å"Chief- my main additional duty was making out the weekly work roster. I had to be sure we had adequate coverage from 4 until 9 p.m. five days a week, and from 8 a.m. till 9 p.m. Saturdays. On Sundays it was 6 a.m. till 2 p.m. Juggling the schedules to keep as many as eight crew members happy wasn't easy; sometimes I had to work a shift myself that no one else wanted. I think we were all dating which tended to complicate Friday and Saturday nights especially.
During Christmas vacation in 1942 I learned a new skill. The circulation department had six bookkeepers, but they needed extra help with year-end summaries. I got an office in the basement all to myself, a stack of ledgers and an old adding machine. I didn't know I was learning about double-entry bookkeeping; in my mind I was just tallying up the year-end summaries and double-checking to make sure the columns added up both horizontally and vertically. And they paid me extra...a whole dollar an hour. And I am sure I put in more than 40 hours that week. I got the same assignment in 1943.
1944 found me graduating from Lincoln High School. I got three lines with my senior picture in the 1944 Lincolnian, the yearbook of Lincoln High School. They read: Snodgrass, Harold--Spanish, history. Editor of Lincoln News, Lincolnian associate editor, Student Council, Quill and Scroll, Choir, "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Don't Take My Penny."
I could have added to that: Dated Naydene Miller three years, worked at the Tacoma News Tribune two years, named master of ceremonies for a cappella choir banquet, selected by faculty as master of ceremonies for senior brunch, sang in more than 100 a cappella choir concerts, but never quite lived up to expectations academically.
Let's start with the music. I had sung in the Asbury Methodist Church choir and the Gray Junior High Chorus for three years by the time I started high school
When I signed up for boys' glee club as a sophomore, my still developing bass voice apparently stood out and within two weeks the vocal teacher, Mrs. Goheen, invited me to sign up for the a cappella choir. I was already carrying five subjects in an era when only four were required, but I was overjoyed at the opportunity to get out of my only study hall.
Mrs. Goheen had no difficulty getting my schedule revamped. Now I was taking Spanish, geometry, English composition, physical education, glee club and choir.
The 68-member Lincoln A Capella Choir had an excellent reputation and was in demand. That year we sang 55 concerts. There were service clubs at noon and churches of all denominations on Sunday evening. We sang concerts for the public, sometimes filling the 1,000 seat auditorium on Friday nights. We sang at a cemetery on Easter Sunrise, and we sang for the graduating seniors of 1942 at their baccalaureate ceremony.
We learned many religious numbers ranging from That Old Rugged Cross to In the Garden. By mid-year we were attempting classical and a few operatic numbers. Perhaps the highlight of the year was the choir's appearance with Paul Robeson. Let me quote from the 1942 Lincolnian:
Choir appears with Robeson Maintaining their unusually high record of musical excellence among high school choral societies, the Lincoln High School a capella Choir, under the capable direction of Mrs. Margaret Goheen, carried out a successful season of approximately 50 concerts. The highlight of the year's activities came November 19, when the choir was engaged to present the "Ballad for Americans" with the famed Negro concert star, Paul Robeson.
In spite of my after-school job, I had a small part in the choir's operetta in May. It was one of many small parts--everyone in the choir had a part. But I sang in scenes featuring Italian Street Song and the well-known Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. The Lincolnian reported that an audience of 3700 attended the three performances of Naughty Marietta.
The all-school play in 1942-43 was Don't Take My Penny, a light comedy about a high school girl with Hollywood ambitions. I won the part of Harrison Ford, the Hollywood producer. It wasn't one of the major parts, but I appeared in several scenes that took numerous rehearsals. Surprisingly, the drama coach appointed me student director and let me conduct a few of the rehearsals. The dress rehearsal went well and we played a two-night stand on Dec 4 and 5.
In the fall I read for a part in the senior class play Arsenic and Old Lace. Again I won a minor part and again was asked to be student director. But I was already upto my ears editing the Lincoln News and I had to decline. Clair Dammarrell won the part that Cary Grant played in the movie version.
Dick Falk and I were the policemen who show up in the last act. Dorothy Playford won one of the leads as one of the old maids. As the "chief" of the News Tribune's night crew, I was able to arrange my work schedule. I turned out for rehearsals four nights a week and still made it to work by 5 p.m. on nights I was scheduled to work.
I think my drama experiences led to a surprise...I was elected by choir members to be the master of ceremonies for the 1943 spring banquet. I had a reputation for telling jokes...at least my 1942 yearbook is full of comments from my friends about my terrible jokes...so I refrained from a Bob Hope interpretation and kept the introductions pretty straight. I do remember writing out some of my lines on 3x5 cards, but I never used them. I still have the little printed program from that evening and I even remember how I introduced the choir director, Mrs. Goheen. It was something like, "Now we will hear from that person who has directed us through another successful year, but tonight she has no baton to wave over us. For me it will be a treat to just listen...I won't have to sing!" I did get a laugh.
Dear Harold:
You can put up the aspirin bottle now. The Old Crab has quit crabbing and the paper has been put to bed for the year. It has been a fine year and you and your loyal group of co-workers have again turned out a Pacemaker paper. I have enjoyed the year immensely and the satisfaction of our achievements is only equal to that of working with so fine an editor and staff. May you be a Pacemaker throughout life.
Yours,
Homer A. Post
I had the privilege of writing Homer's obituary. Later Homer and I were to write the "News in Print" high school journalism textbook.
How much Homer's enthusiasm for teaching kids to write affected me is still something I can't quite explain. I had learned a few things from the Comp. III teacher, Wilma Zimmerman, but it was Homer's zeal for rewriting that gave me an edge in college and throughout my teaching, journalistic and PR careers.
Many times Homer made suggestions about editorial topics; sometimes others on the Student Council would have an idea. Usually by late Friday I would have a pocketful of notes. Then on Sunday afternoons after finishing my shift in the circulation department of the TNT I would sit down at a typewriter to write my editorials for the week. It was important to have something for Ed Rickert to begin setting on Monday mornings. He was the only typesetter left and we had to meet his deadlines. I would drop my copy through the mail slot at the Star on my way to Naydene's place.
"Seven Carry On Pacemaker Tradition".
Morry Beebe wrote it, perhaps with a bit of help from Homer Post. I can't seem to find the original article Homer wrote so this will have to do.
Relax, staff member! It's Friday now, the Lincoln News is out and you can settle back in your chair and read the columns of your own publication without worrying about typographical errors, unbalanced headlines, or copy deadlines!
Yes it is worry and work to put out a full-size, four-page newspaper. This fact is wholeheartedly agreed up on Editor-in-Chief Harold Snodgrass and every budding writer in the journalism classes who is gaining a little practical experience in reporting, rewriting or headline writing by working Wednesdays and Thursdays at the print shop of the South Tacoma Star where the News is published
"Seven Carry On Pacemaker Tradition"--Fitting indeed is the title of the request article written by Adviser Homer A. Post for Scholastic Editor, official magazine of the National Scholastic Press Association, in which he described the behind-the-scenes story of how a very small, very green, but very determined staff began work in the fall. In the face of a shortage of printers which advanced deadlines readers continued to receive a publication which was up to the standards of its Pacemaker predecessors.
The Lincoln News is not just a student weekly. It is a family journal, published for students, parents and patrons of the school.. It is not a plaything for the enjoyment of the students but is printed on a professional basis, and as such Lincoln may take pride in it when year after year it has been awarded national top honors.
Homer always got the last word with his commercial about a professional high school newspaper. I have to admit I had the same views when I was teaching high school journalism.
I can definitely say that June, 1944, was memorable for many reasons. First, I officially graduated from Lincoln High School. Student Body President Warren Peterson had read one of my editorials in the Lincoln News as part of his presentation.
I had also been hired as a copy boy for the summer by the city editor of the Tacoma News Tribune, Frank Lockerby. I had written the usual number of one or two-paragraph items each week as the Lincoln High correspondent to the newspaper during the year, so my credentials as a writer were becoming accepted in the city room.
I went to work in the city room on the morning of June 6, 1944, with a smile on my face and the knowledge that the duties of a copy boy, while ill-defined, would be easy stuff for me. Check to make sure the paste pots were filled. Make sure there were adequate numbers of carbon sets--four sheets of paper with three sheets of carbon paper.
Every reporter would be required to use a carbon set for each story; some stories would require multiple sets. Empty the hell box, that box underneath the city box which was basically a very large wastebasket. Check with the Associated Press correspondent periodically--transfer the lengthy rolls of paper coming off the wires...the chattering teletypes kept producing news from all over the world. Occasionally I was called on to be a "gopher"--go to the pressroom and bring back copies of the early edition for one thing. Not a very complicated job--in fact, far less challenging than I would have wished...but I viewed it as a way of getting a foot in the door, so to speak.
Instead of what I expected, I found myself moved to the copy desk with instructions to write headlines for fillers. The Allies had invaded the European continent...the wires were coming through with the D-Day story. The events were being updated every few minutes and I was not needed to bring the teletype sheets to the copy desk...the copy desk chief, Paul Harvey, was running back and forth himself, then dealing out strips to Hal Lyness and Leonard Coatsworth for headlines and editing.
Fillers? I must have written heads for a more than a hundred fillers. Few of them were published, but the make-up chief was able to grab something that fit to fill out the bottom of each column on whatever page he was working on. Those were the days of hot type; every story was set on a linotype machine in hot lead.
That summer was a special summer. D-Day still flashes back in my memories, that day when a copyboy got the thrill of working with professionals on a copydesk putting out a newspaper on D-Day. If that sentence seems redundant, just take it as another indication of how much that day is emblazoned in my memory.
Some events of that summer did not turn out as I had anticipated. Instead of being a lazy summer dating Naydene and relaxing before starting college, I worked harder and longer than usual. And Naydene made a couple of decisions that turned out well in the long run, but drastically changed whatever ideas we had about dating that summer.
First, I was still working in the circulation department, though fewer hours because of my full-time job as a copy boy. Then I was asked (and I take it as a compliment to this day) to take over the graveyard shift for the Associated Press correspondent while he took a three-week vacation. Basically, that meant keeping the teletype rolls full, clipping and hanging the AP stories on hooks as they came in, and occasionally keyboarding something the Tacoma News Tribune wanted on the AP network, something local that might be of interest nationwide.
For three weeks I worked almost literally around the clock. Even a 17-year-old needs some sleep so I carried an alarm clock with me to work. If I didn't have time to go home for a nap I could catch a snooze on a couch in the ladies room. I gave up a few of my shifts in the circulation department during the week, but I kept my 8-hour shifts on weekends. Most of what I gave up was dating Naydene.
Naydene had decided to sign up for the RN training program at Tacoma General in September, but when the director of nursing, Miss Lehman, saw that she had shorthand and typing on her high school record as well as chemistry and Latin, she hired Naydene as her secretary for the summer. Great idea.
After a week Naydene had gone to the dictionary so many times to look up the spelling of medical terms that she was ready to quit. Miss Lehman dictated incessantly. At the end of the first week Naydene went to Miss Lehman and said, "I want to start now...I want to enter nursing training with the summer class!"
There was nothing wrong with Naydene's shorthand skills. She just could not handle the medical jargon. That decision changed a relaxing summer for both of us into something much different than either of us had planned.
Perhaps it was for the best. Some of her high school friends, including her close friend Mary Jean Cook, had also signed on for the June, 1944 class. It was a small group, just 21 girls, but they became a very close unit. When Naydene lost time because of illness- time she had to make up before graduation in 1947- the fact she started in June turned out to be a boon.
I saw her a few times that summer, mostly weekends. I can remember that the house mother always kept us waiting in the lobby...we were never allowed on the floors where the girls lived. We had to wait until each girl finished powdering her nose and then came down to meet us.
By the time I turned 18 on August 6, I had made a decision to start college; I applied for and was accepted at the College of Puget Sound in Tacoma. I had already checked with my draft board chairman; it happened to be Fred Ludwig of Ludwig's Drug Store. I asked him point-blank if I would be drafted soon or if I should start college. Go ahead and start college, he told me.
Great. I had time to pay my tuition, go through the freshman ceremonies, start classes for a week in mid-September...and ask for a refund. I had received my draft notice with instructions to report at Fort Lewis on Oct. 4, 1944.
A footnote: I had passed the written tests for the V5 and V12 officer training programs, passed the tests for the Air Force, Marines and the Navy. I had even been given an alternate appointment to Annapolis by then Congressman Coffee. Each time my high scores on the written tests meant nothing: every dentist who examined me rejected me because of my teeth. Malocclusion means an overbite. I had had an overbite since childhood. I had even fought in grade school when I was called "walrus" because of my teeth.
But it had never occurred to me that an overbite would be cause to reject me for programs that classmates with lesser skills than mine would be qualified for.
So the summer of 1944 ended with my swearing in to the U.S Army on Oct. 4, 1944.
Soon after I reported to Fort Lewis on Oct. 4, 1944 I participated in a swearing-in ceremony with about 50 others and lined up for a haircut and for lunch. In the afternoon we lined up and marched to the supply sergeant's building to be issued uniforms. That was the uneventful beginning. A few days later we were loaded on buses (by now there were about 150 in the group) and then onto a troop train headed for California.
Camp Roberts was an infantry training center near Paso Robles, California. Each week a new battalion was formed from inductees arriving, mostly from Washington State, but some from Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. I was assigned to Company B, 92nd Heavy Weapons Training Battalion.
Now the fun began. Fun? Not much. We learned drill formations. Each rookie was issued an M-1 rifle. Each of us quickly learned to disassemble it, clean it and reassemble it. Within a few weeks most of us could do it blindfolded. We did calisthenics, sometimes for hours it seemed. We marched in formation everywhere including the mess hall. The training cadre was very professional; a 1st Lieutenant commanded the company. He had been wounded at Guadalcanal and walked with a cane. There were several training sergeants and a corporal for each platoon.
The 50-mm water-cooled machine guns and the 81-mm mortars were our heavy weapons. Heavy weapons? You bet your life they were! It took three to carry a machine gun, barrel, tripod base and belts of ammunition; four to carry the base plate, tripod, barrel and ammunition for a mortar. We got demonstrations first, then the hands-on experience of loading and firing.
We dug foxholes and learned how to crawl under live machine-gun fire. If you didn't keep your butt down you wound up in the hospital on your stomach. And about three times a week we went to the firing range to qualify. I won a marksman's badge, just short of the score needed for the sharpshooter's badge. We were scheduled for bayonet drills, but then I got an opportunity.
My experience driving a panel truck for Scotty's Speedy Service qualified me for three weeks of truck driver training. About 20 of us were trained to drive 2- 1/2-ton trucks, first in convoy, then we got off-road cross country experience and eventually we were tested on a rain-soaked 18-degree hillside. How do you maneuver a truck down a slippery slope? Very carefully! The trick, we learned, was not to go straight down, but to slip and slide at an angle, turning left, then right, then left, braking lightly till we reached the bottom. Nobody in our group crashed or turned a truck over, but we were told it was not an uncommon event in these training sessions. I had had a record as a safe driver in high school, but those three weeks turned me into a defensive driver for life.
We could volunteer for tests. I took the radio operator test thinking my knowledge of Morse code would help me. I didn't even get close to qualifying. But I did 65 words per minute on a typing test. And I had come up with a pretty good score on the AGCT, the Army General Classification Test. It wasn't supposed to be an I.Q. test but that's how it was used. The scores were duly entered on my Form 20, the document used by the army to keep data on each enlisted man, starting with name, rank and serial number, and tracking each assignment by date, training qualifications and promotions. And each man got an MOS eventually. I think MOS stood for military occupation specialty. At the end of basic training mine was heavy weapons infantryman.
In December the Allies were advancing in France, but the German counter offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge changed our training schedule. Every battalion was "accelerated" and four battalions ahead of us were shipped to Europe as replacements for wounded or dead or captured infantrymen. Had the battle lasted another week or so the 92nd would have been shipped out. As it was our 17-week program was "accelerated" as the army preferred to call the situation. I think we were supposed to have three field training operations called "bivouacs"; we had two. Instead of 17 weeks we completed 13.
In mid-January we were given 10-day leaves and orders to report to the Army Ground Forces Replacement Depot at Fort Ord, California. I took the train home and managed a few hours with Naydene. Her intensive training schedule, with five or six hours of classes each day, plus working a full shift on various hospital units, had to come first.
I had loaned my Ford coupe to Bert Bradeen when I left in October; now I got my wheels back for 10 days.
We did manage a couple of dates, only by that time dating was a misnomer; we were teenagers in love and we were already talking about getting married. Now I have to report that for 50 years Naydene told people I had never actually asked her to marry me. In my mind we reached an understanding that did not need verbal expression. We were good friends but we were more than good friends. We understood our future in life was to be a joint expedition.
I wish I had some of the letters we exchanged that spring of 1945. But I am getting ahead of myself. First, I had to report to Fort Ord for what assignment overseas we could only imagine.
My mother cried when I left for the train station. She stood on the porch of the little house on Lawrence St. and when we looked back we could only surmise that she felt I might never return. Too many of her friends were already Gold Star mothers.
Fort Ord was a well-organized madhouse. Because we were reporting in individually from Camp Roberts and other training centers each of us had to go through lengthy lines before we were assigned a barracks and given a chance to rest. No marching. No drills. Just waiting for our assignment to a ship that would take us to the South Pacific.
Sunday morning I slept in. About 9 a.m. the company clerk found me, shook me awake and told me I was to report to Major Burns in Bldg. 2015. In my foggy state ( I think I had found a ping-pong partner and played until after midnight in one of the dayrooms) I wondered what infraction I was guilty of. I could not imagine what I had done to warrant examination by a major.
"Private Snodgrass reporting, SIR!" The major looked at me for a moment and said, "At ease." He was looking down at some papers on his desk, then looked up and asked, "How would you like to work for me?" Now my mind is perfectly clear on that moment; I am sure I responded, "Doing what, SIR?"
What the major was offering me was an assignment to a position in the officers classification section at Fort Ord. I would be a clerk-typist. I would not be sent overseas. I would stay at Fort Ord.
Gradually I got it through my head. To this day I am not really sure of how we concluded that conversation. Was I in shock? Yes, to be sure. Did my blood pressure go up 50 points? Probably. I couldn't wait to find a telephone so I could call Naydene.
In retrospect I think he said something quite complimentary about my qualifications and welcomed me to his staff, whom I would meet the next day. He promised that orders to transfer me to the Fort Ord cadre would be cut on Monday, but that regardless of the progress on the orders I should report to M/Sgt. Edgar the next morning.
The 65 wpm on a typing test and the AGCT score had made a difference. Or perhaps it was the fact I had office experience in the circulation department that changed my assignment from infantryman to clerk-typist. Of the thousands of GIs being sent overseas I had been selected for the cadre at Fort Ord.
The spring of 1945 is a blur. Type passenger lists for those officers going overseas. Enter data on the officer's 66-1s and 201 files. Assemble the multiple copies of the passenger lists for the escort officers who were usually over-age-in grade or retired colonels pulled out of retirement.
Burns promoted me immediately to Technician 5th Grade, a two-striper.
That meant a small increase in pay. By April Burns felt I was doing the same job as Isham and Bye and recommended me for Staff Sergeant. That was a mistake. His recommendation was rejected because he had jumped me two grades.
On May 8 the war in Europe was over and the table of organization at Fort Ord and throughout most of the army was frozen. I was never to get another promotion.
But life at Fort Ord was good. The office work was six days a week, but we got Wednesday and Saturday afternoons off. I met Bill Potter from Dayton, Ohio, and a guy from Chicago named Jim Wacker; both worked in the enlisted men's section.
We could have abalone steak dinners when we tired of army chow. Monterey had a dozen or more high class restaurants; we took advantage of many of them. On Wednesday afternoons we could play golf free at the 9-hole Carmel golf course. Golf balls were scarce in WWII; if we hit one into the ocean we took off our shoes and waded in.
We played an 18-hole course one week that spring. I would like to think it was Pebble Beach. But more likely it was Spyglass Hill. We didn't keep score; we were just having fun.
As the war in Europe ended we got some extra help; Master Sergeants with five or six years worth of bars on their sleeves were being assigned to us as the shipments into the Pacific were being accelerated. Whole divisions, including the 92nd, were out to sea in mid-August when the war ended with Japan. Some of those divisions were diverted to Fort Ord.
Now we had a new duty. Many of us were reassigned to discharge centers. I was converted (and it's on my Form 20) to an occupational counselor MOS.
Now let's not be too funny. I am barely 19 years old and I am asked to counsel men who have spent four or five or even six years in the army of World War II. My job requires that I ask the questions on the sheet and record the answers. Okay. What are your plans for the future?
If they said they wanted to wash windows on the Empire State Building I wrote it down, stamped their papers, and said NEXT!
If they said they wanted to be rodeo announcers I did not blink. If they said they wanted to run a house of ill repute (I have refined their language) I did not blink. I filled out the forms, stamped their discharge papers and went back to the day room to play ping-pong, usually with Bill Potter. We had a few, well maybe quite a few ping-pong games and a lot of pool games. Bill was, like me, a high school kid who had some smarts and an ability to type.
By Christmas the discharge center was being closed down, and I went back to my job at the officers classification section. Now the activity was staffing the Army of Occupation in Japan and rotat
What’s your fondest memory of Harold?
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Describe a day with Harold you’ll never forget.
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