Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Our Information and Education troupe in Egypt en route to Iran and the Persian Gulf Command that supplied much-needed war equipment by truck and rail to Russia. Your correspondent is perched on the back end of the horse.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

The typewriter soldiers had cushy duty in WWII

Beware, all you civilians who have not served in the military. This is our patriotic military month, and it ain't safe to ask a veteran about his (or her) wartime experiences--especially don't ask those who served but never witnessed enemy fire. Those who were "there" are inclined to brush off the subject; it's not comfortable recalling being shot at and remembering comrades who died close by.

On the other hand, a travel agency could not have written a more enjoyable itinerary than Uncle Sam accidentally wrote for me, starting with a three-year stint in the country-club atmosphere of San Francisco's Presidio and leading to what amounted to a sightseeing tour of the Middle East.

At the Presidio, I could spend a nickel and take the "D" car to downtown San Francisco. Even enlisted personnel could keep an auto and play golf for free on weekdays at the championship Presidio course.

Being an accurate but slow typist, I was assigned to headquarters and there typed "true copies" for the prison records section--no erasures and no white stuff.

Dick Gleason, top noncom at the headquarters, was the son of a New York cabbie who refused to move up to auto cabs and therefore was the last driver in NYC who could supply a horse-drawn funeral. Thus, Dick had moved to Boston to live with a pub-keeping uncle. There he was selected for Boston Latin, a prestigious public school that had produced several U.S. presidents.

From the Presidio, I was sent to Washington and Lee University. In our first day at W. & L., the class met in the beautiful chapel where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, a onetime president of the university, is buried.

Bluebooks were distributed, and the question was asked: "Should we use poison gas?" I wrote what I had heard: that in World War I, gas sometimes blew back on the troops. The next day the officer said, "We did not open your bluebooks. There is [only] one answer: We'll do anything to win." Thus a class of "typewriter solders" learned that this was total war.

My next assignment was at the Oakland Regional Hospital, where duties included preparing a daily buffet and reading news over the in-house announcing system.

Every three nights, nonmedical staff had to stand by and be of assistance to a ward nurse. Pan duty was a regular chore, and one evening the nurse asked me to pin up a notice in a room where soldiers were bucking for a Section 8 (incompatible with the army). She warned that they might go into an "act." And so they did, and I roared, "Look, you guys, I have nothing to do with your getting out of the army, so knock it off." And so they went back to their cards and reading. The nurse was smiling when I returned, and I felt ready for Broadway.

Next week: A scenic tour of the Middle East on Uncle Sam.

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