Last Sunday night the President of the United States held a dinner to which veterans of the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war were invited. Obviously the President could not have all of those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to one dinner. I do not know how the veterans were chosen to gather for this dinner. But nonetheless Mr. Obama made a very decent effort to recognize those who had fought in those wars. As a former soldier, I can only say to the President, “Well done!” for inviting those soldiers to dinner while they are still alive.
After Mr. Obama invited these veterans to dinner at the White House, I began to think of the circumstances that surrounded the end of World War II. As you are probably aware, along with several other million Americans, I was a veteran of that war. In this case, the contrast with the way in which the World War II men were treated as distinguished from the invitation to dine at the White House was significant. In the Second World War, all of us knew that once we were sent overseas to engage the Germans or the Japanese or the Italians, our tour of duty would last until the end of the war. Soldiers had a sardonic sense of humor. They would say, “If you don’t wind up in a body bag, and if you can outlast Mr. Hitler, you may come marching home some day.”
As it turned out, the war ended on August 16 of 1945. I happened to be in the United States at that time, and I cannot recall that there were any parades or festivities to mark the occasion. The war had finished and we were all anxious to get back to what we had wanted to do before we were interrupted by World War II. This is purely a suspicion. I suspect that if the war had ended when Franklin Roosevelt was still President, most of us would have turned down an invitation to the White House on the grounds that we had been away too long and we preferred to go home to meet our families.
This is not a put-down of Franklin Roosevelt. On the other hand, you will recall that Harry Truman succeeded Franklin Roosevelt upon his death. I suspect that an invitation at the end of World War II to come to dinner at the Truman White House would have received almost universal acceptance. Everyone knew that Harry Truman was an ex-GI and in my case, he came from my home state of Missouri. But in point of fact, there was no invitation to the White House or any other house. It was our determination to leave the military service as quickly as possible.
My date of discharge from the Army at the end of World War II is dated November 8, 1945. You may recall that when I left to join the American Army, the Bell System effectively dropped me. This action occurred because I had enlisted rather than waiting to be drafted. So I suppose I was put into a file that really didn’t exist called “Abandoning His Job.”
However in the fall of 1944, Congress passed a law which provided that people in my circumstances would be entitled to re-employment once the war was finished. So it was that toward the end of November, 1945, I presented myself to AT&T for re-employment. If they were glad to see me, they kept those emotions completely muted. I did not expect great jubilation upon my return to work after having been at war for 3½ years. But I believe it would be fair to say that the forces in the engineering group at AT&T Long Lines in St. Louis had the feeling that they had made it through the war without the intrusion of veterans returning. For perhaps six months to a year, we were treated sort of as intruders. AT&T had made no specific plans for our return. In my case, I was given a desk right in front of a boss named John Baxter.
Baxter was essentially a loudmouth. He was from Texas and I suspect that he resented intruders in his organization. AT&T welcomed me home by giving me absolutely nothing to do. Yet even though the war was over, they continued the practice of having four hours of overtime twice each week. So I was spinning my wheels with nothing to do until the overtime period arrived. On these two occasions, I would spin my wheels more. This was the low point or nearly the low point in my return to work. But I was determined not to let John Baxter have the satisfaction of running me off. After the first six months or so, things picked up and I was given meaningful work to do. However I have never forgiven the miserable bastard, John Baxter, for his conduct toward myself and other veterans.
So you see, we had no glorious homecoming from World War II. There were no parades or things of that sort. Jesse Neff, a crippled construction worker, probably said it best. Jesse said, “Now that the war is over, the veterinarians are returning.” Jesse was a good guy and I had no intention of telling him that with the war being over the “vegetarians” would be returning.
From this point on in this essay, there will be no continuity from one thought to another. This is a pastiche of memories of that chaotic time when we were all trying to find a place to live and an automobile to drive. Cars and apartments were few and far between.
Another memory has to do with loudmouths. John Baxter, who I suspect was about 42 years old, a pre-eminent loudmouth, sat directly behind me. My loathing for John Baxter has already been recorded. But in the St. Louis office, Baxter was joined by three other loudmouths. First there was Don Wass, who was forever tinkering with his hearing aid. For a short time, I was reporting to Don Wass. The high point of our relationship occurred when Don sent a letter to the typing pool and one way or another the “W” in his last name appeared over in the margin. The stenographer recorded his name as Donald E. Ass. Wass was basically an ass and he thought that this was very unkind. But at least he had a reason to talk loud.
A few desks in front of Don Wass was another low-level supervisor named John Leff. Leff chewed a little tobacco and he kept a spittoon within easy reach. People would confer with John Leff and would often kick the spittoon with a resounding thunk in the office. None of us looked up any more because we knew what had happened.
The final member of the quartet of loud speakers was Rolland Crow. This fellow hated physicians and often wrote to them complaining and asking, “When are you going to quit practicing and do some real work?” He dictated on a wax cylinder. It must have required some effort to transcribe in view of the fact that he was continually shouting at the machine.
So we have John Baxter, Don Wass, John Leff, and Rolland Crow. When those four got to work, it was largely impossible to think.
There are two other stories that come to mind with the return to work at AT&T in St. Louis. The first has to do with my friend Frank Stuckey, who had been drafted during peacetime and then again during World War II. Frank was about 36 or 37 while I was 23 or 24. Frank and I became good friends.
For a time, Frank and I were given a special assignment. During this special assignment we were required to inspect property records, which were maintained by the accounting department. On this one occasion, Frank and I went to see Miss Anita Kemper, who was the old maid of old maids.
Frank and I approached Miss Kemper and asked to see a book in which she kept property records. This was not an unusual request. We were respectful. Both of us referred to her as Miss Kemper.
Miss Kemper had a temper. On this occasion, she more or less let loose of her temper. She said to Frank and me, two World War II combat veterans, “You should know that I can’t do a thing for you at this time of the month.” Frank and I tucked our tails between our legs and came back later at a time when it was not “this time of the month.”
And then there was a time when I worked for Bill Knapp. Bill was a great guy who had reached the rank of Captain in the United States Army. He also lived in Texas but he was quiet about that thought. While I worked for Bill, I was elected to the Vice-Presidency and Presidency of the local union. Bill told me after I had held the presidency for six months or so that, “You ain’t tore your pants yet.” That was a commendation that I greatly appreciated.
But here again, Bill had been in the Army and when he returned, I accidentally found a letter that was not meant for me. It was from Bill Haywood to Nelson Fisher, who was Bill Knapp’s boss. Haywood seemed to think that the reason Bill Knapp got along so well with his employees was a suspicious mark and that he should be watched. Once again, I repeat the title of this essay: “Welcome Home?”
There are dozens of others incidents which occurred in the immediate post-war period. And so the invitation to the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has provided me with some pleasant memories. Of course not all of the incidents would cause pleasant memories. For example, I still detest the loudmouthings of good old John Baxter.
But in time, those unpleasant memories tend to fade and I am left with the much more pleasant thoughts of Frank Stuckey and myself beating a retreat from Miss Kemper.
Now with respect to our treatment by AT&T, my analysis over the years suggests that AT&T, in 1942, considered itself of equal importance or more important than the United States Army. This accounts for the fact that AT&T dropped me when I enlisted in the American Army instead of waiting for the draft.
When we returned after 1945, there were no welcome home signs and we had to fight to get back into the main stream. Ah, but in the end things turned out fairly well. And so I say to the fellows from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “We are glad to have you back. Welcome home.”
E. E. CARR
March 8, 2012
Essay 639
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Kevin’s commentary:
I am curious, in the days before the internet, what people would do to “spin their wheels” at work when they didn’t actually have work. Hopefully Pop will see this and shed some more light upon this mystery.
I’m always shocked to hear how veterans are treated in a country that is as generally pro-war as ours is. We’re all for going out and killing things, and if you ask, everyone everywhere ‘supports the troops’ but it’s oftentimes highly unclear what that means. But from the treatment of returning veterans to the protection of active soldiers a la the body armor fiasco, it seems very much that the troops remain unsupported at home and abroad. A strange state of affairs indeed.
Pop’s response:
Kevin,
This is a two part answer regarding the questions asked earlier.
In the days before the internet, when there was nothing to do, my acquaintance Charley Pickrel made little gadgets at his desk, ostensibly to handle incoming correspondence. I tried to look busy probably unsuccessfully by having a piece of paper in front of me. I also made trips to the mail room and to the lavatory. Killing time in this fashion is a laborious piece of work. When I first came back to Long Lines, they were observing the war time custom of spending four hours twice a week in overtime. This meant that I had to kill as much as twelve hours a day on the overtime days. All things considered, it would be much better to have work to do as opposed to simply killing time. But that is what the company wanted right after the war, and that is what they got.
Now with respect to support for the troops. I was painfully aware once the war was finished, that support for the troops had taken a nosedive. In the final analysis, it is every person for himself. For example, there were those of us who needed help from the Veteran’s Administration to treat war wounds that plagued us into civilian life. The world’s worst place to go was in a Veteran’s Administration Hospital in February of 1946. Military authorities make it extremely difficult to get treatment. It is every man for himself at least during the post war years.
My contempt for the military authorities in this country knows no bounds. I volunteered as you know, but once the war was finished the Army went to prodigious lengths to try to make me re-enlist. They found very few takers among the volunteers to serve in war time. I am at a loss to tell you why we are a belligerent people but I would refer you to the Republican Party who wishes for us to intervene in Libya, Tunisia, Iran and lately in Syria. I was a poor dogface GI who knew that my life could be lost in these interventions. I say “no thanks.”
Pop