40 Miles a Day on Beans and Hay in the Regular Army, Hoh!

Sorry for the long delay in writing these. Been busy on a whole lot of things, some not so good but more on that later (or not!). Anyhow to continue where I left off over a year ago….

There is an old record I have somewhere that belonged to my grandfather of Army songs from the 1920’s and 1930’s. One of them is called “Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay in the Regular Army Oh!” The last stanza goes like this:

“So we’re marchin’ after Sittin’ Bull and that’s the way we go! Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army, oh!” sung with an Irish brogue. It’s tough not to love the Army when you grew up listening to music like that!

So this is the first post about marching forty miles a day, etc. and being in the real Army finally.

So as noted earlier, I had finally managed to get back to the Infantry and start my military education on my chosen branch at Fort Benning, Georgia. This started with the Infantry Officer’s Basic Course (OBC) where you learned tactics, supply, maintenance, leadership and all the other basic skills to be a successful rifle platoon leader. I thoroughly enjoyed the instruction but admit that I did not pay a lot of attention to the maintenance portion which was more pertinent to those other poor bastards who were going to mechanized infantry units. I was going to the 82d Airborne Division and I knew they didn’t have a lot of vehicles and no vehicles in an airborne rifle platoon. I was to pay for this inattention in spades less than a year later but more on that later.

There were only two things of note that happened during the basic course that I recall. The first of these was being reported absent from first formation one day. I was a platoon leader during the course so being reported absent was rather a big deal. The problem was that I was not absent and was indeed there. It all started with being engineered into be the daily driver for several of my classmates in the course with me who were all married. We all had just one car even if we were married. They asked me if I would drive each day to class so they could leave their cars for their wives. I agreed to do so. There were five of us including me. I lived in an apartment on the south side of Benning Road and all four of them lived in the Camelia apartments on the north side of the road nearby.

I’m a nut about punctuality believing that if you are on time to something, you are late. You should always be at a minimum five minutes early for any appointment, meeting, etc. I would pick up my first three classmates who were always standing by and ready to go, then we would head over to the last guy to be picked up, aaaaand, wait for him. This fellow was always late, and this was in part because his wife truly hated the army (or so he told us) although she was totally new to it. She would delay his departure each day as her way of punishing the army for taking her so far away from her home and family. Unfortunately, it also punished us if we were late for formation. And one day we almost were late.

After a lengthy wait, I finally went up and knocked on the door and told my classmate we were leaving in one minute. If he didn’t come, his wife could drive him to formation. He finally came out and we went as fast as we legally could to formation. We pulled in to the parking lot just as the company was forming up. We all jumped out of the car and started running to our respective platoons. As I approached the rear of my platoon, my platoon sergeant who was also a West Point classmate saw me running up but called the platoon to attention as I was about three steps away from my designated position. I had called out to him that I was there before he rendered his report to the first sergeant. I about had a kitten when he said, “Lieutenant Chamberlain is absent, all others are present and accounted for!” Upon the command of Post! from the first sergeant all platoon leaders were to come forward and take charge of their platoons from the platoon sergeant. As I marched around the platoon and got to the platoon sergeant, I asked him why in the hell he had reported me absent? He said, “You weren’t in ranks when I called the platoon to attention.” Well, no shit. I was three steps away and he could have waited the damn half second it would have taken for me to be in position before he called the platoon to attention. But, he didn’t.

After class I was summonsed to the company commander’s office for being absent from formation. I explained to the commander that I was not absent when the report was rendered, and my platoon sergeant knew that. He asked why I had been reported absent if that were the case and I gave him the answer my platoon sergeant gave me which was essentially too bad, how sad, sucks to be you and I called attention to catch you out because I could. I assumed the platoon sergeant was in a bad humor over something which motivated him to be a real prick that morning. Anyhow, none of that mattered. Technically I was absent if that was the rendered report.

The company commander told me that my punishment was to come in on Saturday as part of the schools weekly “punishment squad” and police cigarette butts for four hours. I politely informed him that as a commissioned officer it was inappropriate for me to pick up cigarette butts with the enlisted soldiers who were also getting punished for minor infractions. I suggested that I should be appointed to supervise those soldiers rather than being part of their detail. I said all this as respectfully and tactfully as I could, but the company commander just stared at me in response. I finally said, “Sir, did you hear me?” He continued to stare, and I could not imagine what was going through his head. Finally, he just said, “Get out of my office. Forget the whole thing!” I saluted, did an about face and marched out of his office, glad to get away!

My passengers were waiting for me out at the car and I fired up our daily late slug when I got in the car and told him I will wait a total of thirty seconds from the time we pulled up at his apartment before I started driving off. If he wasn’t in the car, his wife could bring him in. I told him straight up, thirty seconds and you’d better be in the car. If you’re not fully in, I’m still pulling out. Thirty seconds, goddamnit! He got it and for the remainder of the course was on time for pickup. His wife was decidedly unhappy that she could no longer dictate to the army when her husband would go to work. As a reminder to all who read this, those types of spouses are still out there so if you have a soldier who is not performing to their known abilities and he/she is married, look in to the homelife as your first point of investigation as to causes.

The second event I recall from OBC, was being accused of cheating on the land navigation course. About three or four days after we had done the land navigation course for record, I was ordered to report to the company commander at the end of classes. I reported as ordered and the company commander told me I had failed the land navigation course and had to retest on Saturday morning. I knew I had absolutely not failed that course and informed the commander of same. He fidgeted a bit and then finally said the land navigation course officer in charge (OIC) had informed the battalion commander that I had cheated on the course and the battalion commander wanted me to rerun the course. If I failed, he would take steps to punish me for cheating on the earlier run which meant a general officer Article 15 and the end of yours truly’s career before it even started! This was some serious shit!

But, I was not worried. I knew I hadn’t cheated, and I knew I could easily pass the course again even if it was eating up my Saturday to do it. I had big plans for that Saturday like washing my car and vainly searching for the girl of my dreams and the mother of my future children, all nine of them. I had run orienteering in intramurals as a cadet for two years so knew how to read a map and navigate. For those who have never heard of orienteering it’s a timed sport where they give you a map, a compass and a number of grid designations to find and record the number on a sign posted at that location. The army teaches you to use your compass to shoot an azimuth from a known point to the point you wish to get to, then using your pace count (how many steps you take with your normal stride to walk 100 meters) to count off the distance to that point while staying on the compass azimuth as you walk. That is a good technique for night navigation but not a good or efficient method for day navigation.

In orienteering, you get all the same tools and data, but you plot your course based upon reading the actual terrain on the map. Running ridgelines and creek bottoms is a very efficient way of getting from point A to point B and beyond. So, in orienteering, you plot all your points and then make a route that is the most efficient way to get to all of them. You do not go after your points in the order given unless it saves time to do so. Just like army land navigation, orienteering is run against the clock. I had finished the record run on the land navigation test with about an hour and half left over using the orienteering method. I was the first one to complete the course which was part of my problem as it turned out and led to the allegation of cheating.

I drove out to the Yankee Road Land Navigation Course that Saturday and reported into the two NCO’s waiting for me. They were not happy to be out Saturday morning either and clearly blamed me, the cheating lieutenant for them having to be there. They were rather abrupt towards me and gave me the points I had to find. They informed me that they would be watching me. I wasn’t sure how they could do that but didn’t care. I love orienteering and it was a beautiful fall morning with a bit of a nip in the air which reminded me of a midget Japanese trampoline act I had once seen. (Get it? There was a small Nip in the air? Sorry, no longer PC but was huge in the Pacific in WW II. Guess you had to be there.) I plotted my points and made my route and took off at a steady jog.

There was one point that was most easily reached by going through the stream bed that was a prominent part of the broken terrain on the course. Yankee Road was a tough course because of the dense vegetation and many ravines which transected the course. As I was going down the stream bed, which was mostly dry in the fall, I made good time. Using my map, I could tell where I was in the stream bed based upon the fingers of ravines emptying into the bed, all of which were clearly defined on the map’s contour lines. I was about halfway through finding all my points and was doing well on time. I found the ravine I needed and proceeded to climb out of the stream bed towards the high ground. The point I needed was dead ahead and I saw it as I climbed. I remembered the point from my earlier run once I saw it again but thought nothing of it. When I got to the top, I paused and wrote down the number for the point. My next point was back near the main road, so I headed through the woods in that direction. After a couple of hundred meters I came upon a jeep parked in the woods facing the main road away from me. I walked towards the jeep and when I was close enough, I called out, “Sergeant, are you looking for me?”

I about gave that man a heart attack! He jumped up in his seat and jumped out of the jeep facing me. He blurted out, “Jesus Christ, LT! Where the hell did you come from?” I merely pointed back into the woods behind me towards the stream bed. He asked why I was back there and not coming from the road using an azimuth and my pace count. I explained to him how I used orienteering techniques to navigate the course and used the stream bed for that purpose. I showed him my route on my map. He was clearly amazed and asked me what number I had found for my last point. I showed him what I had written down and he was still doubtful. He asked me to describe the sign and I told him it was red with white letters and was on a tree below the bluff of the high ground and facing the stream bed. The sign was about 15 feet below the bluff and could not be seen from the top of the bluff. The bluff gave way to a sheer drop of about twenty feet into the stream bed and the tree was at the base of that drop.

The sergeant just shook his head and said, “Get into the jeep, sir. We’re done.” I told him I still had two points to find and he said, “No, sir. We’re done. Hop in, sir.” The change in his attitude from his earlier disrespect to respect for me was clearly evident. He explained to me on the drive back to the start point that nobody had ever found that point before which was why they thought I had cheated. I had gotten all my points correctly on the first run and had finished “too early” which was why they reported me for cheating. The NCO’s running the course had placed that sign deliberately in what they thought was an “unfindable” location as part of the age-old tradition of sergeants screwing with young lieutenants. It was correctly placed for the grid given in the test but the bluff abruptly dropping off had kept anyone from climbing down into the stream bed to search further. I had come out of the stream bed, saw the sign below the bluff and thought nothing of it. I did have to go about thirty meters before I could find a place suitable for climbing the bluff.

We arrived at the start point and my latest admirer informed his fellow NCO how I had found the unfindable point and used my map to illustrate the technique. His partner was suitably impressed and asked where I had learned to navigate like that? I told him about running orienteering at the academy and he said he had never heard of such a sport but thought that maybe all lieutenants should take it up and quit getting their platoons lost! He told me he was sure I would never get my platoon lost and he was correct as it turned out. (or my company, or my battalion or my brigade as it also turned out, proud to say.) The sergeants offered me coffee and we sat and BS’d for a while around the fire they had made. These were old NCO’s getting near retirement. One had a CIB with two stars from World War Two, Korea and Vietnam and the other had a CIB with one star from Korea a Vietnam. These were my kind of people and I was in no hurry to leave their company. I could find the love of my life/future wife some other Saturday morning. (I actually found her on a Sunday morning, and she drew the line at five instead of nine kids, thank God!!!)

They both shook my hand and congratulated me again for finding the “unfindable” point and said they guess they had to find a new location for it. I told them not to move it and that I would never tell anybody how to find it. They needed to figure that out on their own! After soliciting a solemn promise of silence from me they opined that they could leave it where it was since nobody else had found it in the last five years since it was put there.

On Monday morning I was summoned to the company commander’s office again. I duly reported as instructed and after reporting was actually asked to sit down! Usually I had my discussions with the CO at a position of attention in front of his desk, so this was novel. I sat down and the CO told me I had passed the land navigation course and that the battalion commander wanted to apologize for doubting me and for making me retake the course on my time off. Those words would have had real meaning if the battalion commander had delivered them in person but I guess he was just too doggone busy to tell a lowly lieutenant who he had threatened with a GO Article 15 for cheating that he was mistaken and sorry. Ah, well. It didn’t matter. I had enjoyed Saturday morning and the two NCO’s I got a chance to know a little better. The CO did congratulate me for setting a course record for all points correct in the shortest amount of time for the Yankee Road Land Navigation Course. My two new NCO friends had made a point of reporting that along with their report that I had definitely not cheated. That and ten cents could still get you a fairly good cup of coffee in the PX snack bar in those days, but I did appreciate the action of the NCO’s. Great soldiers!

So, forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army, Ho!