Don Yaworski Recollections of the U.S. Army, 1970 – 1973                     May, 2020

  

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Other than official U.S. Army photos, photographs Copyright Don Yaworski and may not be used without permission.

 

 

Ever since my Cousin Al Lisdahl wrote his remembrances of his Army days, I have thought  that I should do something similar. But of course, it cannot be similar since I never served in Viet Nam, was not in the Medical Corps, was never in harms way, nor witnessed the things that Al had to witness. I am so grateful (hardly as grateful as Al, Carol Jean, Greta, and Krista) that Al came back whole from Viet Nam. My story is in no way comparable except that we both were in the U.S. Army. One of my commanders described my Army time as a vacation and while being sarcastic, he was not too far off the mark.

 

However, the story has to start before I was ever in the Army. I attended SIU, Southern Illinois University with a major in Photography. I had a draft deferment during my time there and while that was great and allowed me to finish, I drew a low number in the draft lottery while enjoying my last year of college life. I knew that after graduation in the spring of 1970, I would be drafted fairly quickly. During that last quarter, there was a lot of anti-Viet Nam war demonstrating that was answered by a presence of Illinois National Guardsmen on campus. All the dormitories were on lockdown and as a Resident Fellow, if I was not in class, in the studio, in the lab, or at the library, I had to be present at the dorm to let residents in or out. There were 3 Resident Fellows in our dorm, 1 for each floor. Because of this schedule, I never saw any of the demonstrations, but I did smell the weak, wafting tear gas on campus. About a week after the horrific Ohio National Guard shootings at Kent State on May 4, SIU was closed. Since the quarter was not completed, our grades were pass/fail. I could not leave right away, because I had to stay until all residents vacated the dorm. We then shut down the dorm. It was a very sad time.

 

I did have to write a paper after returning to Chicago, since one particular class had absolutely nothing to go on for a passing grade. We had no assignments, tests, or quizzes up until then. It was a philosophy class and so I was philosophical about having to write a paper after having left school. Smiley Face. SIU did not have graduation ceremonies that spring.

 

I immediately went to work at Stephen Heiser Photography in Chicago as Steve’s assistant. I had worked for Steve the previous summer, and he asked me to be his assistant before this school shutdown occurred. I revealed to him that I had a low draft number and would be drafted soon after graduation. He said, “That’s OK. Just come to work for as long as you can.” By the way, the people in the class of 1970 who did not get to “cross the stage” or “walk the walk” were invited this spring to participate in graduation ceremonies with the class of 2020. This is the 50^th anniversary of our graduation and I was seriously thinking about doing this. But of course, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed those plans. Sigh…

 

Back to 1970 - as the weeks went on, I was getting more nervous about the draft, because I did not want to go to Viet Nam and especially did not want to go there with a combat arms specialty. To be blunt, I wanted an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) in which I could serve but not become a war statistic.  When I think about this, I think about my Russian teacher in high school who one day in class decided to divide us up according to the latest statistics for young men (all boy high school). In his thick accent, he told us how many of us would be drafted, how many would go to Viet Nam, and how many of us would die in Viet Nam. Nice guy. Very sobering. His name was Grazhdaneen (Mr.) Pawul, was Ukrainian, and he fought in WWII. He was also fluent in German and it was never clear about which side he fought for…. With all this stuff swirling through my head, I did a non-intuitive thing and enlisted! I went down to an enlistment office and took tests. After the results came back, I was told that because of my results and because I had a B.S. degree, I could sign up for OCS (Officer Candidate School). Of course, the catch was that I would come out a 2^nd Lieutenant in the infantry and go practically straight to Viet Nam. At the time, the mortality rate in Viet Nam for 2^nd LTs was horrendous. Looking at my choices, I found that I had many MOS choices in the enlisted ranks. Photography was not one of them because it was full. Besides, I did not think I wanted to end up being a combat photographer. Those guys carried not only a camera but also an M-16. I ended up choosing another MOS in the Signal Corps, 35B20, Electronic Instrument Repair. The main reason I chose this was that the school was 6 months long. Also, after that school, there was the possibility that I would advance to 35B30 (which I did) that would tack on another 3 months of training. So, with 10? weeks of Basic Training plus 9 months of AIT (Advanced Individual Training), I thought that perhaps the war would be over by the time I got out of training. There is a document near the end of this blog that awards me the MOS of 35B20 at the end of my 1^st school and a secondary MOS of 84B20, Photographer. Ironic, eh? So instead of taking my chances and letting myself be drafted for 2 years, I enlisted for 3 and had more choices.

 

My date of entry to the Army was 23 July 1970 and as the time got closer, a food photographer from NYC named Charles Thill came to Chicago to shoot slices of pie for Sara Lee. He and Steve were old friends and Steve rented part of his studio to him for the approximately 1-week shoot. He also lent me to Charles as assistant. I do not remember the food stylist’s name but she was amazing! We produced one finished slice of pie photograph per day. There were many baked pies laid out for the stylist to choose from, and she would cut out slices from these pies and totally rebuild them. She would stuff certain parts of the slice with totally non-edible materials and then place the visible cherries (or other fruit of the day) individually where they needed to be, making sure that they had the right texture and “glisten.” Charles was shooting these transparencies on 8X10” film and it was one part of my job to load and unload all the film holders (in the dark of course). Also, I needed to take copious notes so that each sheet of film could be identified according to its angle and exposure. Only a few sheets were processed at one time. If Charles was not satisfied with an exposure, we had more exposed film that could be sent to the lab to be “push or pull” processed, depending on what was needed. I remember that he was making adjustments as low as by ¼ of a stop at times. He was an amazing perfectionist. Charles and I got along great and he liked that I had kept track of all the film. So at the end of the shoot, Charles asked Steve if he could hire me away from him and have me as his assistant in New York. Steve told him that the question was theoretical since I was about to go into the Army. I am not sure what my decision would have been, but I know that my life certainly would have taken a different trajectory had I moved to New York and specialized in food photography.

 

My Basic Training at Fort Lewis, Washington was not particularly different from anyone else’s, but I will tell you of a few experiences. I remember arriving at Fort Lewis late at night on July 23^rd. It may have been July but I shivered for about an hour on a basketball court as we waited for the powers that be to do something with us. Finally, at about 2 AM, they herded us into a mess hall and we were fed a breakfast of eggs, bacon, grits, and toast with a few cookies piled on top. The cookies were weird but also, I had never had grits before and was not exactly sure what they were.

 

I do not remember how many weeks into the cycle this was, but we were scheduled for the 3-day bivouac (camping out army style). Unfortunately, I drew KP (kitchen police) and did not go on bivouac at all. Because I was left behind to work in the Battalion mess hall, I had KP for not the usual 1 day but for all 3 friggin days. It was not only horrendous because each shift lasted about 20 hours but because I had the worst job, “Pot and Pan Man!” The mess sergeant was so stingy with the SOS pads that I could only get a new one when the one I was using was too small for my cramped and hurting hands to hold.

 

Another unfortunate thing that happened during our cycle was that our unit had the once-a-year inspection by the inspector general. I do not believe that an actual general inspects facilities but to get ready for this thing, we spent days doing painting and ridiculously detailed cleaning… and this was after our daily training. On the day of the inspection, my platoon was scheduled for a many mile (don’t remember how many) force march with full packs and weapons. I kept thinking that with this inspection, there is no way we will still have the force march. The night before, we never went to bed but were continually goaded into getting the barracks as perfect as possible. At 4 or 5 or 6 in the morning, we were told to get our packs together for the march. Our hearts sank. Then we had breakfast and our platoon drill sergeant and his assistant sergeant E-5 (the guy in the civilian clothes in the picture) actually started us out on our hike. At about an hour out, we were in this beautiful, quiet, fragrant Pacific Northwest pine forest with a soft pine needle floor. Our drill sergeant halted us and told us to take off our packs and go to sleep. We slept there all day! That was the most humane thing I experienced in basic training.

 

On Sundays in Basic Training, one was allowed to go to church services. I was not particularly religious, but on one Sunday, I went just to get out of the barracks. We could not just go though. We had to be walked there by our Drill Sergeant. Gads, those guys sure put in the long hours. Anyway, the service was presented by a young Chaplain LT and was not very long. After the service, he pulled out a guitar and played a couple non-religious songs. Then he asked if anyone else would like to play. So I raised my hand and sang several songs, 3 of which were anti-war songs. One was “Two Brothers,” a song that Cousin Toni Ann always liked me to sing. It was about 2 brothers during the Civil War – “One wore blue and one wore gray.” Another was “Draft Dodger Rag.” Here are a few of the lyrics:

 

“Well I’m only 18, I got a ruptured spleen, and I always carry a purse

My eyes are bad and my feet are flat and my asthma’s getting worse”

 

The third one was a song by Country Joe and the Fish that I think they may have performed at Woodstock. Here are a few of the lyrics:

 

“And it’s 1, 2, 3 what are we fighting for?

Don’t tell me I don’t give a damn

Next stop is Viet Nam

And it’s 5, 6, 7 open up the pearly gates

Oh oh oh, ain’t no time to wonder why

Whoopee we’re all gonna die.”

 

I do not remember any bad reactions to these, but I do remember that the Chaplain didn’t mind at all and thanked me for playing. Now though, I think that my sensitivity to the situation was probably below par. Here I am with a bunch of guys who were mostly draftees, and I am singing about dying in Viet Nam. Not good. Of course, it was not certain at the time that I wouldn’t go to Viet Nam. I was very lucky.

 

By the way, Johnna and I were staying with Al a couple Christmases ago and I noticed that in his basic training graduation picture, he was standing close to where I was standing in mine. So I took a picture of his and compared it to mine when we returned home. It turns out that had Al and I been in the same picture, we would have been standing next to each other! Johnna and I each made a composite of the 2 photos, basically inserting me into his platoon (although we included the signs in front for both platoons). It is also weird that we were both in the 3^rd Platoon of Delta companies. Here is the composite. The two circled recruits are Al and me. Al is on the left.

 

 

Here is my un-manipulated basic training graduation picture.

 

 

From Fort Lewis, I went to Fort Gordon, GA to attend my first electronics course at the Signal School. My arrival in Augusta, GA was memorable. The plane to Augusta was almost empty and as I stepped out of the plane and walked down the stairway, I immediately broke into a sweat as it was so friggin' hot and humid. And this was in October! I found the luggage claim and it was in the open air underneath a roof. As I stepped underneath the structure, the sky opened up in a terrific downpour with thunder and lightning. As I waited for my duffle bag, the African American baggage handler started singing “Rainy Night in Georgia” with his beautiful baritone voice. Then a bee stung me right in the middle of my chin. I took a bus to the fort and noticed that the road leading there from the airport was “Tobacco Road.” It was all very surreal.

 

The next picture shows me holding an M-14 that I was totally unqualified to fire. In Basic, we qualified with the M-16. I qualified as expert and I think that had to do with my photographer habit of not breathing when releasing the shutter release/trigger. Anyway, the fort commander, a 2-star general, was retiring and a few others and myself from the company were somehow “convinced” to be in the parade.

 

 

 Here is a picture of my graduating class from 35B20. There were 6 of us who were PFCs (Private First Class) and another guy who had re-enlisted to take this class. He was a Specialist 6 (equivalent to a staff sergeant pay-grade). The 7 of us advanced to the 35B30 class along with 3 others. The 6 of us were promoted to Specialist 4 the same day that this picture was taken. During this course however, someone involved with putting together the course materials for the Signal School, found out that there was a photographer taking the 35B20 course. They had need for someone to take over 800 photos for these course materials, but did not have a slot for a photographer. The fort photo facility could not supply the school with someone. Strings were pulled and they started pulling me out of classes to make the photographs. This was fine with me since what I wanted to do was be a photographer. But I missed a lot of class time and did not learn some of the units in the course. I am surprised they graduated me along with the others. My supervisor in this photography project was a 1^st LT named Jerry Blankenship and we had a lot in common. He had a Bachelor’s degree in photography but also had an MFA. If I had not become available to him, I think he would have had to shoot the stuff himself. We got along great and were on first name terms when we were not around others. Because of this loose officer/enlisted man relationship, the 1st Sergeant of my company even chewed me out. One day, Jerry picked me up at my company in a staff car driven by a Staff Sergeant. When I saw the car from the company office, I ran out to the car. Jerry popped out and we spoke for a couple minutes before he opened the door for me to get in ahead of him. Neither of us thought anything of it until I was called on the carpet the next day. Unbeknownst to me, the 1^st Sergeant (E-8) was watching all this from his office window. My 1^st Sergeant said, “You NEVER allow an officer to open a door for you.” While I was trying to explain that the LT was giving me instructions for the day, he said, “And by the way, I DID NOT SEE YOU SALUTE HIM!!!” Hilarious but I could not laugh. I never got any medals in the Army but I did receive a bunch of letters of commendation and letters of appreciation, mostly for this photography project that I completed. A few of them are near the end of the blog and a couple of them are pretty funny.

 

 

After starting my second electronics course, a surprising thing happened. The U.S. ended the draft. This had to do not only because of all the protests but because the Viet Nam war was finally winding down. The Army still needed recruits, so they started an advertising campaign in which they referred to the Army as the MVA, the Modern Volunteer Army. As they developed this idea, they loosened certain aspects to make it more attractive to high school graduates. During this time, the haircut rules were loosened, we were allowed to have mustaches, and we could have longer sideburns. They also allowed us to decorate our rooms in the barracks. So what I did was “plaster my wall” with photos clipped from photography magazines plus a couple prints of my own. Besides the wall display, I hung a mobile in my room that I made from branches and pine cones that I picked up in the woods not far from the barracks. In the photos below, one is an article from the “Fort Gordon Rambler” newspaper and then a slide shot by the same reporter from the “Rambler.” The mobile impressed the Battalion Executive Officer enough so, that he requested myself and some assistants to hang mobiles around the battalion mess hall. We did it but I’m not sure that hanging dirty branches and cones above eating areas is the most sanitary thing to do. Ha. By the way, the color photo that the staff sergeant shot looks like my left hand on the guitar is giving the camera the finger. That was a real guitar chord but I knew what it looked like. Unfortunately, the reporter chose one of the black and white shots for the newspaper in which I was playing another chord. 

 

      

 

Compared with Basic Training, we had a lot more freedom in AIT (Advanced Individual Training) and were able to leave the post on evenings and weekends. Nevertheless, it was so boring during our off time during the week that I took part in a lot of extracurricular activities. One thing I did was compete for Company Soldier of the Month and actually won the thing. Because I won, the next month, I had to compete against the other 3 company’s soldiers of the month for the Signal Battalion Soldier of the Month. Here are a couple shots of me accepting the award at the Battalion ceremony. It was kind of fun but at the same time, somewhat embarrassing. I didn’t consider myself a brown nose but I suppose some guys did. Ha again. Another activity I took part in was writing articles for the Monthly Battalion Newsletter. One of the articles that I wrote was a tongue in cheek column for a few months that was about the art of cooking! It was called “The Gourmet Corner.” I knew nothing about cooking and it was so totally non-military. Perfect. You would not want to try any of my recipes. I was editor for a couple months as well.

 

 

My company commander had heard me sing and play my guitar and got it into his head that I should get a gig in the Officers’ Club Lounge. I was pretty skeptical that it was possible or that he would encourage me to do such a thing, but he said, “if we go there in civilian clothes, I will introduce you to the club officer and you can do a little audition.” It actually worked and I got a job playing in the lounge on Saturday nights for about a month. It was a lot of fun and the club officer paid me in cash after each “gig.” Besides the Signal School at Fort Gordon, there was a Military Police Basic Officers Course. Hanging around the Officers’ Club, I met some of the students in this course. They were about my age and were all 2^nd LTS. By the time they found out that I was an enlisted man, they did not care (I don’t think that the club officer, a Major, ever did figure out that I was enlisted or if he did, he chose to ignore it). One of these MP officers was named Dale and he was a police officer in San Diego. After the course, he was to return to his civilian job and serve as a Military Police Officer in the National Guard for his monthly weekend. One of these Saturday nights, he said that the next Friday night, they were having a party at the BOQ (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters) and they wanted me to show up. I said that it was impossible for me because I was scheduled for KP the next Friday (This was the 2^nd and last time that I would have Kitchen Police). He told me to drop off a change of civilian clothes to the BOQ before Friday and that “You are going to the party!” Friday came and I reported very early in the morning to the mess hall for my shift. Again, I drew the worst job, “Pot and Pan Man!” After about 12 hours of my shift (8 to go), the mess sergeant came up to me and said that there were a couple MPs in the dining room who wanted to talk with me. I came out of the kitchen and struggled not to smile when I saw Dale and an MP Staff Sergeant. This was the first and only time that I saw Dale in uniform (and the only time he saw me in uniform). So I tried to act nervous but it was not difficult, because I was a little nervous. Dale spoke briefly to me in hushed tones and then went back to the mess Sergeant. He told the Sergeant that they had to take me in for questioning. And so, some other poor sap, probably from dining room cleanup had to become “Pot and Pan Man” for the rest of the shift. Neither Dale nor I said a single word while the MP Sergeant drove us over to the MP building to drop us off. I figured correctly that the Staff Sergeant was not in on the scheme. We then got into Dale’s car and went to the BOQ. The photo below is a photo of me wearing a Captain’s helmet at that BOQ party.

 

 

 One Saturday, several friends and I went to a parachute jump club in Barnwell, SC to take a 4 or 5-hour course and then take our first jump from 3000 feet AGL (above ground level). The 2 most important parts of the training was how to pack your chute and how to use your emergency chute if the main chute was a “streamer.” After pulling the ripcord with the emergency chute, we were taught that you had to throw it out and away from the useless streaming main chute. If it became tangled with the main, you really were in trouble. As far as packing your own parachute, it takes about 15 or 20 minutes for an experienced packer. I wrote an article about our experience for the Battalion Newsletter and I remember writing that it took me an hour and a half to pack my own chute. Why not take a little extra time and get it right? There was a big X painted on pavement that was supposed to be our target landing spot. Like my buddy Dick Schalhammer in the pictures, I never even SAW the X and landed in a nice soft bean field. The club vehicle that picked us up was an old hearse! Very funny.

 

 

 

            

 

During the time I was shooting slides to be used for the Signal School’s Audiscan projectors, I was pretty much a 1-man band. Jerry would give me lists of photos as we went along with the description of the equipment and what he wanted to show. I would shoot the 35 mm Ektachrome slides and process them myself. Their processing equipment was pretty rudimentary and I had to improvise to keep the temperatures of the chemicals within the tight limits required for color transparency film. Sometimes, a model was needed for shots and I for the most part was alone in the little studio and lab. If I could not find a model, I sometimes had to use myself with the self-timer on the Nikon. It was much easier to photograph someone else. The photo below is one that I kept as a souvenir. This cracks me up, because it looks like the field telephone is from WWII! In the photo, I am demonstrating how to crank the phone to make a call. Reminds me of Radar O’Reilly calling Sparky in the old MASH TV show.

 

 

One day near the end of the 2^nd course, 35B30, I showed up in class after working at the photo facility to find that my classmates were wearing their “Class A Uniforms.” I did not get the message that this was our graduation day, so I was wearing the normal fatigues. I had a camera and a roll of B&W film with me and shot a few pictures in the classroom (I staged the shot of a few of the guys sleeping in class). Also, we went outside and I did some last-minute graduation pictures minus me. See pix. They are a little unconventional for Army pictures. Fun. I don’t even know who the smoking Master Sergeant was, but he showed up for the graduation. I wish I had asked him to shoot one including me in the group, even though I was not dressed for the occasion. I don’t even think I thought of it.

 

 

  

   

 

 

About this time, I was told to report to the hospital on the fort. I was surprised to find that they were offering me a job to be medical photographer. I was excited at first until I found out what the job entailed. They showed me around the facility and then showed me projected slides of what I would need to photograph. I figured that I would have to photograph surgeries and I thought that I could handle that. But they also told me that I would have to photograph autopsies and showed me slides of autopsies. I did ok until in one particular autopsy, the face of the deceased was folded over, away from the skull. I didn’t hurl but I almost did. It was then that I was told that the decision to take or not take the job was mine. I declined. Amazingly, I was offered what I would guess is one of the only jobs in the US Army that a person could turn down.

  

The 10 of us graduated and I was the only one who was not awarded a Top-Secret Security Clearance. The 9 promptly received orders for lonely outposts all over the world (listening posts I would guess). A few of the places that I remember were The Aleutian Islands, Turkey, and Ethiopia. I have no idea why I did not get the clearance. Perhaps it was because I missed so much school (shooting pictures) or maybe it was because Dad was born in the Russian Federation and did not become a US citizen until 1942. I will never know. Instead, I was told that I was staying with the Signal School. I thought, great! I will continue with photography. Wrong! They made me the Signal School Draftsman! What? It turned out to be a great job and was 40 hours a week and no extra duty. I wondered how they knew I could handle it and then realized that during the clearance investigation, they would have found that I had 2 years of drafting at Lane Tech High School in Chicago. In the job, I drew electronic schematics for training materials and produced a lot of other graphics materials – signs, posters, etc. My cubicle was in Signal Towers and I was the lowest ranking individual on the whole floor. COL Bean (Don’t remember exactly what his title was but I think he was the head of the Signal School) had an office with 2 doors. The side door was right outside my cubicle. I wasn’t too crazy about that but he did not use that door very often. He was a nice guy and one time when I was in his office, I noticed a pink plastic squirt gun in his open desk drawer. I wondered why a full bird Colonel would have something like that, but I never asked. During the time I had this job, I was in a 2-man permanent party room. Except for my roommate who kept trying to convert me to his religion, no one bothered me. Also, during this time, I was sent to driving school and learned how to drive a jeep (same as the WWII era jeeps in the movies), a 2 1/2-ton truck, and a bus. I thought, oh no, I will end up with extra duty having to drive stuff. But that never happened. I also was sent to Leadership School. I hardly remember anything about it except for the confidence course. At one point, I was very high in the air and had to walk across the tops of telephone poles. As I type this, the palms of my hands are sweating, just from thinking about it. I thought at the time, this is crazy! My knees are like putty right now and if I were to stumble and fall, it would probably kill me or disable me for life. After some time in the drafting job, my boss, a master sergeant, told me that he thought I would be in that drafting job for the rest of my time. Fabulous! And I believed him! So I settled in, bought a car, and left town on many weekends. I went to Charleston, SC a lot and stayed at the Hilton right on the Battery of the bay. There was a strange little narrow room there with a single bed and no windows that went for the military rate of $5 per night. I was living high on the hog! :- ) Then I got my orders for Germany.

 

Before I had to leave for Germany, I had one last photo assignment. I was asked to shoot aerial shots of Fort Gordon with the emphasis on the Signal School and the building called “Signal Towers” (1 “tower”) where I worked. The photos below are a couple of out takes that I kept. The aircraft was a Hughes helicopter with no doors on it. If you remember the Mash TV show, it was similar to those bubble type helicopters on the show. The pilot, a captain, took me anywhere I wanted to fly over on the post and it was a blast! I can honestly say that I shot out of an Army helicopter, thankfully with cameras, not a gun. After the Army, I shot quite a few aerials from helicopters but this was my first helicopter ride.

 

 

 

In the next few pictures, there is a shot of COL Robert Bean giving me a letter of appreciation for my service as draftsman for the Signal School. Next is a photo of my Company Commander during 35B20 school, CPT Ando Merendi. Another shot shows him taking pictures of the Apollo 15 moon mission on TV in the “dayroom” of the BOQ. The several photos following were shot while I was stationed at Fort Gordon. The first is of a Marine in the bus station watching girlie films, the next couple are of a tattoo artist named Eddie Peace.

 

 

 

In the spring of 1972, I flew from the Air Force Base in Charleston, SC on a commercial airliner full of servicemen bound for Frankfurt, Germany. I reported to the designated kaserne (fort) and found that it was not my final destination but was a stop for transients waiting for further orders. During the first night, I awoke to what sounded like gunfire or maybe small explosions and had absolutely no idea what was going on. The guys around me, none whom I knew before that day, had no idea either. The shooting or whatever it was did not last long and we were not even told anything until the next morning. We were told that it was a terrorist group called the Red Army Faction (I learned later that it was the successor to the Baader-Meinhof Gang) that had attacked the kaserne. That is all I know about it. I was there a couple days and received orders for Caserma (Fort) Ederle in Vicenza, Italy. They told me that I could “hitch a ride” on an Air Force Medevac aircraft that was flying to Venice, Italy. The bus ride from Venice to Vicenza was about a 40-minute ride. The plane was a 2 engine turbo prop aircraft and had just a handful of people on board. Only 2 of us were going to Vicenza. Shortly after takeoff, 1 of the 2 engines quit! They had to fly out of the metropolitan area to dump fuel so that the plane would be light enough to safely land with one engine back in Frankfurt. We waited in a building until they had another plane ready for us. We boarded and after a number of tries, the pilots were unable to get 1 of the engines to start! We then waited for hours until the mechanics were done with their work. The 3^rd try thankfully was uneventful and made it to Venice. It turns out that this was one of the last times these planes would be used. We were told that the very next week, all the Air Force turbo prop Medevac planes were scheduled to be replaced with the military version of the DC9 jet! As a side note, when I was a kid, my parents and I were flying on a 2-engine propeller plane from Traverse City, MI to Chicago when one of the engines caught on fire. I was seated in the window seat closest to the engine and spotted the flames. I pointed this out to my mom who pushed the stewardess button. The stewardess looked on in horror and ran up to the cockpit to tell the pilots. They promptly stopped the engine and the fire went out. We landed on one engine at Benton Harbor, MI and waited in the terminal for another plane to come from Chicago. There was a guy from our plane who clearly was having a breakdown of some sort… he was wearing an Air Force uniform.

 

At Caserma Ederle on my 1^st day, the other new guy who was from Puerto Rico and I were given an orientation by some jokester. The man gave us a short Italian lesson and told us that if someone says “Gratzie,” that person is thanking you. You in turn say “Prego Lego” which means you are welcome. Well, my new friend knew right away that in English, it would be like saying, “You’re welcome schmelcom.” There is no “Lego.” Ha. We walked off the small post and went into a couple stores that first day and he was able to speak with and understand people speaking Italian with his Spanish. I bet he picked up Italian in no time.

 

One of the first things I had to do when I reported to Caserma Ederle was to visit the Personnel Office. I was being interviewed by a Specialist 4 and right away, he asked, “Why are you wearing SP/4 insignia?” The question really confused me because I thought I was a Spec 4. He said, “It says right here that you are a Specialist 5.” Son of a gun, they promoted me before I left the states or in transit and no one told me! I would have noticed on the next payday but don’t you think someone would have told me? They made a big deal out of it when my classmates and I were promoted to SP/4.

 

Vicenza is a beautiful city in Northern Italy located between Venice and Verona. It is called, “Citta del Palladio” (City of Palladio), because Andrea Palladio, the Renaissance architect, was from there and designed buildings that are all over the Veneto region. He had a worldwide influence and Monticello, the house that Thomas Jefferson designed and lived in, shows those influences from the dome to the Palladian windows. Below are just a few of the photographs that I shot in the one year that I was in Vicenza. There are 23 existing buildings in Vicenza that Palladio designed and there are more in the surrounding Veneto region. There are a couple night photographs of the “Basilica Palladiana” in this group. Palladio started work on this building in the mid 1500s when he was 40 years old. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and learned that since 1994, this building and other Palladian buildings of Vicenza have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site City of Vicenza. Wow, I used to eat my favorite pizza, Capriciosa (mushrooms, artichoke hearts and prosciutto), in that Basilica.

 

 

The next photo is a portrait of me while on post in Italy. On the back of the print, it says that I was appointed “Equal Opportunity Representative.” It sounds impressive but I have no memory of what I did in that capacity, if anything.

 

 

The next 2 photos are of a guy who lived in my barracks. I didn’t know him well but asked if I could photograph him with his car. The car is a Fiat Cinquecento (Fiat Five Hundred) and 4 guys could lift the thing. Looking at the photo of him leaning against the car, it’s amazing he could get in it. Just a few years ago, Fiat began selling Fiat 500s in the US. They must be a little larger but they don’t look much different from 48 years ago.

 

 

I did not have a car while in Italy, but I did have a bicycle that I bought the second week. During the first week, I went to a bike shop that was within walking distance of the fort. It was a mom-and-pop place and when I walked in, I found that there were few bikes to choose from. They could not speak English and I could not speak Italian, but they got the point across that they were getting a large shipment the next Wednesday, early in the afternoon. I went there after work on Wednesday and the shipment still had not arrived. The man pointed to the clock and his body language said that he did not understand why the truck was late. He sure did not want to lose the sale and I did not want to lose first choice of the shipment. I don’t know how we communicated but somehow, we did. He invited me to go have wine with him at the café next door. That was the first time I saw wine on tap (not the best). We sat there silently since there was nothing much we could say to each other. Close to finishing our 2^nd glass, we saw the truck pull up and we went outside to greet the driver. As he unloaded the truck, I saw the bike I wanted. Never before or since has someone bought me wine to make a sale of anything…Oh OK, maybe at a wine tasting! I put a lot of miles on that bike. I was in a 1^st floor 3-man room that was quite spacious. One of my roommates had a bicycle and we kept our bikes right in the room. The other roommate had a car but it was too big to keep in the room.

 

During my Army days, I only had guard duty once and that was in Italy. Since I was an E-5, they made me “Commander of the Relief.” The LT issued me a pistol belt with a holster, a 45 Semi Automatic, and 1 clip of rounds. I never qualified to fire a 45 but that didn’t seem to matter to the LT. He showed me the safety and other features of the gun and told me not to insert the clip unless the weapon was really needed. That was fine with me but I kind of felt like Barney Fife. The site was a fortified “Ammo Dump” away from the fort. My shift was for 24 hours and it was my duty to keep track of the guards with their M-16s and to rotate them at the appointed times. I was stationed in a shack and also stationed there was a Carabinieri soldier who was armed with a pistol and a small machine gun. He spoke no English and my Italian was not that much better than his English. So, we hardly communicated. He spent most of his time reading comic books. The Carabinieri might be described as the Italian state police but more military than police. I had a cot and took a couple naps here and there. I brought a sketchbook and using one of my guards as a hand model, I drew him holding the 45 and another loose sketch of the gun by itself. A shot of that page is below. After I got off my shift, I was free for 26 hours until my regular job at the Commel electronic shop. However, there was beautiful early morning frost on everything, so I first went for a walk outside the fort to take some pictures. At the moment, I do not know exactly where those slides are.

 

 

The next photo is of my friend, Ivano Trevisanutto. He was the audiovisual guy at COMMEL and amazingly, he still works there for the US Army. He has moved up the ladder and is Chief of Electronic Training for not only Caserma Ederle but for a couple other posts in Italy. I have only been back to Italy a couple times since I was stationed there and the last time I saw Ivano and his family was in 1995. During that trip, I actually was able to visit Caserma Ederle but doubt that much after that time, one would be able to get on to an American military post overseas without a very good reason. Ivano and I have kept in touch over the years, and he and his family are weathering the storm of the Covid-19 crisis. I checked the Caserma Ederle website a couple months back and found that the place is pretty much closed except for “mission essential” people. Ivano is considered “mission essential” and goes in 3 times a week. He was told he could work from home, but could not access the Army websites that he needs for his work. Starting Monday, 11 May 2020, his people will start coming back to work. Ivano plans to retire in 2023 at the age of 74.

 

 

The next few photos are of a few other Italian technicians from COMMEL. Gianni Bandoli is the guy with glasses and Niko is the man with a camera. We from COMMEL would go out for dinners and celebrations occasionally, and the next snapshot shows one of those occasions. The Americans in our shop mostly did not go to these things, but I always had a great time. At this particular time, our boss, a warrant officer, brought his wife. She must have taken this snap.

 

 

My job at COMMEL (Communications Electronics Shop - part of SETAF, Southern European Task Force) was to repair and calibrate Geiger counters. There were not too many repairs, but I sure calibrated a bunch of them. For calibration, I had a lead lined calibration room with a Gamma Ray source. The source was inside a lead box and had a dial with click stops to output the exact amount of radiation for the calibration process. I assume that switch moved a lead piece or pieces to allow the accurate output. I wore 2 dosimeters anytime that I was in the calibration room or in my outer room that had my workbench with instruments and tools. One dosimeter was a mechanical device that I could zero, and the other was a film dosimeter that I sent to Germany weekly. Anytime I was in the calibration room, I wore a lead lined apron and lead lined gloves. They were very heavy and the gloves made the adjustments that I needed to do very difficult. In my workroom, I also had Alpha Particle sources. In one way, Alpha Particles are less dangerous than Gamma Rays, since they cannot pass through skin or even paper. However, they can cause a lot of damage if ingested. Therefore, I never brought any food or drink into my room. My rooms took up a considerable amount of space at COMMEL, and other than maybe my first couple days there, no one came in even for a visit. They wanted nothing to do with that place. I was told that my predecessor used to take naps in the calibration room. What an idiot! You may wonder why there were so many Geiger counters in the Army. For 1 thing, it was the cold war and nuclear war was on a lot of people’s minds. At the time, any Army unit at the company level was required to have at least 1 Geiger counter. The units that I serviced were in Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

 

I shot the next photos in the Vicenza area on bicycle expeditions. There are 3 photos of an old guy grafting branches onto existing grape vines. He is standing on a wagon being pulled by a donkey. That donkey had done this before, because when the farmer was ready to go to the next plant, he would say, “Avanti” and the donkey would pull the wagon the exact length needed for getting to the next grape vine. Amazing.

 

 

 

One weekend was Ivano’s 22^nd birthday celebration at his family’s farm in the mountains north of Vicenza. He invited me along and it was a memorable time. It was harvest time for the grapes and there were a couple villages on these mountain roads that had roadblocks for their harvest celebrations. They would not let us through until we drank the offered glass of wine. Amazing. Ivano’s parents lived together in their farmhouse with his grandparents and aunt. Except for Ivano, no one including his friends there spoke any English and I learned more Italian that weekend than any other time. While Ivano went for a haircut, his aunt took me grocery shopping in the village and it was a real education. We communicated quite well considering my pigeon Italian. On Saturday, we sat down at 1 pm for the dinner celebration of many courses and did not finish until 5! In between, they sang and although I couldn’t sing with them, I brought my guitar and sang some songs, including a couple Italian songs that I had learned. That night, Ivano, several of his friends, and I went to a nightclub in the village. It had a band and everyone was ballroom dancing. Even though I knew nothing about ballroom dancing, women would pull me out on the floor and lead as we danced around the circular room with a center filled with plants and flowers. It must have looked like I halfway knew what I was doing … but nah! Probably not. I heard not a word of English that evening either (except from Ivano). By the way, Ivano is fluent in 5 languages. Back at the farm, I was staying in a room on the top floor that had its own bathroom. The whole bathroom was the shower room, because it had a showerhead on the wall and a drain in the floor. I was taking a shower, and was all lathered up, when the water totally stopped. I stood there for a while, considering if I should just start toweling myself off, when the water came back on. I asked Ivano about it later, and he told me that the cows were taking a drink. The barn was attached to the house and the cows could turn on the water by pushing their heads against a bar. They had the priority! Ivano’s family not only had cows but also had grape vines. They made their own cheese and wine, and the walls of the cellar were lined with their products. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner included wine and cheese! Here are a few photos from that weekend.

 

 

 

 

Below are some photos from my year in Italy from visits to Venice, Florence, Verona, Rome, and Lake Como. There are a couple shots here of Henry Moore sculptures in a special exhibition at a site overlooking Florence. Fifteen years later, I would shoot Henry Moore sculptures professionally for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Those photos are in a catalog of a collection, “Henry Moore: Maquettes and Working Models.” It is special to me because I actually have a photo credit in the catalog for those photos. Having shot for advertising, I rarely got photo credits. The exceptions were in the Maytag Cheese catalogs (17 years) and a calendar for the Kansas City Zoo. Other examples that are more on topic were in “The Stars and Stripes,” European edition of the US military newspaper - more about that later. 

 

 

 

 

During the summer of 1972, there was a concert in Verona at the ancient Roman arena. It was by Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington and his band. This was toward what I thought was the end of their performing careers and I really wanted to go (Duke Ellington died in 1974 and Ella Fitzgerald gave her last public performance in 1993 – she died in 1996). No one I knew was interested in going with me until I thought of Tim Morta in the Personnel Office. He had been a music major and was as excited about it as me. It was a beautiful summer evening in that gorgeous setting and the music was wonderful. The only way it would have been better was if I had gone to it with a beautiful woman, not a GUY from the PERSONNEL OFFICE! One detail of the evening was that every time Ella or Duke would say something funny, there only would be a small smattering of laughter in the large audience. Most of those audience members were not English speakers but they sure loved the music.

 

Speaking of the Personnel Office, 2 of my buddies, Ray and Lou worked there and told me about an opportunity that I could not pass up. At the end of WWII, the Allies - U.S., England, France, and the Soviet Union split up Berlin into sectors. The Soviet occupation zone of East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, included the Soviet sector of Berlin. The other 3 sectors of Berlin were part of West Germany and were completely surrounded by East Germany. As part of the agreement that the 4 Allies made was that any military personnel from 1 sector could visit any other sector. That said, the Soviets and East Germans never sent their military to the other sectors, because they were trying to keep the Soviets and East Germans from leaving the sphere of the Soviet Union. The U.S., the English, and the French however kept up the agreement for decades until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. Here was the opportunity; Ray and Lou told me that we could volunteer for TDY (temporary duty), an all expense paid week in West Berlin with 1 day spent going to East Berlin on the other side of the wall. In August of 1972, the 3 of us took a 1^st class sleeper train from Verona up through West Germany. Each of us had a separate sleeper compartment on the train and it was a beautiful ride. It happened to be a night with a full moon, and I spent a lot of time in my bed looking out the window as we passed through the Alps. As we arrived in a town on the West German/East German border, we changed into our uniforms and rode on a US Army train through East Germany to West Berlin. When the US Army took over the sector at the end of the war, they took over Albert Speer’s mansion. Albert Speer was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, and was also his chief architect. Speer was convicted at the Nuremburg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The US Army converted the mansion to transient barracks, and that is where we stayed while in Berlin. For most of the week, we were in our civilian clothes and were tourists of West Berlin. On the appointed day, we dressed in our class A uniforms and boarded a bus with other soldiers, most of whom were stationed in West Germany. The bus passed through “Checkpoint Charlie” to the other side of the Berlin Wall. Our presence in East Berlin was basically just a way to keep up the agreement that was made 27 years earlier. Our day in East Berlin was just a tour of the city, and the East Germans made sure that we only saw the most modern and kept up parts of the city. You can see some of the photos I shot on my website, http://don-yaworski-photographer-and-watercolorist.weebly.com

The last shot there is of an East German guard at a government building. To get the shot and without permission, I took a chance and walked behind the guard. Thankfully, he did not flinch a muscle. On the day of departure from Berlin, we again had to put on our uniforms to ride on the US Army train. It only ran at night because the East Germans did not want anyone to see their cows – OK, I don’t know the real reason. At one point, the train was stopped on a siding. Ray, Lou, and I were in a compartment and I noticed that there was a guard walking up and down the length of the train. I further noticed that he was Soviet, not East German. I wanted to try what little Russian I know and opened the window and leaned out. As he approached our window, In Russian, I said, “Hi, how are you on this beautiful night?” He looked up and grinned and in English, said, “Very well and how are you?” On the day of our East Berlin tour, we were told not to speak to any East German or Soviet military personnel. At that moment, the very worst thing happened. The Commander of the train, a Captain, just happened to be walking by our compartment. He saw what was happening and burst into our compartment, saying, “What the hell are you doing? Trying to start an international incident?” Then he slammed down the window and proceeded to rip me a new one. He told me that I would be court martialed for this; at the very least, I would receive an Article 15, the lowest penalty of the US Military Justice System. During this tirade, I don’t think I said a thing and neither did my buddies. They were probably regretting inviting me along and I was shaking in my boots. Until the train left the siding, the Soviet guard stayed by our window and I am sure he knew exactly what was happening. I wish I could have talked with him beyond that brief exchange. I like to think that as I have told this story many times over the years, that Soviet soldier has also told it but from a different perspective. Until that train got under way and out of that siding, the Captain did not leave our compartment. That was the last time I saw or heard from him. He probably did not want to do the paperwork.

 

By the way, when my cousin Curt Ladich was in the Air Force (F16 Pilot) during the 1980s, he also went through Checkpoint Charlie for the tour in East Berlin. In 2018, my wife Johnna and I took a river cruise down the Danube. At the beginning of that trip, we met a couple, Tom and Susan who we sat with for meals the rest of the trip. It turned out that while I was stationed in Vicenza, Tom was stationed in Berlin as an Army lawyer. During his time in Berlin, he took the same tour to East Berlin. After the service, he served as a civilian at the Pentagon. The very day that the Berlin Wall opened in November of 1989, Tom flew to Berlin on a last-minute fact-finding mission. That led me to tell him about the 12-person small business delegation that I was on to the Soviet Union in December of 1989, sponsored by the ACIL, American Center for American Leadership. We traveled with diplomatic visas to our first stop that was Moscow. Our time in Moscow was during the summit that Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev had in Malta. Due to this summit, I think that the Soviets thought that our delegation was a LOT more important than we were. We had meetings at the Council of Ministers in the Kremlin, only steps away from Gorbachev’s office. We also had a meeting at the Academy of Diplomacy of the Soviet Union. For 5 of the 15 days, we spent in the Soviet Union, we spent time with a Russian delegation and a Latvian delegation in Riga, capital of the Latvian Republic. We split up into commissions and we Americans were like referees keeping the Russians and Latvians away from each other’s throats. The Russians were furious because that very week while we were there, the Latvian Freedom Front announced Latvia’s intention to split away from the Soviet Union. I remember one of the Russians saying, “If you follow through with this folly, the whole country (meaning the Soviet Union) will fall apart.” One of the Latvian Delegation members, Ivars Godmanis was a leader in the Latvian Freedom Front. After Latvia did become a separate and independent country, he became Latvia’s first post-Soviet Union Prime Minister. This was amazing stuff and it turns out that the time we spent in the Soviet Union was in a very historic period. After we left the Soviet Union, we were debriefed in Helsinki. Our delegation all agreed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of breaking apart. Less than a year later, East and West Germany merged and less than 2 years after our trip, the Soviet Union split apart. Tom’s comment about all this was that at the time, the Pentagon didn’t have a clue how soon these events could happen. After the Danube River cruise, Tom sent a piece of the paint spattered Berlin Wall to me. We keep it on the kitchen mantle in a mahogany box.

 

In 1972, there was a U.S. Presidential Election. However, voting while in the Army overseas had a somewhat different procedure. I had to report to the company commander and the day I did so, I went to his office in the afternoon of the appointed day. The captain did not know who I was voting for but had to be a witness to the vote. While we were doing the procedure, he said a very curious thing. He said that I was, so far, the only enlisted person in the whole company to vote. This was a company of about 150 men and this was near the end of Company office hours. Very strange. By the way, I voted for Senator George McGovern and against our Commander in Chief, President Richard Nixon! Unfortunately, Nixon won re-election overwhelmingly but fortunately did not serve his total 2^nd term. Threatened with impeachment, he resigned in disgrace over Watergate and related misdeeds.   

 

Over the holidays, I took a road trip with a friend who was stationed in Wurzburg, Germany. I took the train up to Wurzburg and we went from there in his car to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Zugspitze peak, Rothenberg, and then up to Amsterdam. While in Amsterdam, I realized that I had somehow read my leave papers wrong and that I was technically AWOL (Absent Without Leave)! Probably what happened was that I did not get the dates that I requested and just never closely checked the papers beforehand. Besides being really nervous about what awaited me in Vicenza, I was nervous about getting BACK to Vicenza. 1972 was long before a unified Europe and they did not have open borders. In the Army, one did not have a passport but would travel with orders or leave papers. I got on a train in Amsterdam and at each border, I must have been sweating as my expired leave papers were examined. Amazingly, I was passed through each time. When I finally got back to my barracks at Ederle, my roommate (the Company Clerk) said, “Yaworski, where the F___ have you been? I have covered your ass for the last 3 DAYS!” So, what he was doing was fraudulently reporting me as present in the Morning Reports. That was a big risk that he was taking, and I was so grateful. Sometimes you just have to be lucky and have the right roommate. And they did not even miss me at my job. Like I mentioned, hardly anyone ever visited me in the Radiac rooms.

 

One of the things that we did in Amsterdam was to go to the Heineken Brewery on December 27th. It was a pretty standard tour, but at the end, they took us to a lounge at the top of the building where we were served as much Heineken as we wanted by waiters in black tuxedo coats with tails. The beer was fresh, delicious, and nothing like the imported version that we get here. With windows all around, the view of Amsterdam was spectacular and I think I had 3 generous glasses. Back in Italy in January, I received a cassette tape that the relatives had recorded over a period of days. At one point on the tape, Carol Jean said, “It’s December 27^th here and we all have just returned from the Miller Brewery.” There must be something in the genes.  :-  )

 

 

As my time got shorter, my work slowed down, and so I volunteered to help out at the photo unit when I had nothing to do at Commel. I let them know that I had a secondary MOS in photography and that’s all I needed to say. Photos that I took included some that were published in the US military newspaper, “Stars and Stripes,” European edition. The highlight assignment though was a picture story of the winner of the contest, “Mess Hall of the Year.” It happened that the winner was at a small outpost in the Mountains of Northern Italy. I was furnished with a car and driver for the trip, and it was a pleasant ride. I should mention that it was not like riding with Ivano on those narrow mountain roads. He scared me half to death. Anyway, I realized once we got there why this place won the contest, because there were only about a dozen people to feed. How could you not put out the best meals when you did not have to feed hundreds or a thousand soldiers? The driver and I had lunch there and were served steak! And it was good! I never had steak in any other mess hall. As far as the assignment goes, when I saw the “Stars and Stripes” with my picture story, I hated the editor’s photo choices and the reproduction was poor. The negatives and contact sheets were sent to Germany and so I did not make the prints nor did I even see the prints. I had written a note to the editor and marked up the contact sheets, but he totally ignored my choices and ideas. The prints could have been poorly made or just the newspaper reproduction was bad. I did not even save a copy for myself, knowing that I would never show it to anyone. The process of doing the assignment was the highlight, not the end result.

 

There is an assignment that I never told anyone about for decades. The NCO in the photo unit assigned me to go to the headquarters building to photograph some documents with color slide film. I thought it was a little odd that we weren’t doing it at the photo unit since we had a copy stand that would make it a lot easier. I went to headquarters with some equipment to meet the 1^st LT who had made the photo request. He took me into a vault and laid out some oversize papers from a folder. They had TOP SECRET stamped all over them and I saw the top one clearly. I said to the LT, “Sir, I cannot photograph these. I am not even supposed to see these. I do not have clearance.” He put the papers back into the folder and put it back where he got it. Hardly anything else was said and I went back to the photo unit and told the photo NCO that the requester had changed his mind. What I saw scared the hell out of me and like I mentioned, I told no one. That 1^st LT did not talk with me further, but the more I thought about the whole experience, the more I was convinced that he was up to no good.

 

The week before I went to Fort Dix, NJ to be discharged, the Commanding General (2 stars) of our post was retiring and they had a big ceremony on the parade ground with dignitaries, other guests, and of course, many soldiers from the post. I was assigned to photograph the festivities and at one point was on the parade ground taking pictures of a 4-star General (He had come down from Germany) giving awards and a medal to our Major General. It was unfortunate. The 3 of us were out on the field in front of the stands. The 3 of us… When I got back to the photo unit with the film and camera, the LT told me that I had to report to the Command Sergeant Major at the Headquarters Building, immediately! I had been growing my hair in anticipation for getting out of the Army. If this thing had not been sprung on me, I would have gotten a trim. A Command Sergeant Major (E-9) is the highest-ranking enlisted man and there is only 1 on each post. So I went to meet the CSM and face the music. After he was done thoroughly and threateningly reaming me out, he walked me down to the barbershop in that same building and I got a haircut. At least it was not a Basic Training type buzz cut. I am surprised it wasn’t. And at least it was free.

 

The previous event in the vault bothered me a lot and I wanted to bounce it off someone but felt like I could not trust anyone. Perhaps if I had known the Command Sergeant Major under better circumstances, he might have been the one to talk with (even though he was out of my “chain of command”). I have always wondered how that LT would think that he could have slides shot of TOP SECRET materials… and why?

 

That same week, I was asked to go to the island of Crete 2 weeks later to photograph a missile launch. I would have been excited about this assignment except that my 3-month early discharge was the next week. The LT at the photo unit said that I could pause my “early out” and go to Crete. I was pretty sure that if I tried to do that, I would not get out early at all. So in effect, I turned down an all expense paid trip to Crete!

 

Below are some of the letters and documents that I saved from my Army service plus a couple more photos. The last photo is of my wife to be at the time (2010) trying on my army jacket. She looks better in it than I ever did. Note that my unit patch shows the Lion of Venice with the word, "PAX" - PEACE in Latin. I think that has to be the only unit patch in the military that says Peace. On a similar theme, the street that runs in front of Caserma Ederle in Vicenza is "Via della Pace," "Road of Peace" in English.

 

 

 

 

 

To explain the “early out,” this was a program that I only learned about from my buddies, Ray and Lou in Personnel. As a matter of fact, at this point 1 week before my early out, Louis Perfelice was already out. I remember the day before he left when he was describing the momentous welcome he was expecting when he returned home. “When I step out of the plane in Detroit, the crowds there to welcome me home will be gigantic.” Then he made crowd noises with his mouth. Ask me about my early out sometime. It is a good story but right now, I am tired of writing.  :- )

 

At Fort Dix, NJ for my discharge the next week, they asked for volunteers who could type. Unlike Cousin Al, I did not volunteer to type discharge papers and so I did not type my own DD Form 214. I was done with volunteering.

 

From there, I took a bus to Grand Central Station in NYC where my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and 1 of my nephews picked me up. We had a very nice weekend in Connecticut before I flew back to Chicago.

 

If you are still reading this, I am amazed. Thank you for your attention. “At ease!” and “As you were!”