Captain Don Hall. Outside of my mother, he was the only adult in my young life that really understood what I was about. When I joined company A, 128th Infantry right out of high school, he was my company commander. We soldiers of company A could not have asked for a better leader.
Captain Hall had an illustrious career in the Marine Corps long before he becme a national guard commander. He fought in the Pacific and Korea.
He was indeed a true warrior but he was also a compassionate man and a man who loved to party.
It wasn't long after I joined the unit that I discovered that there were two other musicians in the unit: Bill Niederberger from Monroe, Wisconsin, a college student at Stout, played a really mean accordion. It's in his blood! He is Swiss.
Jerry Holubets, from Marshfield, Wisconsin, also a Stout student, was a hard strumming tenor banjo player and a good singer. Jerry eventually ended up teaching back in his hometown.
It took about two guard meetings before we were meeting out at Pine Point on saturday afternoons that stretched into sunday mornings, learning tunes and being rewarded with free beer.
It got to the point that Jerry, Bill and I would locate the nearest little town festival that was occurring that weekend and we would descend upon the biggest bar down town, complete with our "entourage" of hangers on from Stout, and would get free beer for all of us!
Then came the 1961 "call up" of guard units during The Berlin Crisis: The East Germans had built a wall and Kennedy wanted a show of force.
Well, that was the story given us.
So what did they do? shipped us all out to Fort Lewis, Washington, issued us jungle boots and gave us "anti'guerrilla training in the rain forests at the base of Mt. Rainier. I kept thinking to myself: "Wow! The weeds must be growng fast and deep along that Berlin Wall!"
That's because I knew we were actually being looked over by the big brass as possible troop implementation in Viet Nam, which was just in its beginning stages of turmoil.
In fact, I can remember watching Fourth Division Troops being loaded on C-130's in full combat gear.
The troops from Wisconsin, it turned out, were not even decent cannon fodder. After ten months of active duty, they sent us home.
But Fort Lewis is where Captain Don Hall really saved my ass. He recognized a sad sack when he saw one but he really liked me (and Holubets and Niederberger) because we were his personal court jesters.
We would be awakened out of a deep sleep and told to report to Captain Hall's quarters, and oh, by the way, bring your instruments, so off we would go, half asleep, clutching guitar, banjo, and accordion, to find an officer's party in full swing.
Soon we would be swilling right along with the officers, wide eyed and fired up, Of course, the first tune we had to do was our theme song that we had spontaneously written 30, 000 feet above Montana, winging our way to duty;
"WE DON'T GIVE A DAMN FOR THE WHOLE STATE OF WASHINGTON
THE WHOLE STATE OF WASHINGTON, THE WHOLE STATE OF WASHINGTON
WE DON'T GIVE A DAMN FOR THE WHOLE STATE OF WASHINGTON
WHO IN THE HELL LIKES RAIN?"
Then about first light, Captain Hall would inform the officer of the day that these boys were to be put on sick call. We would go back to bed in the barracks with immunity and warrior that he was, Captain Hall would march off with the rest of his troops for the day's maneuvers. I really don't know how the man could do it!
But as I say, he was the only person who really understood what I was about when I was a young lad of 18. So he gave me all the "plum" jobs. I became his personal jeep driver, the company mail man, and the company armorer which meant I got to go off to three weeks of school and learn how to fire everything from a 45 caliber automatic pistol, a Browning Automatic Rifle, a 30 caliber light machine gun, 3.5 rocket launcher, and the vehicle mounted 105 millimeter. Man, I was in hog heaven!
And when I got back to my unit, I could lock myself in the arms room all day if I wanted, continue to drive my leader about, operating the big radio that was attached to the rear of the jeep, and sort and hand out letters from home. I had great duty!
Once on bivouac, I was in charge of commnd post security. War games were in progress. suddenly the ground around me began to shudder and I heard the cracking of trees being felled. Only then did I hear the unmistakeable sound of a tracked vehicle; that squeak, squeak, squeaking of metal treads on metal bogey wheels and a Patton tank came lumbering directly towards our C.P..
Captain Hall is screaming: "Heagle! Damn it! Where's my security!" so I grab a 3.5 rocket launcher and go through the pretend war loading of a dummy round into it.
Suddenly the tank stops, the turret transverses, and the long gun lowers and aims directly at me. Unless you experience it, even in just a "war game" situation, there is nothing more frightening than what I have just observed!
The umpire comes around and declares us all dead. Captain Hall reams me out so badly I wish I were. By the end of the day, Captain Hall has had it with his troops. He orders me to collect every soldier's sleeping bag and throw them onto a departing deuce and a half. Tonight he will teach the boys a lesson.
So, still stinging from my own personal chewing out, I load all the bags, INCLUDING CAPTAIN HALL'S, onto the waiting truck.
Somehow, however, I forget to throw my own bag on with the rest, squirreling it away under the seat of the jeep.
That night, as the unit beds down as best they can in the cold mountain air, Captain Hall tells me to fetch him his sleeping bag.
"Sir," I tell him, "you told me ALL of the bags, so I loaded yours as well. It's gone."
"Not mine, you dumb son of a bitch!"
He disappears into the darkness, cursing all the way out of earshot.
I slept well that night.
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