When I terminated my story of how I became a draftee, I used a little poetic license to say I was in the army now. This wasn't entirely correct, but, I was definitely in the clutches of the draft board.

On June 7th of 1945 I had to report to the draft board office in downtown Seattle. At this office I was asked which branch of the service I would prefer. Since I was a better than average ship fitter I hoped to go into the Seabees where I could use my experience. The examiner then looked at my papers and there was a big check mark on it. "Oh, you failed the color blind test so you're in the army."

On the way to Fort Lewis, Washington I made friends with a young man named Redman. He had been a radio operator in the Naval Reserve. He was hoping to be a radio operator in the army.

At Fort Lewis we were giving a battery of tests, one of which was a test in Morse code. We were given headphones and the letters I.N.T. were sent into the phones. I couldn't separate any of the letters and just put my pencil down.

After a few days we were put on a slow train to Fort Riley, Kansas, which was the major cavalry fort in the U.S.

The second day we were there we went in to classification. I was told I was to become a radio operator.

I said, "You have to be kidding." The man making the assignment said, "You want to ride horses?" I said, "I'm a radio operator." I lied, at the end of our radio training. I was still on the slowest table, with no hopes of ever getting off it.

Redman, the radio operator was put in a horse troop. Speaking of horses, even though we were supposedly mechanized radio operators we were still in a horse troop, so along with K.P. we were also assigned to S.P - Stable Police.

I remember this one time I was on S.P. there was also a little Irishman named Dolan from Chicago on the job with us. We had cleaned all the stalls before lunch and had put fresh hay in all the mangers. We then went home to the barracks for lunch. When we returned there was a deposit under each of the horses.

Dolan said, "I'll kiss the derriere of any horse that hasn't defecated". Editor's note - these are not the actual terms he used.

We pushed and pushed but we couldn't get him to honor his vow.

The surrender of Japan occurred on the day we were to have gone on the infiltration course so I never did have the thrill of crawling under live machine gun fire. I didn't mind a bit.

One of our major disappointments was seeing the beautiful roasts in the mess hall as we were leaving after lunch. They always came out stew. Speaking of stew, I'll never forget the first meal at Fort Riley. That afternoon we had our tetanus shot which was about like being hit with a 2x4. We then went to dinner and, of course, it was stew. In the middle of which they plopped a piece of cake and then a half peach on it. Not my idea of a peach shortcake.

Several other meals stand out in my memory. There was the day the menu board said the meal was spring lamb. It looked good and I asked for a good helping. It had been many years since that sheep had been a spring lamb. Almost every bit went into the garbage.

One other time, somehow, the cooks had got hold of a bunch of filet mignons. You should have heard the troops complaining that they weren't having the normal Sunday chicken.

After my total fizzle as a radio operator I volunteered for radio repair school. Someplace I have a diploma that says I'm a radio repairman. Don't you believe it.

Subsequently I was sent to Fort Ord in California and was eventually ready for discharge. At a big formation the commanding general at the fort came down the line talking to the soldiers. He asked me why I wanted to get out of the army. I said I had a wife and two children at home. I would have liked to have said, "You've got to be kidding." You just didn't talk to generals like that.