Once it was decided that since I already had an MOS indicating I was qualified as a Field Radio Repairman and therefore didn't need to complete the class, I was pulled out of class. I was assigned to the Signal Officers' Basic School. It is my understanding that the entire Signal School, including the Signal Officers' Basic School, has at some time during the past forty years been moved from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey to Fort Gordon, Georgia.
This chapter will deal with recollections of my experiences working at the Signal Officers' Basic School only. Off duty experiences and other on duty experiences will be covered in Chapter 4, Barracks Life.
The Signal Officers' Basic School was established to give officers assigned to the Signal Corps training in the various modes of communication used by the Signal Corps including radio and wire communications. Of course I know that now it also includes comprehensive courses in computers, although in 1955 it did not. This class was for new officers, Second Lieutenants just beginning their tours in the Army. Most of the students were recent college graduates who had participated in Army ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) while in college. A few were graduates of OCS (Officers' Candidate School) or had received direct commissions from the enlisted ranks. One class was entirely recent graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
In addition to the Signal Officers' Basic Class, there was another class offered to field grade officers, those with a rank of Major or higher. These classes were less technical than those offered to the new Lieutenants, and were intended as either refresher classes or to bring senior officers current on the state of the art. While the Signal Officers' Basic School started a new class each week, the class for field grade officers was only held occasionally. I did not assist in the teaching of this class.
Besides American officers, the officers' schools also had classes for foreign officers from nations around the world. I did participate in some of these classes and found it to be an interesting experience. No two countries were alike. Most of the students in these classes were having a good time and were acting like tourists. They all had cameras. They took the classes but seemed to be more interested in sight seeing and taking advantage of being a tourist in the United States. They spoke varying degrees of English, but most classes had at least one person fluent in English who could help the others.
The class from Nationalist China, now Taiwan, had one Colonel who was very friendly and was always asking me questions about everything. His English wasn't the greatest, but he talked well enough to communicate adequately with me. On his last day he took my picture and said he wanted to include it in pictures he was going to show his wife from his visit to the United States.
The one foreign class that didn't treat the training as a boondoggle was the class from the Republic of South Korea. They had just been in a very bloody war in their homeland and were very serious about their training. Unlike the casual dress and demeanor of the other foreign officers, the Koreans were very "spit and polish" wearing their freshly pressed uniforms and spit shined shoes, which were identical to the Americans, except for the insignia. They rarely smiled and were by far the hardest working class in the officers' school. How determined they were is reflected by the following incident. As the Korean officers were finishing their class, their class leader requested a meeting with the commanding officer of Fort Monmouth, a Major General. At the meeting he requested a firing squad. The surprised General asked what on Earth for and was told that the Koreans had agreed that the officer with the lowest ranking in the class was to be executed. Now that's motivation. Of course the General refused the request. Who knows what happened when they returned to South Korea.
Getting back to the Signal Officers' Basic Course, I worked as a classroom assistant in the radio classes. As I said before there were also wire communication classes and others that I don't now recall. My duties consisted of first echelon maintenance of the radio equipment used in the class, showing training films, cleaning blackboards, and whatever else the instructor wanted me to do. The instructors were both civilians and Army officers. The Army officers were First Lieutenants and Captains. Higher ranking officers taught the field grade officers's classes. The four instructors I worked with and remember the most were Mr. Lima, Mr. Muckle, Lt. Snyder, and Lt. Zappi. They did the bulk of the radio instruction. The civilians were permanent employees and were there longer than the officers, who rotated out after they had taught for a period of time. The only one whose first name I remember after all this time is Lt. Zappi's. His name was Vincent, or Vince. I don't know the educational background of the civilian instructors, but I believe it is the same as the Lieutenants, who both were Electrical Engineers.
The equipment on which I performed first echelon maintenance included the PRC-6, also known as a "prick six" or a handy talkie. It was a one piece radio, probably about three times as big as a cordless phone. Also was the ANGRC 3 through 8, also known as the "angry three through eight": The PRC-6 was portable, while the ANGRC 3 through 8 series was portable enough to be transported from place to place but was stationery when used. It was probably the size of a personal computer these days, but heavier. Both used FM frequencies, which could be adjusted. On one set I found that I could pick up the sound of a New York television station if I adjusted the frequency just right. Actually the radio that picked up the TV station needed repair. It shouldn't have been able to do that.
First echelon maintenance was just cleaning the equipment every day, testing it to be sure it worked, and fixing what I could without tools. There was a radio for every student in a class, so that was quite a task. If a radio didn't work properly, it was my responsibility to send to the shop for repairs, giving a detail description of the problem.
One day I was sitting alone in a classroom fiddling with a PRC-6. I felt someone looking over my shoulder, so I turned to see who it was. It was the base commander. I snapped to attention and said "Sorry, sir, I didn't see you". He laughed and said "Relax, I'm not a Lieutenant". I've since heard General Eisenhower said something similar to a soldier during World War 2.
Speaking of military courtesy, it is more relaxed out in the real world than in a basic training atmosphere. For example I treated the civilians with proper courtesy as if they were officers. I would call Lieutenant Snyder "sir" if we were in a classroom full of students or other people were around, but it was more relaxed if there were just the two of us talking. For some reason, being a smart ass 20 year old, I used to like to pull Lt. Zappi's chain. At first he was like a basic training cadre, always yelling at his subordinates. He must have been the Lieutenant that the General was referring to. But as he got to know us and got more experience, he got better. What I would do is say "yeah" & "OK" when we were in a classroom, but "sir" him to death when we were alone. Finally he said that I have it all backward, that I should show military courtesy in the classroom, and he didn't care if I called him Vince when we were alone. He never realized that I was doing that on purpose.
Sitting in the same classroom, hearing the same instruction, watching the same training film day after day, I began to know everything by heart. Lt. Zappi realized this and one day he had to leave in the middle of a class because his wife was going into labor. He told me to take over, so I did. I got up there and continued where he left off. The students in the class were giggling, and Lt. Zappi must have realized that would happen, so he came back into the classroom and yelled at them "as far as you're concerned, Haakenson is a Captain for the rest of this hour and I expect you to respect that". Then he left to go to the hospital. Thank goodness there were only about 20 minutes left. Later, Lt. Zappi was reprimanded for putting me in charge and told he should have just cancelled the class.
Another incident that happened due to my familiarity with the class was quite funny. I had shown the training films so many times that I knew the narrative by heart. I was showing a film to a class, and Lt. Snyder had left the room. The sound on the film suddenly went bad, so I started doing the narration. Again, the students thought that was funny and were giggling. Lt. Snyder came back into the room and had me stop the film and told me to get another copy to show later. I told him I knew all the words, and he said he knew I did but we had to do it right. I guess he was more of a straight arrow than Lt. Zappi was.
I don't recall too much about Mr. Lima, except that one of the things he taught was a phenomenon where at night, depending on atmospheric conditions, a radio signal could be heard many times as far away as its normal range. He went into great detail explaining how this phenomenon worked and had a term for it. For the life of me I can no longer remember what this term was.
Mr. Muckle was a pleasant guy, and what I most remember about him happened after I was out of the Army. Ted Hampe was a guy that I knew since the third or fourth grade. He was so smart that he skipped a semester in the fourth grade. I still remember them coming into our class and pulling him out. He was also a very good athlete. He was on the freshman basketball team at Iowa State University until he broke the orbital bone in his face going after a loose ball. He decided to give up basketball and take up tennis where he earned three varsity letters on the Iowa State tennis team. And I think baseball was his best sport and that he could have played college baseball.
I know I'm going off on a tangent, but Ted is a remarkable man and a nice guy too. He was "tall, dark and handsome" being 6'-3" in height and the women loved him. (Actually, the last time I saw him, he was bald). After graduating from Iowa State, he went into the Army as a Second Lieutenant and was a student at the Signal Officers' Basic School after I was out of the Army. Since his military service, he's had a remarkable career, being national brand manager for Mr. Clean, Joy, Camay, and Puffs at different times while employed by Proctor and Gamble, later producing a documentary feature on Jesse Owens that was shown on national television, and eventually owning his own business. During this time he earned an MBA at Harvard.
Getting back to my point, I saw Ted in our home town of Sioux City, Iowa shortly before I moved to California and we discussed our Army experiences. Since I had worked at the Signal Officers' Basic School which he later attended, we talked about people that we both knew. Mr. Muckle was the one that stood out.
Quite a few Iowa State graduates had been in Army ROTC and went into the Signal Corps for their Army service, attending the Signal Officers' Basic School. I would look at the roster for incoming students from Iowa State to see if there were any that I knew. I came across one, Ray George, whom I didn't know except as the third baseman on the Iowa State baseball team. When I encountered one, I would introduce myself as one who had attended Iowa State for two years and intended to return.
Usually, the rosters of incoming students only had their last names and the schools they were from. This caused an embarrassment to me on one occasion. There was a Lieutenant Falk from Iowa State on a roster. I assumed it was Harold Falk whom I had known since grammar school and who was planning to go into the signal corps. It turned out that after getting his degree in Nuclear Physics, he obtained employment and his military obligation was waived. But at the time I didn't know that, so I went to the BOQ (bachelor officers' quarters) where the new students were housed and knocked on Lieutenant Falk's door. He came to the door and he was Richard Falk, not Harold. I told him that I had been looking for Harold and he said he knew him. I was totally embarrassed, but Lt. Falk just laughed it off.
Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, so its citizens are subject to draft in the United States Army, and there were several working in the Signal School. One whom I worked with was named Delgado. Often we had lunch in the mess hall together since our schedules were pretty much the same. One day, everyone at the table except me was Puerto Rican, and they started talking to each other in Spanish. Every once in a while they would say "Haakenson" and then start laughing. Delgado had put them up to that thinking I would think they were all talking about me. It's amazing the trivial things one can remember after 40 plus years.
One week there were a whole bunch of retirement ceremonies for Major General George I. Back, the Chief Signal Officer. He was the one, from my home town of Sioux City, Iowa, who had issued the orders that got me into the Signal Corps. He toured much of the fort and stopped into our area one day. To the surprise of the officers who were escorting him around, I approached him and told him about the chance meeting I had with him at the Sioux City airport and subsequent events that resulted in my being in the Signal Corps, which I discuss in Chapter 1. He remembered me and asked how I liked the assignment. I replied that I liked the Signal Corps and my assignment but couldn't wait to get out of the Army. I felt bad about that later because after what he had done for me, I had more or less dissed the Army. I should have realized that being a career soldier, General Back probably didn't understand the attitude of draftees, who wouldn't be caught dead admitting they liked the Army.
I mentioned before that most classes were made up primarily of recent college graduates who got their commissions through ROTC. The one major exception was the class made up entirely of graduates of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Each class has a class leader and the class leader for the West Point class was a guy whose appointment to West Point was automatic as his father had been killed in World War 2 and had posthumously won the Congressional Medal of Honor. I forget this Lieutenant's name, but he really was a leader and pushed his class to excel in everything they did.
One of the things he did was arrange to have a seminar for his class during off duty hours to learn some material that wasn't included in the basic course, and to also to learn about the Airborne and Ranger programs to which these officers would be going after completion of Signal Corps training. He needed somebody to show training films and asked me to do it. There was an implicit understanding that I would be paid for my time.
The seminar was held. Everyone was in civilian clothes since this was during off duty hours in the evening. The minute it was over, the students dispersed leaving the class leader without money to pay me. I guess there had been a misunderstanding among them. Anyway, this guy felt bad and, in lieu of me being paid, he invited me to the Officers' Club for dinner and a couple of drinks. Of course, the Officers' Club is off limits to enlisted personnel, but since we were in civilian clothes, he said he would just tell them that I was his guest. At the Officers' Club I saw the Company Commander of our barracks. The next day he asked me why I was there and I told him. He said we had bent the rules, but what the heck.
I worked in the school under the supervision of several Sergeants, the top boss being Master Sergeant Schneider. These Sergeants were administrative supervisors who wrote my performance reviews and did the things that supervisors do. But the classroom instructors were the ones who oversaw my day to day work. Sergeant Schneider was an affable man who was friendly to everyone, but wasn't the best soldier I ever saw. He was reluctant to take chances that might reflect badly on him.
An example of this was when the Christmas holidays were approaching. I hadn't been home for Christmas in two years and had plenty of leave time coming. I put in for a two week leave that would include Christmas and New Years, but Sergeant Schneider refused it. His excuse was that I was indispensable to my job and they couldn't get along for two weeks without me. I've learned in life that no one is indispensable. I argued and pleaded with him, but he remained firm and I was resigned to staying at Fort Monmouth over the holidays for the second straight year.
By chance, shortly thereafter I was at the PX (Post Exchange) having a sandwich and a beer, and the officer in charge of the entire Signal School, a Lieutenant Colonel, asked if he could join me. I guess he liked to touch bases on an individual basis with his subordinates. He asked me how things were going and I more or less said fine, except that Sergeant Schneider had refused my request for a leave to go home at Christmas, saying that I was indispensable. The Colonel didn't say anything more to me about it at the time, but the next morning Sergeant Schneider called me into his office and told me he had reconsidered my request for a leave and was now granting it. I wonder why he changed his mind. ;-)
My first immediate supervisor was Sergeant Ford. He was a likeable guy and left people alone as long as they were doing their jobs. He wasn't there long before he transferred away, but I remember he liked to take afternoons off and go to the race track. The Monmouth track was very close to the base. Other than that, I don't remember much about him.
Next, there was Sergeant First Class Doyle. He was a year younger than me, but mature beyond his years. He had enlisted at the age of 17 and fought in the Korean War. His performance had earned him several battlefield promotions resulting in his obtaining his high rank at the age of 19. Unlike most NCOs he was not a career soldier, and was planning to get out as soon as his three year enlistment was over. He planned to go back to New England, go to college, and get married.
One thing you do in the Army is bitch a lot and use the "F word" a lot. I was always bitching to Sergeant Doyle about one thing or another. He would just laugh and say "don't take it so seriously, the Army's just a big joke". A funny thing about that relates to a conversation I had with my friend, Warren Evans (whom I mention in other chapters), in New York one night. He was going on and on bitching about something, so I used Sergeant Doyle's line "it's just a big joke". Warren immediately retorted "yeah, but the joke's on you)".
The final immediate supervisor I remember was a Spec 4, whose name I no longer remember. A Spec 4 was a specialist with a pay grade equivalent to that of a Corporal. The Spec grades were created to ensure fair pay for those with technical specialties as opposed to administrative. What I remember most about him is his morbid sense of humor. One day he wanted me to go to Asbury Park with him during work hours. It was work related, but I don't remember specifically what it was. We were allowed to leave the base in civilian clothes or class A uniforms, but not in fatigues. He told me that it was all right for us to go in fatigues as it was work related.
The reason I remember this trip so well is that the previous night, there had been several high school kids killed in a car accident. It was all over the news. As we were driving toward Asbury Park, we came across one of the cars that had been involved in the accident, a convertible. We stopped and got out of the car to look at the wrecked car. There were traces of human flesh still in the car. My supervisor said, "That reminds me, we should get breakfast. I've got a craving for sausage". I almost threw up, and he just laughed.
The civilian employees that worked at the Signal School, in addition to the instructors, were an interesting group. A lot of young women worked there in administrative and secretarial positions. For the most part, they didn't date military personnel, although one of the instructors' assistants did date one of the secretary's briefly. His name was Henry Stoner, he was a graduate of New York University, and he was extremely naive and shy. He had a crush on this gal, but it took him a long time to get up the nerve to ask her out, and when he did it was a disaster. He waited in the hallway one morning for her, and when she showed up, he jumped out and was so nervous he shouted. He startled her, but eventually they did go out a few times.
The staff at the Signal School had a Christmas party, which included the officers, enlisted men, and civilians. Luckily for me, the party was held a few days before my leave was to start. I wore a dark blue business suit, which was the first time many people had seen me in anything other than a uniform or casual civilian clothes. I don't know if it was that or the relaxed atmosphere and free flowing drinks, but the civilian women looked at me differently that they did at work. I thus, at the tender age of 20, experienced my first "office party" with mistletoe and dancing. I was called "Hack", short for "Hackenson" the incorrect way my name was pronounced in those days. Haakenson should actually be pronounced somewhere between "Hawkenson" and "Hockenson". But that night people could call me "Hack" as much as they wanted.
A few days after the party I took my two week leave. It was my first leave since I had been at Fort Monmouth. Unlike the Viet Nam war and afterwards, servicemen were treated very well by the public. I traveled by train from Red Bank, New Jersey to Sioux City, Iowa with a change of trains in Newark, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois. There were quite a few Army nurses on the Newark to Chicago leg of the trip and they were quite anxious to enjoy the trip socializing in the club car. I was a little stiff at first, still being indoctrinated with military courtesy, and nurses were commissioned officers. Finally one of them told me to lighten up, that we're all just a bunch of young people going home for the holidays and we should relax and enjoy ourselves. That we did for the entire two days between Newark and Chicago. When crossing through Ohio the train stopped and the people in uniform got off and were treated to gifts of candy and cigarettes from the local people. In those days, smoking was more common than it is now, although I didn't smoke. The gesture was appreciated by all of us.
My two weeks in Sioux City were pleasant. My dad had all my uncles, aunts, and cousins from all over the country visiting. They all stayed at our house, most of them on the floor and sofas. I slept in my room and didn't find out until many years later, after my dad had passed on, that my dad told everyone that I was to have my own room, and everyone else had to make do. It still touches me that he did that for me. After all, I hadn't been in combat.
For the first time in many months I got to see many friends. On New Years' Eve my old friend, Art Roeh, and I took two student nurses out to a movie. Even though it was New Years's Eve, they had a curfew of midnight. Art and I went to a party after we had dropped them off.
The Twentieth Street Tavern was a hangout for the young people who lived on the North side of Sioux City. A bunch of us were there the weekend before I had to return to Fort Monmouth. I was one week short of my 21st birthday, and still looked younger than that, so of course I couldn't buy a beer. But everyone started playing on the sympathy of the waitress. They all told her that I was in the Army and would be leaving in a couple of days and would be 21 in a week, so what could it hurt. She gave in and we all had a great time.
The return trip was uneventful, except I met a gal on the short trip from Sioux City to Chicago and we had a drink in Chicago before going our separate ways. We wrote for a while before she became engaged to a friend of mine. I don't remember much about the trip after Chicago.
After returning from leave I applied to return to college at Iowa State University for Summer school. Army regulations at that time provided you could get out up to three months early if you were enrolled in an accredited college or university. So although I had entered the Army on September 22, 1954 (eight years to the day before my first son was born), I was scheduled for separation on July 9, 1956. I began counting the days.
When the time came close for me to leave, Lieutenant Lynch wanted to talk with me. He was an instructor in wire communications and had earned his commission after spending a couple of years as an enlisted man and then attending Officers' Candidate School. He was one of the few of the younger military officers teaching at the school that was a career soldier and not just putting in his time. He told me that it's two different worlds, being an enlisted man and an officer. He said that I should go back to college, enroll in ROTC, get my degree, and return to the Army as a Second Lieutenant. He was quite sincere. I told him no, I would never return to the Army. As a draftee who had been indoctrinated to "hate the Army", I had no intention of ever returning. Now, looking back on it, it might not have been a bad life. I could have retired after 20 years and moved into a civilian career with maybe more education than I got on my own.
This chapter was mostly about the Signal School, with one diversion to my Christmas leave. Chapter 4 will cover other on duty and off duty recollections during this same time period, and Chapter 5 will cover the many weekends I spent in New York City.
