A ROAD GUARD TO REMEMBER
This is a story about the training that the men of the original Battery A went through prior to deployment to Germany. This happened in late May 1961. The name of the innocent has been changed to protect all of us.
There was a PVT Hawkeye assigned to the Fire Control Platoon who had been an amateur boxer prior to entering the Army. He was from Tennesse, by way of Chicago, and never had much to say. When he found out that I was on the Fort Bliss Boxing Team he became a little more conversational. He spoke like an Indian, short, blunt with inner meaning. He had been a pro boxer and did want anyone in the unit to know that. He and I knew that the Battalion Commander LTC Tichenor was something of a boxing fan and had ideas about a Battalion Boxing Team. LTC Tichenor and I had formed a mentor-student relationship about the HAWK mystique anyway, and boxing solidified it, which was OK with me. Not so PVT Hawkeye who did not want to box anymore and swore me to secrecy. It was a scene right out of PVT Robert E. Lee Prewitt's speech in "From Here to Eternity".
Of several stories involving PVT Hawkeye the one that really sticks in my mind was when we went out to the field from Fort Bliss for a day in the desert. All 36 trucks and trailers lumbered through the wide, empty Texas streets at some ungodly early hour in the hot weather. The last truck was the Wrecker, with LT Hawknose all puffed up in his role as Safety Officer, ready for an emergency with his clipboard and DA forms. The driver of the Wrecker, a competent black guy, was always sore when teamed with LT Hawknose for a whole day. They usually had a lot to do, given the amateurs driving those monsters, while the rest of us just relaxed on road trips.
I was in the lead vehicle with Platoon Sergeant Bolling ("You just stay with me sir, and I will watch out for you"-- and he did) and the jeep driver. Then came all of the trucks hauling radars and big stuff, then the Launcher Platoon Leader Lt. Bell, SGT's Slack, Garrett et al and the Launcher men and equipment. Quite a potential for a mess on the road even in Texas, not to mention Germany. As I recall the Front End Loader (used to scoop out areas where the Generators could be placed below the other equipment so as not to interfer with radar tracking). The driver was surly and skinny (weren't we all skinny?) from Rome, GA, named Harold Summerville. He was the only one that could drive and operate the loader. He was a vital cog in SGT Bolling's hillbilly mafia, but that is a different story.
That morning PVT Hawkeye was given the important job of road guard directing all vehicles to turn right at Fred Wilson Blvd and Railroad Drive. The Army will always find the right job for you. So PVT Hawkeye was posted and we headed out to the desert where wer practiced setting up and moving the equipment several times, often in conflict with a Marine Corps unit. We ate lunch out there, and it always tasted good. There was no shade. Then rolling back to Fort Bliss as the red sun went down.
As we approached the spot where we had posted PVT Hawkeye, SGT Bolling sat upright in the jeep. "GaadDamn. . . . it's Hawkeye." I woke up from my doze. There was Hawkeye standing at his post on the same corner. No one, especially not me, had told him he was supposed to to jump on on the last vehicle when it went by. I just assumed Hawkeye would assume he was supposed to come out with us. Assume nothing. So he stayed there all day in that hot Texas sun, with no lunch and only his canteen to sustain him. Had no complaints and we didn't ask. SGT Bolling put him in the rear seat of the jeep and patted him on the back ". . . . . .long day, huh, buddy?" I was 22 years old. I learned a lot from men like them.
Mike O'Keeffe, 1st Lt US Army
