Stories
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After Whom left the place was not quite the same. The people now running the office were not quite up to speed. The Duty Roster Clerk got orders to go to Korea. He was somewhat educated and trying to decide whether he should go for the profession of working musician, or become a safe and sound music teacher in some institution of education. I advised him to go for it, all or nothing. I said you are not going to be a head-liner by training to be a back-up. 'But what if I fail', he replied. The last place he wanted to go was Korea. The SFC who was now running the office was suppose to fix it, but screwed it up, so that he would be going to Korea after-all. He had botched it, so that nothing could be done without giving the fix away to people who might frown on such shenanigans.
Then came the Vietnam War and the assignment codes no longer mattered. The saying, "Give me one thousand bodies. I don't want to know their names. Don't want to see their faces. Just give me one-thousand bodies for Vietnam", was now in vogue. They put a WAC or woman Major in charge of Viet Nam conscription. She circumvented everybody's contacts, which was apparently why she was chosen. She was outside the loop. Everyone was going to Vietnam. For the first time in their careers these self-pampering Pentagon people got overseas orders that they had not chosen. Many of them trooped over to me to look at the Morning Report. "No Sarge I didn't change the code. You can see it right here". They would be scratching their heads while leaving my office on the their way to Vietnam. The Major assumed he would also be going. His attitude was "Keep your head down and you won't get hurt". For him that was all their was too it.
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