me in progress. I was quite taken aback because it never occurred to me that anyone would bother with such a thing.
I went back to New York with a warmer feeling than I thought I could manage.
By now, Henry had found himself a niche. Despairing of finding a new job, he had opened a business of his own, which he called the Henry Paper Box Company. It was now moving into operation as he obtained the necessary equipment, hired the necessary personnel, and so on. It absorbed Gertrude (who was acting as a kind of secretary and factotum for the new firm) completely, and she scarcely noticed my comings and goings.
On the night of the thirtieth, however, I took a room at the Manhattan Beach Hotel for five dollars, and Gertrude and I spent the night. It was our first night alone together in five weeks.
Then, on the next day, she went off to the Henry Paper Box Company. I said good-bye to Mary and John, went to Windsor Place, said good-bye to my parents and to Marcia and Stan, went to the Henry Paper Box Company for a final dinner with Gertrude, and said goodbye to her.
Then, once again, I went to Philadelphia, not knowing when or how I would see anyone again.
At least there was no war on. No one would be shooting at me. There was that consolation.
Fort Meade
Early on the morning of Thursday, November 1, 1945, I went to the induction center in Philadelphia. Once more, there was a physical. I was listed as having defective vision and otitis. 1 According to the examining psychiatrist, I also had "situational tension/' which had to rank with the least surprising news ever recorded.
At 3:50 p.m. we were sworn in. The elderly recruiting sergeant had the recruits all repeat an oath, and with that we were in the Army. When it was all done, he said, "All right, soldiers, any questions?"
And a voice promptly sounded out, "Yes, Sarge: How do we get out of this chicken outfit?"
I understand that this is traditional, that no group of soldiers has ever been inducted without at least one of them asking this silly question.
In this case, it was I who asked it. I knew it was silly; I expected no answer (the recruiting sergeant rolled his eyes upward and looked pained), but one has to keep one's spirits up somehow—and my way is to joke.
I've joked under far worse conditions, and some of them will come up in this book.
My Army service number was 43012053, and that night we were put on a train and taken to Fort Meade, near Baltimore, Maryland. We went through Wilmington, which I had once visited in order to see Irene over five years before, and then passed on farther South—farther South than I had ever been in my life.
It was a peculiar feeling. For the first time in my life, I was going somewhere without my parents, without my wife, and without my volition. I kept watching the telephone poles slide backward outside the window and I kept saying to myself, "I can't change my mind. I can't get off the train. I can't go back home. I've got to go wherever I'm told. I have no say in the matter."
I was in prison, in a way.
We didn't go to bed till midnight that night, and by that time each of us was given a barracks bag for our belongings, and a fatigue
1 Otitis, or inflammation of the ear canal, had been plaguing me throughout the Philadelphia years.
uniform to wear. Since we were given the fatigues at random, they weren't expected to fit, and mine were far too large.
We were awakened at 4:30 a.m. on November 2. At least some of the soldiers were awakened. I hadn't slept. When a corporal came roaring into the barracks shouting, "Rise and shine! Hubba hubba! Up 'n' at 'em!" and all the other horrible sounds I despised from the start, I waited for him to pass and then I said calmly, "Corporal, what time is it?"
I instantly learned the measure of manliness in the Army: It was how far you could recede from ordinary decency.
The corporal said, "How the hell should I know?"
Whereupon I said, "But if you don't know what time it is, how do you know it's time to wake us?"
The corporal stopped short. He was keen enough to recognize, at once, the prime enemy of any military individual—the rational mind. He said, tightly, "What's your name and serial number, private?"
I told him and he wrote it down. My first night in the Army—and I was on report.
I was quite philosophical about it. I had spent my whole life going on report—from grade school to the Navy Yard—and always for the same heinous crime, answering back.
Later that day, we had shots for tetanus and typhoid, and another physical examination, a very sketchy one. We had blood-type determinations and I turned out to be blood type B (which is every bit as rich as blood type O).
In the evening, I was turned loose. I found myself in a more formal uniform, which fitted reasonably well, and in a barracks with nothing to do but think. What I thought was: This is it for two years!
I was overwhelmed with such homesickness, with such an unbear-ble feeling of helpless imprisonment that for a few moments I thought I must collapse. I had to think of something and, bending my giant brain to the task, I realized that it was Friday and that somewhere on the post there had to be a chapel and that in it pretty soon there had to be Sabbath services.
I hadn't attended Sabbath services since I was eight, when my father had taken me, but I was in no mood to stand on principle. What I needed was companionship and something to do. So I went to chapel.
We recited Hebrew prayers and sang hymns. I couldn't manage the prayers, but I could sing hymns well enough, since I can match the notes of whoever stands next to me with almost no perceptible delay
and, after a while, I get the feel of the tune and can guess the next note. I was so relieved to be doing something other than standing in the empty passage between the barracks that my voice rang out thankfully and soared above the rest so that someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked me, eagerly, if I would care to lead the singing. I shook my head in terror and sang in a whisper thereafter.
After services we had salami on khallah (the traditional white egg-bread eaten on the Sabbath) and cake and tea. I got back to the barracks at ten-thirty and was tired enough to fall asleep at once.
I frequently felt homesick in the Army thereafter, but never, never quite as painfully as upon the end of that first full day, when I felt as though the whole world had forsaken me, that I was lost, and that no one would ever find me again. What would I have done if it hadn't just happened to have been a Friday and I could not have sung hymns and eaten salami?
3
On Saturday, November 3, the recruits all took a sort of intelligence test given by the Army. I believe it is called the AGCT score.
There were five tests. There was one on reading and vocabulary, two on mathematics, one on pattern analyses—and all these were familiar territory to me. The fifth one was brand-new. We were taught the Morse signal for three different letters and then had to reproduce the letters as the signal sounded, faster and faster and faster.
I welcomed that, to my surprise. It was hypnotic. I scarcely had to concentrate. My fingers did it all by themselves.
The whole thing took three hours and I enjoyed it. It was something that represented what my whole life had been.
Then we sent our civilian clothes home (I called them "civvies" in the diary, for I was picking up soldier slang) and got a haircut in which the barber merely hacked off all the hair that was more than an inch from my scalp. When I finally looked too ugly to be a civilian he knew he was done.
By then, I had made the acquaintance of two nearby soldiers and discovered that every Army post had movies, first-run, at a reasonable charge. So I went Saturday night—and Sunday night, too.
4
On Monday, November 5, we were marched to a building where our AGCT scores were to be analyzed and we were to be interviewed. This was in line with the theory that the Army would place you in a
position best suited for you. (If you showed great aptitude for geology you could dig trenches; for chemistry, you could be a cook; and so on.)
I waited in line as we were called and eventually I realized I had to visit the men's room and I happened to be standing right at the men's room door. I asked the sergeant who was supervising our slow advance if I could step into the men's room. Very reluctantly (for all requests by privates are to be refused as a matter of principle) he agreed, but warned me not to take too long.
I didn't, but it was long enough. When I emerged, there were loud outcries and the sergeant seized me roughly by the arm and shouted. "Here he is!"
I thought: Now what have I done?
I hadn't done anything. The various interviewers had just come across my AGCT score and were arguing as to who could have the fun of interviewing me. It turned out that my score was 160, and none of them had ever seen a score that high. When they settled the argument among themselves, I was interviewed with something approaching awe.
Naturally, I was very pleased and in an attack of naivete" thought this might make my Army life easier for me, perhaps even spare me basic training. My interviewer told me, unofficially, I would probably be assigned to Camp Lee, Virginia, and he somehow made it sound as though it was an intellectual's haven—the Army equivalent of an Ivy League college.
That was exactly where the glory of the 160 ended. After we were through with the interview, everyone had to shoulder his duffel bag and trot over to another area. Everyone trotted. No one seemed to be aware that he was carrying fifty pounds. No one except me. I lagged far behind, puffing, sweating, and strangling, and no one seemed to think a head full of 160 should be spared the necessity of carrying fifty pounds. No one even noticed me except a sergeant who barked, "Get a move on, soldier."
In the evening, I got my first menial detail. I was sent to the officers' club and told to empty ashtrays and trashcans and to do some general sweeping. Such officers as were present bent vacant eyes upon me now and then. They apparently couldn't see the 160 written on my forehead.
My illusions didn't last. I was a private in the Army and nothing else counted. I was the scum of the earth.
5
On the night of November 5, I managed to find a telephone and I tried to call Gertrude. She was at the Henry Paper Box Company, of
course, though Henry himself was not. I told him about the results of the test and asked him to pass it on to Gertrude.
Later on, Gertrude told a friend who had let her know her boyfriend's or husband's score—which was well above the 100 average, but not remarkably so.
"My husband," said Gertrude, "scored 160."
"116?"
"No, 160. One-six-oh."
"How do you know?"
"He told me so."
The other girl snickered. "And you believe him?"
When Gertrude eventually told me this, with great indignation, I said curiously, "But how do you know you can believe me? How do you know I'm not lying?"
And she said, "But 160 is average for you. Why should you lie?"
I don't imagine Gertrude ever thought I was perfect, but she certainly never doubted my intelligence.
On November 6, I had further proof of just how valuable I was to the Army in view of my intelligence.
I was given my first KP assignment, and spent all day in the mess hall performing various menial tasks.
This is understandable, I suppose. Someone has to do them and it is the essence of military democracy that all menials take their fair turn.
What was a lot less comprehensible was that no provision was made for storing the outer wear of the soldiers doing KP. It was cold enough outside to be wearing a field jacket, but no place of security was provided for me to store that field jacket. It had to be left out in the open, and it was stolen. I was charged $14 for a replacement of lesser quality and was "chewed out" for the high crime of allowing it to be stolen. "Chewed out" is an Army term that means being barked at incoherently by a sergeant who, in all likelihood, was the animal who stole the field jacket.
Camp Lee
On Thursday, November 8, after having been in the Army a week, I was shipped out to Camp Lee, Virginia, where Mel Roberts had been. It was just outside Petersburg, Virginia, twenty-five miles south of Richmond and three hundred miles south of New York City.
In Camp Lee, I was put in the 62nd Quartermaster Training Company, and the next day I was on KP again. I came across a German prisoner of war and spoke German to him, while a crowd of youngsters gathered around and listened in amazement, since they had never heard anyone speak anything but English before. I also saw, for the first time in my life, an illiterate adult. Someone was writing a letter for him.
As for me, I wrote letters constantly—to Meisel, to Machlowitz, to Campbell, to Heinlein, to de Camp, to Stanley, to my parents, and so on. And, of course, I wrote a letter daily to Gertrude (except when it was physically impossible, which was rare).
My letters to Gertrude told her of daily events that I did my best to make funny—as much to cheer myself as to cheer her. They were a better record of my Army life in many ways, I suppose, than my diary was. 1
Gertrude, alas, did not answer daily. She was quite busy at the Henry Paper Box Company (it was her candy store, I guess) and, in any case, no one in her family was much of a letter writer.
She wrote me about once a week during my stay in the Army, and they were valued letters indeed. They dealt chiefly with events at the Henry Paper Box Company, where things, apparently, went from one crisis to another. There were always frictions with the employees who were, according to Gertrude's account, very difficult and, in some cases, psychotic. There was also trouble with the union, with the landlord, and with the suppliers.
I was tempted to point out that these problems were characteristic of the life of the small entrepreneur attempting to start a family business with insufficient capital—something I had tried to warn them
1 1 kept my diary carefully throughout my stay in the Army. By this time I was in my eighth volume, and not to keep it up to date had become unthinkable.
against at the start. (I might be an unworldly person, but I did have the kind of experience that came with watching a candy store being run.) It had done no good.
On Saturday, November 10, assuming that the Henry Paper Box Company would be closed, I tried calling long distance and, for the first time since I was inducted into the Army, I heard Gertrude's voice. I was naturally too prudent to speak for more than three minutes. In this case, I foolishly wasted some of the precious three minutes by beginning to weep.
On November 12, I discovered that Camp Lee had an excellent library and thereafter I spent as much time there as I could. The Army was a bore and it offered endless humiliations to privates, but it did offer ways of passing the time that weren't entirely unwelcome.
My first mail arrived on the thirteenth—one letter from Marcia and one from Stanley. The next day there arrived the first letter from Gertrude—four pages, which I read and reread until the ink grew faint from repeated eye contact.
On the fifteenth, I received a letter from Machlowitz. He had seen Gertrude over the weekend and, with his usual tact, told me she seemed tired and strained. Somehow the letter gave me the impression that it was my fault. A better husband would not have consulted his selfish desires and run off to join the Army.
I learned new ways of life in the Army. I learned how to take showers in public—or at least with other young men surrounding me.
I did not enjoy it. I don't think I would have minded if it were young women surrounding me, but I have always found the sight of naked men repulsive in the extreme. 2 I was aware of this first at my very first Army physical when, for the first time, I saw a line of men with their genitals dangling. I wondered then (and I wonder now) how women can bear it.
Worse yet, I learned, or attempted to learn, how to defecate in public. In latrine after latrine, the seats were arranged in long rows without the sketchiest partitions between them. Other soldiers seemed not to mind, but I took to waking myself at 3:00 a.m. in order to have the latrine to mysel
f. It never worked; I don't think I ever walked in without finding at least one other soldier there.
2 If there is any amateur psychologist who thinks this bespeaks some hidden homosexual impulse in me, he or she is welcome to continue thinking so en route to Hell.
3
I tried to go through channels in order to see if I could avoid basic training and simply be assigned to some appropriate job in the Army. It seemed reasonable to me that this be done in view of my AGCT score, and my experience as a chemist. Add to this the fact that the war was over and that I wasn't ever going to be doing anything that required military drill and setting-up exercises.
It was amazing the way everyone agreed with me and the way in which everyone said nothing could be done. On November 19, I was officially switched into a basic-training unit, and on the next day I began the process.
There were two hours of drill, followed by two films, one on military courtesy, which I had seen before, and another warning soldiers against venereal disease. In the evening I was given a rifle—a real, honest-to-God, working rifle—and it was the first time I ever held a firearm of any kind. We had calisthenics, too.
On Thanksgiving (November 22) I had all the turkey, and everything else, I could eat, so for that one day I was fairly consoled. And in the library I found a copy of the December 1945 Astounding, with the second part of "The Mule," which I read with somber pleasure. It reminded me of those already distant-seeming civilian days when I was writing it. It made me remember the days when I was an individual and of some importance.
4
On November 23, I had another interesting KP session. I was given the role of stevedore this time. I drove in a truck with another soldier who was, fortunately for me, an eighteen-year-old farmboy with a kindly nature and muscles of iron. We loaded and unloaded sacks of potatoes, bags of flour, crates of oranges, chicken, meat, fish, and so on. We weren't exactly stevedores, at that. A stevedore would have worked eight hours; we worked thirteen. My partner did far more than his share of the work.
In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954 Page 54
