I spent a week in Fort Dix. It was a week of change in my life-style. As I reflect on this, I realize that I left a self-directed existence to one that was dictated by a massive governmental organization. I was a GI, an insignificant part of a million or more GIs, who needed to be trained. Shirley always tells me that I am a Zen person, a winger. And I find that this is true. I had no trouble adjusting to this new environment. Early morning reveille, line-up for roll-call, marching in a group to Hup, two, three, four, etc. was part of the conditioning that we experienced. We also got instructions on personal matters, such as making your own cots especially cornering the blanket under the mattress and making the blanket taut, so that the bed was neat and spotless. I never made my own bed for 25 years. Can you imagine what I had to go through in order to serve my country?
Fort Dix was merely an assembly point for the purpose of dispensing clothing and essentials to the draftees. We were examined by medical people, we were shown educational movies relating to health and army life and we moved as a group on marches in the campsite. Slowly, we were being trained to follow orders , to salute the officers, etc. I can’t recall what we did with our civies. Probably sent them home.
After a week in Fort Dix, we got orders to pack up our duffel bags and prepare to move out. We were advised not to report our movements to family or friends. Everything was hush-hush. We were being conditioned to a wartime environment. I have no recollection of the number of draftees being moved to our final campsite or destination. We were called up in the evening to assemble and be loaded on to trains on Aug. 27, 1942. I still have memory of the train coaches. The interior of the cars were luxurious, probably used by the wealthy travelers during the old days. The seats were covered with velvet cloth, but were frayed and worn down. We had individual seating and slept in seats for the entire voyage.
Our journey by train was very slow and tedious. We made many stops in rail-yards to allow more important trains carrying material to factories or army camps. Our squad of draftees were speculating about our destination. When we stopped in Chicago for several days, we wondered if it was the southwest. When we started up again and began to go North, we ventured a guess, the Alaska coastline. I personally was beginning to enjoy the trip. I was seeing country that I never saw. My furthest distance from home was in Baltimore, Md. when I took a job in Ritz Camera Shop to work with Arthur Bobrick. I was upgrading my pay and thought I could get work in the Baltimore shipyards. I invited Shirley to join me, but this was not an acceptable proposition. (Things were different then) A month later, I was offered a photo assistant job in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which I accepted. This lasted until my draft number was called up, about 4 months.
So, here I was on a military train wending it’s way through the countryside. When we left Chicago, we started to go north by northwest. And this is the part of the slow journey that I still remember. We were on the Northwestern Railway , slowly climbing high mountains and revealing to me the most gorgeous scenery. I sat transfixed by the Rockies and the forests in full bloom, it was the end of August and early September, the colors were still in sight. So, it is not surprising that I recorded in memory these scenes. I have no recollection of out lineup in the train for chow-time, etc. My only memory is the slow climb of the train over the Rocky Mountains. It was an eye-popping trip which stimulated my desire to travel.
As I reflect on the past, I realize that the war, WWII, changed the lives of the entire country. The U.S.became the supplier of arms and planes and ships to the British and Russians. To do this and also to supply an army for Europe and for the Pacific, we were forced to turn all factories into making arms and munitions plus tanks, etc to aid our allies. And to accomplish this we needed workers and funds. So, we opened up the factory workers to women and we sold U.S. Bonds, with the aid of women. Shirley and my sister Blanche were on many committees involved with these meetings. This war is called the good war. So different from the last several wars, we were involved in.
In the middle of September, we finally disembarked in the 922nd Engineers Camp. The location was on a leveled field on a mountaintop situated about 15 miles outside of Spokane. The air was fresh and brisk and we were happy to get on to solid ground.
