In recent months, it seems to me that there is renewed interest in hearing from veterans of World War II. Perhaps it is the building of the memorial on the Mall in Washington. Perhaps it has to do with the thought that very few of us will survive the first decade of this century. There is even a group called the World War II Memories Project which has been in touch with me. The Memories Project resulted in the essay on my mother and her involvement prior to my enlistment.
My personal memory of the War would not be complete without a retelling of the difficulty it took to become an enlisted (volunteer) soldier to participate in World War II in the summer of 1942.
The United States Army, before the war, was very slow to adapt to new conditions. In many cases, the Army just didn’t adapt. Starting in late 1940, a draft system was initiated. The Army was in terrible shape. For example, when the draftees were sent on maneuvers in Louisiana and elsewhere, they carried wooden devices made to look like rifles. The Army simply had no rifles to give to its drafted soldiers.
From 1940 forward, the Army relied on the draft. Prior to December 7, 1941 enlistments were few and far between mainly due to low pay and the fact that the public generally looked down upon soldiers. So the Army adapted to the draft and in the main, stayed that way throughout the war.
At the outset, I made a fundamental mistake as I sought to enlist instead of waiting for the draft. I thought the Army would welcome me with open arms. It didn’t turn out that way. Instead, the Army erected obstacles at nearly every turn. In large part, the Army did not want to be bothered by volunteer enlistments.
This was a strange turn of events. We started the war by losing our Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Well into 1942 we were being beaten in the Pacific. The Germans drove the Allies off the European Continent. In short, for the better part of the first 12 to 15 months of the war, we were absorbing a terrible beating. So I thought that when I presented myself to the recruiters at the Federal Building in St. Louis, they would throw their arms around me and offer a champagne toast to the new soldier.
I had it all wrong. They told me to get three letters of recommendation attesting to my moral character. Then because I was 19 years of age, they said they would require an affidavit from one or both of my parents saying that they consented to my being a soldier.
I was pretty discouraged by all these obstacles so I called on a representative of the Canadian Embassy in an attempt to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. The Canadians welcomed me but they warned that formidable obstacles existed to joining the RCAF. The major problem was the Johnston Act which provided that an American who joined a foreign military force would automatically forfeit his United States citizenship. Until the foreign military force, in my case, the Canadians, granted citizenship in their country, I would be stateless. I didn’t look forward to being stateless. On top of all that, the enlistee had to get to the nearest recruiting station, which in my case was Toronto. That was a long way from St. Louis. He would have to support himself while the application to join the Royal Canadian Air Force was pending. I didn’t have enough money to get to Toronto much less to support myself while my application was being considered. So I thanked the Canadians and said I’d try again during the next war.
So I started to call my current employer and former employers for letters of recommendation. I worked for Carl Schroth from sometime in 1937 to early 1940. Carl provided the undated letter attached. He didn’t have it quite right as I worked for AT&T, not Southwestern Bell. In any case, Carl was quick in his response. He had been in World War I.
L. R. Johnson was a good fellow who was at least three levels above me in the AT&T organizational structure. Johnson was a little slow in responding, so the recruiter called him. He gave me credit for completion of an electrical engineering course at Washington University at night. With the war going one, my attention was on other things and I flunked the second semester of the course. It was just as well. I was not cut out to be an Electrical Engineer.
I then talked to Ed Williams who ran a Sinclair Service Station in Richmond Heights, Missouri. I worked for him from 1940 until I went to work for AT&T in September, 1941. He said he would be glad to give me the required recommendation. Unfortunately, shortly after I talked to Williams, his father was killed right in front of the service station by a recklessly driven car. I have no record of Ed Williams providing me a letter of recommendation.
Harold Bauer ran a Standard Oil Service Station in Clayton. I worked there on weekends from the fall of 1941 until I joined the Army in the summer of 1942. Harold overstated the case when he said I had worked for him for two years. It was really only about nine months.
When I looked at my files in preparing to write this story, I realized that Harold Bauer’s letter was dated December 28, 1943. I have no idea why I have this letter. By the end of 1943, I had been in the Army for 18 months so I didn’t need a letter of recommendation at that point. Harold died a long time ago, so I am left to ponder this mystery. Miss Chicka, in one of her most generous moments, says that Bauer wrote the letter so that I could use it to impress the Germans when I sought a slave labor job in their Mercedes factory. We will never know what old Harold had in mind. He was just a hard working, honest fellow. We could use some more just like Harold Bauer.
With all my contacts with former employers under way, my mother and I turned to the affidavit which gave her consent to an underage son. For years my parents had been friends with the Autenrieth brothers in legal practice in the Arcade Building in Clayton. So one Saturday morning, we went to see Leo Autenrieth who set about preparing the affidavit. I am almost certain that Leo charged nothing for his services.
With all my documentation in hand, I went back to the recruiter. It was on a weekday because they didn’t work weekends. He accepted my affidavit and letters and said to come back in a week or so. Which I did. At that time he gave me a date certain to report to Jefferson Barracks for processing. The date certain was at least two or three weeks away so from beginning to the end of the recruiting process, I had wasted about six to eight weeks.
I remind you that a war was going on and the Allies – including Americans – were being captured and slaughtered. But the United Stated Army wanted all the formalities taken care of before it would accept a soldier who wanted to volunteer his services.
After reporting to Jefferson Barracks, we were asked to take physical examinations. I had no trouble with that, however the Army wanted to examine all the draftees first. The volunteer enlistments stood off to a side and whenever there was a break in the line of draftees, one or more of us would be called to fill out the line. So maybe the physicians would look at our ears in the morning and then look at other parts of our anatomies at the end of the day or the next day. What should have been a 30 minute exam stretched out to two full days. In the meantime, drafted people finished their exams in short order.
While we were standing around waiting to fill a spot in the draftee’s exam line, we wore only our underwear shorts. Two days is a long time to hang around in underwear but that is only the half of it. At the time most of us smoked. It was sort of a rite of passage. I probably smoked up to two packs per day. When one is standing around with only a pair of shorts on, it is difficult to carry a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. So for those two days, we abstained from what my father called “sucking cigarettes.” He thought cigarettes were evidence of effeminate behavior. The only proper smoke, according to the elder Ezra, was a cigar. I smoked for 18 or 19 years. I disliked every puff on every cigar I ever smoked.
Eventually, I was sworn in and wound up serving more than three years in the American Army. What impressed me most at the outset was the casualness of the U. S. Army. I expected with the war going against the Allies, that I would be welcomed and made to feel part of the Army team. But the Army had other ideas. They had a steady source of recruits through the draft system. Volunteer enlistments were an added burden on the people at the processing station. The army hates exceptions to established routine. Now that I understand all that, I won’t feel so badly in future wars when Army personnel tell me to get lost.
One final note on this whole enlistment business. Volunteer enlistees were given Army Serial numbers starting with the numeral one. My ASN for example, is 17077613. Drafted soldiers were given serial numbers starting with three.
Occasionally, when the Army paid its troops, the old timers, the lifers, whose serial numbers started with zero, were paid first. There were few lifers when I served. Then those of us who had a serial number starting with one were paid next, and finally the threes were paid. It really made very little difference because the pay, at the outset, was $50 a day – once a month.
And so on November 8, 1945 – a wet and cold miserable day – I accepted an honorable discharge from the Army of the United States, as non-lifers were called. Lifers were enlisted in the United States Army. I never wasted much time on the distinction between the AUS and the USA. I knew that I had no intention of joining the United States Army, or the Reserves or the National Guard when I left the army. That refusal cost me my overcoat as the separation people took it away from me.
They did give me a slicker which is alright for rain. On the other hand, slickers provide no warmth at all. The temperature as I left the Separation Center was about 30 degrees.
So I slammed the door on my Army career. Two buses took me from Scott Field near Belleville, Illinois to St. Louis. I hummed and whistled all the way home.
I had reason to hum and whistle. At 23 years of age, I was still in one piece. The nicks and chunks didn’t seem to matter on the way home. And I had not been sent to Japan for the invasion there. So there were many reasons to hum and whistle and even sing.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
A note about the title:
Apparently, the United States Army officially adopted the slogan, “The Right Way; The Wrong Way; The Army Way.” During my first six months in the Army, instructors repeated the slogan quite a few times.
This whole business was unintelligible to me. I said to myself, what is wrong with doing things the right way? Is the Army more right than that? Or more wrong?
I never figured the slogan out but as you can see, I’ve remembered it for 59 years.
E. E. Carr
June 23, 2001
~~~
Oh man, I hope Judy can help me out with some attachments for this one, if she still has any of those handy.
Re: the title, I love that the Army Way is explicitly set up against the notion of the “right” way. The registration process is also baffling, since they were trying to get as many bodies through that process as possible, but volunteers got the short end of the stick. I guess the army figured that volunteers who actually wanted to be there would exhibit more patience and less discontent than the draftees.
Update: Judy found the letters! Attaching here:
Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3