Waiting for Orders

As I mentioned before, I didn’t get shipped out right away because of my appointment to OCS. When we were given the offer to take the tests, many who could have qualified for officer training did not because accepting meant a longer time in service. One had to agree to serve at least two years after being commissioned. That would extend the normal draft hitch of two years to at least three and many did not want to stay in that long.

I figured as long as I had to stay in I might as well get officer pay and privileges. Besides, I was single and an extra year did not mean that much at my age. In addition, I would get free transportation home and a delay-in-route leave.

As it turned out, the war in Korea ended just after I got there and I got out on early release because the government no longer needed that many second lieutenants. My tenure was a day or two short of the two years, the same as those who chose not to opt for OCS.

Those of us left behind after basic were assigned to a personnel unit (the Army couldn’t let us lay around the barracks, of course). We were given enough work to keep us busy for a while on a night shift but after a day or so we were told not to report for duty any more.

In a typical Army snafu, our original unit was not told our assignment was over. Since it was a night job we had been allowed to sack in the following mornings. We continued to do this but figured we better get lost during working hours (it was a 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift ). We went to the post golf course and got in 18 holes every day and considerable time afterwards at the 19th hole.

Our fun lasted about a week until one of our group went to the mail clerk to see if anything had come for him. That signaled the fact we had not been showing up for mail call and the subsequent investigation found us out. Fortunately our orders to go stateside came the next day and we were off the hook.