World War II:  Guard Duty Cold, Lonesome Job

Excerpted from
"THE RIGHT OF THE LINE"

published in "ON GUARD" by Gerald McMahon, 1990

"Guard Duty Cold, Lonesome Job"

February 9, 1946

On three, off six; on two, off four; or even if it’s four and eight. It is the same routine. Boredom and watching.

The primary duty of occupation, watching, supervising, checking, whatever it is, it goes on the duty roster as guard. It means being tossed from bed in the middle of the night, it means an unorthodox meal schedule, it means a day’s schedule broken up, it means the instability so common in the army.

The wind is strong and the snow stings your face. Fifteen minutes after getting posted you are cold and start swearing. The lights on the disarmed enemy barracks – the PW cage – sway in the wind, dancing an adagio with the elements but never reaching a climax. The effect is weird.

Fifty feet away, you see another guard, rifle slung, bent into the weather, looking miserable; perhaps as cold as you. But he is detached and you feel no relationship to him. The mud slushing under your shoes and around your instep snaps you back to reality and for a few minutes, you examine the cage noting the drooping wire, the double fence with the barbs of wire between them, the smoke coming from the barracks, and you wonder what fool would intentionally leave the warm shelter to come out into the cold.

The guard tower looks comfortable and you curse the first sergeant for not giving you such a post. But the guard sergeant has already inspected and he probably is not fool enough to stay around here when he can go to the guardhouse. So you go up and the swaying of the tower reminds you that the wind has not abated. The tower guard has a good fire going.

But the shack is smoky. Through the dirty windows it is hard to see the enclosure. You smoke a cigarette and there is no satisfaction. Your mouth is dry and if anything, the smoke burns your tongue and roof of your mouth. You brush some of the snow off and hug the fire. A jeep comes up the road heralded by its headlights. As it passes, the light ends up with a definite finality. These sharp transitions snap you back to reality. You throw the butt in the fire and throw some wood on. You say that it is a hell of a night and the post guard says yea. You pick up a copy of Stars and Stripes but it is yesterday’s and you throw it down.

The warmth starts creeping through you and now you notice the draft going through the shack. And you get drowsy, just enough to drown out some of the discomfort but enough to cause nostalgia to set in.

And you figure you’ll go down again where the cold air may wake you up again. And as soon as you’re down, you wonder why you didn’t stay up in the shack. The lethargy you were in does not subside and you think: last winter when you were cold you wanted to die; your buddy getting eight fresh eggs and a bottle of cognac and the most interesting scrambled eggs you ever ate; the 300 Krauts who came begging to be taken prisoner when you didn’t have any place to put them; the big dance at the POE; English beer and Purple Kidney; angel food cake that went good with ice cream; pastrami sandwiches and Statler bar; riding box cars from Carolina on your first furlough; Mary, Evelyn, Rose, Shirley, Ann, Betty, Lana, Ingrid, Jane, the myriad of them and their varied significance; the kaleidoscope of home and memories; Dad bringing home the dog; the kid brother cutting his leg on the tin car; the time you sat on his violin and suffered the consequences; the school dance when you first kissed Jean; and the first time you were allowed to take the car by yourself; that beautiful afternoon in December 1941 when you were going to town and wondered why everybody was running towards their radios and where Pearl Harbor was; the mystery of basic training; Fred from Erie and his attitude toward drinking when he wasn’t drunk; Jackie who is buried next to his brother now, in Luxembourg; George, who wrecked more ¾ tons than the whole Luftwaffe; May 8^th when you didn’t go to church but never felt more like you had just come out; September, and the nemesis of CBI faded; and now when will we get home? God, when will we get home? Damn these Krauts!

The wind eases off and it is colder. You pull the collar closer around your neck, squeeze a look at your watch; and thank the powers that are that your relief should be on the way now. There is a light from the guardhouse where the door is open. Men are trudging down the road toward you. "Hey Joe, are you going on post 6?", "Yea, take off, Anything happen?", "No, nothing, Nothing happened."

 

"Lt. Eisenhower Pays Visit to Old Outfit"

Lt. John Eisenhower, son of General Eisenhower and former Baker Company platoon leader, visited friends in the Fourteenth this week.

Both Capt. L. W. Engelland, "B" Co. and Lt. J. B. Thayer, Hq Co., chatted with the one-time Regimental officer who joined the Fourteenth at Fort Benning last fall.

Lt. Eisenhower left the Regiment shortly after it arrived overseas. He returned to the ETO recently after a flight to the States with his father and is now assigned to the First Infantry Division.

 

"Jungleers Guzzle Beer by the Barrel"

Is there a beer-drinker in the House?

Statistics released by Regimental SSO this week indicate that there are more than several inside the Fourteenth’s walls. In the month of August, just past, the Regiment consumed 93,898 liters of beer, 6,760 liters of wine, and 16,700 bottles of Pepsi-Cola.

Converting those figures into units we all understand, this amounts to 99,223 quarts or 24,805 gallons of beer and 7,143 quarts or 1,786 gallons of wine per month.

5,020 Gallons per week

Digging deeper into SSO records in beer consumption only, we find that the Regiment downs each week an average of 19,000 liters or 20,075 quarts or 5,020 gallons of beer. Figuring this on a daily basis, Rite-O-Liners guzzle 800 gallons of beer per day.

To break that down farther, the average man in the Regiment consumes a quota of .911 quarts of beer daily, 6.377 quarts per week, and 28.241 quarts of beer per month. Of course, no allowance has been made for the man who doesn’t drink. Also, these figures do not include beer, wine, and other liquors obtained through channels other than those of SSO.

Is there a doctor in the house?

Acknowledgements:
World War II:  Guard Duty Cold, Lonesome Job
Copyright © 2021  14th Infantry Regiment Association
Last modified: July 12, 2021