That was what the letter said at the top. (Well... the "Greetings" part anyway...!) These letters were the "everywhere" topic-of-the-day, believe me, back in the tumultous years of the '40's. Their receipt (or conversely, non-receipt) by the draft age (18 and up) male citizens of our Great Republic, determined as surely as the 'reading of the bones' did for their ancient Roman counterparts, the direction (and for many!) even the duration of their remaining lives...

It was called (variously) "Conscription," or "Universal Conscription" (Senators liked that one!) or more commonly, just "the Draft." The law of the land in those days was that every (I mean every - no exceptions!) male, on attaining his 18th birthday, had to hie him to his local draft board and register. These local boards then, subject to a variety of rules and obligations in turn, had to continually review these incoming registrations, and make up "quotas" of conscripts to send from their locales.

"A man o' four-an'-twenty that 'asn't learned of a trade --
Beside "Reserve" agin' him -- 'e'd better be never made.
I tried my luck for a quarter, an' that was enough for me,
An' I thought of 'Er Majesty's barricks, an' I thought I'd go an' see."

There were "outs" (there always are). But they were few and clearly stated. College entrants were favored - but again, the emphasis here was on "essential" curricula and careers: medicine, science, and so on. Business and certainly "Liberal Arts" could be dispensed with till the fingers of the Axis were pried off our collective throats. And there were medical exemptions, of course. But these were determined based on actual physicals... and not just "claims" of aches and pains. As the war wound on, these were adjusted ever downward a bit (one presumes) and thus missing digits, impaired vision and/or hearing, while they might keep you "out of" the Air Force and other glamorous branches of the "Service" - cut little mustard when it came to filling the ranks of the Queen of Battles: the Infantry. (What an earlier, gruffer time had called simply, "cannon fodder."). Conscientous Objectors ("Conshees") went to the Medical Corps and so on; 4F's, of course, "lucked out" and stayed at home.

(One of Abraham Lincoln's favorite sayings, I have read, when confronted by those of his day whose "religious consciences" forbade taking up arms against their fellow man, was that "If you can't skin, you can at least then hold a leg," ....a metaphor perhaps more meaningful to the rural populace of his day...).

But then the letter went on... (I must have mine filed yet away in some desk drawer niche somewhere...).

"Greetings!," it said. Then..."A Board composed of Your Fellow Citizens and Friends (nice touch that!).. has found you fit to serve in the Military Service of our Nation (words to that effect, etc. etc.) ... and you are hereby ordered to report for Induction into same at (date, time, place)."

How lucky you gonna get?

"Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier."

I turned 18 on the 22nd of June. Two days later, my "Greetings" came. I was to report to the Greenwich RR Station for entrainment to New Haven at 7:00 a.m. the morning of August 1st next. Thus, I had ample time to "get my affairs in order." At 18 (just) these were few and far apart though, so rather more like the Grasshopper in Aesop's fable, I continued to fiddle and in general while away my days... I was inordinately fond of sailing back then, and had an old centerboard sloop and several beer-drinking companions with whom I regularly rode out the daily summertime "Smoky Sou'westers" out on Long Island Sound. I knew few ants those days anyhow - despite the fact that forces beyond the horizon were even now gathering in my ilk from far and near - to turn us into the requisite Myrmidons our Nation needed...

My mother drove me to the Station. It was wartime, of course, and gas was rationed, but we got the old family Hudson 'Terraplane' I think it was (remember them?) fired up at last, and she drove me to Greenwich. Down the Old Post Road and up Put's Hill (still there in those days ever since "Old Put" himself (General Israel Putnam) had ridden his horse down its precipices to escape the British long ago...). I think it mostly dug away or much altered now...

There was a small group assembled on the platform. A few mothers, and several of my highschool pals from GHS - all looking and feeling rather sheepish this day. I remember there was a kindly old grey-haired Negro minister with the Good Book tucked under his arm, and he assembled us into a small group and said a few words. Then the 7:00 a.m. "local" all the way up from New York City, clattered into the station and we boarded. We waved at our collective mothers and the old Minister and then were gone. Low-key stuff.

At New Haven, our first glimpse of army-life-to-come greeted us in the person of a no-nonsense Sergeant with a clipboard tucked under the arm of his crisp summer issue "tans." He herded us aboard several oldtime trolley cars (they were still running on the streets of New Haven then - I think, in fact, that was the last time I ever rode a real street trolley... make an exception if you will for Frisco's cable cars - but they are not really the same...). We sat stiffly in the old wicker, woven-back seats and the operator clang-clanged his way through the heart of town up to the old Orange Street Armory. We detrained (or de-trolly-ed perhaps? Sigh...). Not far off, ran the towering, red, rock escarpment of "East Rock" with its incumbent stone monument gleaming in the sunlight. Many years later I was to help in the search for an endangered butterfly (the East Rock Skipper or some such) found only in those environs, and dig for dinosaur tracks in those same Triassic redbeds - but that all lay far in the future this day.... For us, more pressing matters were at hand.

We filed into the Armory. They assembled us in a huge gym - maybe several basketball courts back to back. A Sergeant with a bullhorn got us dressed into several long, scraggly rows with maybe a good ten feet or so between rows.. There was a method to his madness. He shouted us down. The hum trailed away to a whisper - then total silence.

"You all men here, are being sworn into the Army of the United States this day. As such you must take the following oath." He then read us a passage about defending our homes and honors and all against all enemies, and obeying our duly appointed officers, and carrying out orders and commands, and similar boilerplate. It was rather low-key - but still impressive. No one spoke. Then the Sergeant said, "Now I know some of you here do not belong here - and likely the most of you are wishing you were somewhere else (barely audible low laugh ran through the ranks). And so if any of you are Section 8's (most of us at this stage had no idea what that referred to), or foreign-born with "papers," or "Conshees" or crimnul records and such like, you may stay standing right where you are. But if the rest of you (we all had our right hands raised, too) agree to this here Oath to Serve your Country - this here Oath I have just read to you.... then I want you all - now! - to take one step forward in agreement."

For a moment there was no sound at all, then a thunderous "clap" as hundreds of young conscripts took that one, decisive footstep forward. Neil Armstrong's "giant step for mankind" which also lay light years into the future back then, was no more prescient. The rows all miraculously moved in entirity one step forward into the extra space the Sergeants had insisted upon. To my recollection, there was not one single man who remained behind! I' m sure we all felt the same sense of pride that day. We looked round at each other - and grinned. Now we were Soldiers - and the long waiting was behind us. Whatever lay ahead we could handle. Actually, I had grown up in Texas, not Connecticut - my family moved there in my last year of high school. So I had cut my teeth on Texas History in my early schooling, and I thought fleetingly of Col. Travis and his line-in-the-sand before the Alamo - and how the "doomed" defenders had stepped forth over it in their rows so long ago, pledging to him and each other, their determination on that day. Truly, at least to those days in the mid-40's, there was something that ran back across the years and united us all to our history in this country. And we were proud, justifiably I believe, and the Nation was well served in its turn.

Later, we were herded back onto the trolleys and back through New Haven to the RR Station. Now we numbered in the hundred and hundreds - contingents from all the many Connecticut towns starting to merge into one vast host. We entrained on the old NYNH&HRR cars again and soon we were off for Fort Devens, Massachusetts, for our initial processing.

Scrape Here for more 'Barrel...'