After about a week of near-constant innoculations for every dread disease anticipated from the typhus-threatened battlefields of war-torn Europe, to the tropic fevers and beri-beri of a still-alien Japan, and the stripping of every last vestige of civilian clothing from our backs, we draftees were deemed at last ready to "ship out" of Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

With our crew-cut heads, needled, sore shoulders and butts, and our bulging barracks bags dragging behind us, we were herded without much ceremony onto our first "troop train" All we knew was that we were bound for "training" at some "camp" or another - but whether north, south, east or west we didn't have the faintest notion - nor were our new masters about to tell us.

The train was immensely long, or so it seemed. Steel grey, and O.D. "boxy" military cars alternated with standard "civilian" passenger cars and old Pullman coaches in a long line that snaked down the track before us. We filed aboard and each man secured a seat. Some wound up in the military cars, which had permanent steel bunks set crossways of the coaches (as best I recall) ... already suggestive of the barracks life into which we were about to plunge. I wound up in a standard old-style Pullman car - the kind with green, plush upholstered horsehair seats and an overhead bunk which opened downward at night. The horsehair daytime seats made up the corresponding lower berth. I was personally familiar with all this (as the most of my traveling companions were not - anon) as I had traveled widely with my family this way when I was much younger.

Midways of this entire string of mismatched cars, were the "army kitchen cars" - bona fide military, rolling field kitchens - complete with stoves, counters, supplies and everything to cook for the troops en route.

Here is how it all worked...

We threw down in our individual seats and stowed our barracks bags as best we might. Our foursome (two riding forward, two riding backward in standard Pullman car setup) made acquaintance and settled back. Soon the cars gave a jerk - and started rolling slowly forward: we were on our way at last! The topic-of-the-hour, of course, was "Where in hell are we going?" and speculation ran rife, as 'tis said, and rumor even rifer... Suddenly this little guy seated across from me, who had been darting all over the coach, resumed his seat and said - rather smugly - "I know where we are going!"

This immediately got the attention of several of us. "Where?" we all chimed in unison. And then , "How do you know, anyway? You in tight with the Sergeant already or what...?"? At this, the little guy looked around, counted the house as it were, and announced, "We are going to ...Camp Pullman.!"

"Huh? Where's Camp Pullman?", several guys said at once... and then ..."And how do you know anyway, Shorty?"

Shorty savored his triumph. "Because," he said, "it says so right here..." and with that he put his finger on the coach manufacturer's brass plate - one that used to be just below the slender vanity mirrror between the two compartment windows of the old Pullmans. Right under the buzzer which summoned the Porters in an earlier shall we say, more "stratified" America? Probably not many of you out there now who remember this...

At that I gave a loud guffaw. All eyes turned on me. "So what's so funny, Stretch?" (None of us really knew each other yet, so nicknames were evolving around standard anatomical configurations...).

"Well," I said, "Shorty's made a nice try but 'no seegar' for him here. There's no Camp Pullman (actually I think there once was - way upstate New York maybe - but irrelevant for us). This name here you see is just the manufacturer's nameplate - Pullman Manufacturing - for the maker of these type railroad cars."

Shorty just sorta looked like the wind had gone out of his sails, and several guys said, "Huh? Not 'Camp' Pullman? How do you know this?"

I said, bit irritatedly, "I don't 'know' how I 'know' this - I just 'know' it, is all. Adding, "I thought everyone knew that..." (And my naivete' in those days did extend to thinking everyone knew this. I have changed some as I matured...). This was the beginning of a sort of mystique, you see, that dogged my days in the Service - and which by time to muster me out, I had learned to play to the hilt. I ultimately traced it to so mundane an accomplishment as having had a high school education, whereas so many of my new pals did not. In time, I became a sort of oracle or shamen even to my associates... never wholly trusted or believed ... but one who always had to be consulted first, and then argued with, as to what we were facing or should do next as a group. The only thing I lacked was a set of bones or Norse runes to cast and shake a rattle over. Reading and writing were regarded as dark arts to begin with, and "knowing' things was ...well... really kind of being in league with equally dark forces...

The afternoon wore on. Coal smoke and cinders blew in the windows - no hermetic seals in those days. We hung out and waved at the civilians going by. At times we didn't seem to be going more than about 20 mph... We were to find out that military trains often travel at such snail's pace (the French "40& 8's" being no exception - but they all lay yet in our collective futures...) and usually seek out abandoned or to-be-abandoned trackways in the neighborhoods through which they are passing. Plus all the endless stops. One of the first this afternoon, as I remember, being Athole, Mass... which I will leave to your imaginations what pleasantries were yoo-hoo'd to the standees on the Station Platform there...

Scrape... Scrape...

Night fell. We had only a box lunch the Supply Sergeants had given us at Devens. Regular meals were to start tomorrow. And so to Lights Out. We were learning.. I remember we drew lots, and one guy got the overhead bunk and I had to share the bottom with another guy. I took the outside half - nearest the windows (which were by strict orders all shuttered down for some inexplicable reason: the Sergeants did not want one gleam escaping from the train or one errant glimpse into same as we sped by in the night).

Guy next to me stretches out and says, "Man! This bunk feels great! (Then)... I been in the Merchant Marine, but overstayed and got picked up by the Draft. (Then) I'm just getting over bad case of Clap." Since I couldn't tell whether he was bragging or complaining (about either or both)... I let it go at that and turned on my side.

I was too keyed up to sleep, so after tossing for couple hours, I reached up and raised the blind over my window. The berth curtains to the aisle were drawn so the Sergeants - if any were awake - couldn't see anyhow.

And I had a real de javu all over again - as Yogi used to say...

We had just sped through Stamford, CT down what were then known as the old New York, New Haven, and Hartford right-of-way tracks. We were passing through the Old Greenwich Station, and into the cut that runs westward to Riverside Station and the great trestle bridge over the Mianus River. Harbor really. This was my home neighborhood - I mean my intimate neighborhood! As we entered the cut, we were in a beeline no more than about 300 yards from my folks' backyard in Riverside, CT! Peacefully asleep in their beds no doubt, and blissfully unaware of the near-passage in the night of their storm-tossed chick now afloat on new and unknown seas... And I, a disembodied, silent spirit almost - peeping out between the blinds of a shuttered troop train whistling through their night - and none the wiser! We rumbled across the bridge and a few minutes later coasted through the Greenwich RR Station: where the old Negro Minister had blessed us and seen us off only a few days earlier...!

I lowered the shade and fell into fitful slumbers.

They turned us out at dawn. Shades were allowed to be raised - I saw we were somewhere puffing along through the mosquito marshes and junkyards of what could only be industrial New Jersey or south down those tracks toward Philadelphia. I said nothing. We were all starved.

The Sergeants shouted us to Order. And then they explained how we were to eat and what we had to do. Every man was to get his mess kit. We dug them out of our packs. The cup handles and the knife, fork, and spoon slide down over the main handle of the army mess kit, so you could carry the whole thing opened and ready for business in one hand. Then we were lined up in the aisle, and since we were in the back half of the train - behind the kitchen cars which were smack dab in the middle - we were all told to face forward (in the direction the train was traveling) and MARCH! Soon from dozens of cars strung out behind us, an endless shuffling line of hungry troops began to move inexorably forward from car to car. It took forever. Along the way we passed right through the kitchen cars! The smell of fresh coffee teased our nostrils, coffee and bacon and eggs and hot toast hung in the air - but not for us. "Keep Moving" said the Sergeants. And so we did.

Eventually the head of our long line reached the front of the train and could go no further. At this the entire line back through all the cars was halted and told to "About Face!" We did, and then started the long march back to our original cars! But on the way now back through the kitchen cars you see, we picked up our breakfast! Slick! We were learning the ancient dictum, familiar even to the Legionnaires of Ancient Rome, I am sure, that in this World, when it comes to getting anything done, there is ..."the right way, the wrong way, and...the army way!" So that we arrived back in our seats and sat down with our breakfasts in our laps!

But now ...what was this?

A long, long line of new troops, with mess kits exactly like ours was streaming into our section and passing endlessly down our aisle! These were the troops you see from the first half of the train - doing in reverse what we had done just before them! Soon they halted, did an about face and then marched back to their cars, picking up breakfast on their return trip just as we had. But soonest the last man disappeared through our coach doors going forward once again, the Sergeants had us on our feet and following after - with dirty mess kits!

As we entered the kitchen cars you see, we passed straight on through again, never pausing and kept going on to the head of the train. Then, "All About Face - and to the Rear!". Back eventually through the kitchen cars again, where this time we went down the left side where there were three galvanized garbage cans with boiling water in them. (We were to become very familiar with this procedure in the months to come). You stepped up and dunked your dirty mess kit in the first one - sloshing it up and down in the soapy water. Then quickly on to the next one - full of a disinfectant rinse. Last of all, a quick dip in the clear boiling water of the third. You were to take a quick swing through the air to shake off the drops and that was it! Anyone caught wiping his kit further on his shirt-tail, was summarily given a lesson on dysentery on the spot, and put on KP for the next day!

Ultimately, we arrived back at our seats, late morning now, but with clean mess kits. Whew! But hard on our heels came the head-of-the-train crowd with dirty mess kits in turn, pendant now from their arms... They about-faced and marched dutifully off to the boiling vats up ahead. But what's this? Immediately the Sergeants had us on our feet again! Mess kits in hand and marching forth 1-2-3 - well almost - shuffling 1-2-3 more like - toward the head cars again...hard on the heels of the late breakfast bunch just ahead. It was lunch time!

Through the kitchen cars - now redolent with meat and potatoes, gravy and the fixin's... but never pausing and going straight on through to the head car. "About Face!" and march to the rear - this time picking up your lunch on the way. We sat down in our car at last, just as the first of the head-cars-crowd poured in with clean kits from breakfast in their turn. For them it was, "About Face! and "Forward March!" Thus into the long afternoon hours... marching troops working up an appetite as they passed to and fro from car to car - like Chinese Theater, as is sometimes said, I guess... some going, some coming, some eating, some washing, ...you know....

Dinner, of course, followed immediately on the heels of the last kit washees from the lunch roundelay. By now the Sergeants didn't have to pay much attention: we were finding, as we came to say back then, "... a home away from home," and were on our way! Three squares a day - every day - and all day long! Grin!

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