I Couldn't Swim So I Joined the Army
I Couldn’t Swim So I Joined the Army
Copyright 2007, Harris B. McKee
My growing up was influenced by war. I entered high school in town in the fall of 1953, the year that the Korean War ended and just eight years after the end of WWII. On the Sunday morning that the Korean War began when we came in from breakfast from our chores, my mother said, “the cold war has broken into a red-hot shooting war”. Between those times, our family was very much aware of the 38th parallel dividing North and South Korea, the war and its implications.
In the fall of 1950, I was having a cup of hot tea at Aunt Mary Ryle’s in their Green Gables Apartment on west Boston with my mother when Aunt Mary remarked that we should get a car now before production was diverted as it had been ten years earlier. In fact, each of the McKee brothers bought a 1951 Chevrolet within the next few months. The Des Moines Register printed photos of draft-able young men taking tests to allow them to continue their college educations. Add to that the fact that my father had continued after WWI as an Army Reservist and my cousin John, a combat veteran of the South Pacific WWII campaign was a current active Army Reservist.
The Universal Military Training (UMT) bill had passed in congress that provided for training of all young men in the military with various options of active and reserve military service. Two versions were 1) Six months active duty followed by 7-1/2 years in the active reserves and 2) Two years active duty followed by three years of active reserve and one year of inactive reserve.
By my junior year in high school, it was very evident that I would serve in the military. About the only way to avoid service appeared to be getting married and starting a family, an option that was not appealing. I did discover that if I joined the Active Reserves with a six year obligation and no active duty commitment, an option that would not avoid the draft, I could take R.O.T.C. in college and get an extra $100/month as a second lieutenant. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have to go to reserve meetings as long as I was satisfactorily involved in R.O.T.C.
At the time, there seemed to be specific advantages in joining the Army Reserves rather than the National Guard because the Guard was thought to be subject to much easier mobilization whereas the Reserve would only be called up in a national emergency. Both my cousins Wayne and Brenton had joined the reserves and had assignments in Ft. Des Moines where John was now assigned in some kind of HQ operation. I joined the 90th Cannon Company of the 410th regiment of the 103rd Division that met in Indianola on Monday nights. John, with whom I worked many days of the summer putting up hay recommended the Cannon Company that he had previously commanded because he felt that the esprit of a line infantry unit was something special.
I joined a week to the day after my 17th birthday. (I’d actually gone to Ft Des Moines on my birthday for a physical and induction but somehow the bureaucrats forgot that I was in the room and I had to return a week later to complete the process.) There were several other new recruits from New Virginia or Osceola and we received recruit training separate from the other members of the company from our induction until we went to summer camp in August.
One problem with the summer camp for the 103rd Division was that it conflicted with Indianola High School football practice. The football coach from Leon, an officer in the company, and I received permission to train with the 102nd Division from Missouri two weeks ahead of the 103rd Division. This let us both participate in our scheduled practices.
I have three recollections from that training. One was a night exercise where we got to experience how noticeable a single match light could be and how loud ordinary sounds around military vehicles could be. The second was having a cup of coffee well fortified with cream upon our return from the exercise. It was the first time that I had enjoyed a cup of coffee. I did well enough as a trainee with the 102nd to get to ride in an M-48 Sherman tank as a reward. Thirdly, I forgot to get permission to go off to dinner with my cousin Major John on the Thursday night before our encampment ended on Saturday. Fortunately, the only punishment that I received was that the other trainees short-sheeted my bed while I was gone.
For the next two years, I fulfilled a specific duty at summer camp. I was the company clerk. That duty resulted apparently because I was a good typist and could fill out the various forms that we were required to submit. The first of these years followed my senior year in high school when I had been attending weekly meetings. In the second year, I attended meetings in the summer after returning home from college. This practice set the stage for a moment of discomfort a year later. This second camp with the 103rd did provide an opportunity or my first airplane flight. The conclusion of camp and the start of college football practice precluded returning home to Indianola. I caught a flight from La Crosse, Wisconsin to Chicago’s Midway field, took a cab to the train station and continued to Hanover.
The moment of discomfort arose over my pending AWOL status. During my sophomore year in college, I proposed to my family that I had better get some experience at what engineers really did. I was pursuing an engineering degree and had never known any engineers except my teachers and had little idea of what engineering work might be. They agreed and I managed to get a summer job with the same company FMC that was funding my scholarship. The job was in Hoopeston, Illinois, too far for weekly Reserve meetings. Early in August I received a call from someone connected with the Reserves who told me that unless I showed up at summer camp, I would be considered AWOL. I thought that I’d studied the regulations enough to know that my R.O.T.C. studies eliminated that requirement and that my service a year earlier had been optional (and a way to escape pulling weeds in a bean field); a call that you’re about to be AWOL, however, is a little like having a patrolman follow you down the road. I was apprehensive. Fortunately, a call to my Professor of Military Science and Tactics provided enough subsequent clout to avoid that year’s camp.
Although, I joined an infantry company, even before my first summer camp the company responsibilities were totally changed. Instead of training and working with mortars, we became the Quartermaster Company for the 103rd Division. This was a blow to the WWII Infantry vets that were the core of the company but all seemed to come around. The idea that the Quartermaster Company would eat better than the rest of the division may have influenced their acclimation.
Since I had joined the Army Reserve because of all the family connections and subsequently joined the Army R.O.T.C. you may wonder what swimming had to do with any of this military activity. During my senior year in high school, I had taken the tests and interviews for the N.R.O.T.C. The Navy had a scholarship program, unique among the services, that provided a full scholarship and books and a regular navy commission upon graduation. The active duty requirement was three years when I applied but was increased to four years by the time our class graduated. The Navy also had a program comparable to the other services called a Contract program that require only two years of active duty but didn’t provide the scholarship. Either of these programs would have satisfied the R.O.T.C. in lieu of Reserve meetings. My father urged me to think of the Navy[1]. His principal reason was that the Navy living conditions, and especially the food, were better than one found in the field in the Army. I didn’t give the Navy much thought once I had an alternate scholarship for one simple reason. I couldn’t swim! If I’d realized at the time that I was going to have to learn to swim just to graduate from college my R.O.T.C. choice might have been different.
[1] In fact, he said that during WWI, he had enlisted in the Navy but been drafted by the Army before his Naval induction.