He just nodded. “No biggie. They’re probably already asking you to contribute to the alumni fund.”
I picked it up and starting opening it with a mini-Gerber combat knife I used as a letter opener. “When do they start hitting up the graduates of Hudson High for that sort of thing?” I asked. Captain Harris was a graduate of West Point, also known as ‘Hudson High.’ He just laughed at that. I slit open the large packet and then eyed it curiously. “It’s what I thought, sir,” I commented with a nod. “My faculty adviser and I were putting together a paper and these are the final edits.”
“What is it!?”
“Well, this is my dissertation,” I said, dropping a thick packet onto my desk, and then set a separate packet next to it, along with a number of loose sheets with formulas and graphs on them. “And this is a paper my professor and I wrote based on the work, with both our names on it, for publication later next month. We’ve been working on it all summer and fall.” I was talking to myself as much as the captain as I looked the pages over. Then I remembered he was still standing there. “My apologies, Captain. I’ll work on this at home this evening.” I started collecting up the papers.
He looked at me funny. “Your dissertation? You mean, like a doctoral dissertation?” He picked up my dissertation and looked at it.
“Yes, sir.” I was curious about his reaction. This stuff must have been in my personnel file, but maybe he hadn’t read it. (Did a CO actually get to see his subordinates’ 201 files? I had no idea.) Maybe I was just another ROTC second john to him.
“You’re a doctor?” he asked incredulously.
“PhD, applied mathematics, sir. That was my thesis.”
He looked at my thesis and read the title. “Entropic Considerations in Network Topologies? What the hell is that? No, don’t tell me, I hated math.” I gave him a wry look at that. By now most of the others in the office, including Lieutenant Brimley and SFC Hammersmith, were listening in as well. “How old are you, Lieutenant?”
“Twenty-two, sir.”
“You’re telling me that you’re only 22 and you already have a PhD? What the hell are you doing here?”
I just grinned at him. “Defending North Carolina from the Red Menace, sir!”
That earned me some laughs from the noncoms, and Captain Harris replied, “The only Red Menace around here, Lieutenant, is the mud you keep tracking in here.” He handed me back the packet. “And your teacher wants you to present a paper on this?”
“Well, actually, Professor Rhineburg will be presenting it, but my name is on it since I did the research.”
“Huh. Did you get clearance for this?” he asked.
“Excuse me? Clearance, sir?” What was he talking about?
“All publications need to be cleared ahead of time, at least at the battalion level and usually at the division level,” he told me.
“Sir? This is my dissertation! I did this back when I was in college. I wasn’t even commissioned when I did this work!” I protested.
He just shrugged. “What’s in there, the nuclear launch codes?”
“No, sir, it’s about designing a computer network.”
“Well, I’ll make a call or two. Don’t sweat it. I doubt they’ll stand you against a wall because of this. It will probably only be time at Leavenworth.” The enlisted guys and Brimley chuckled at this, and the captain topped off his coffee and headed into his office.
Spec 4 Jones immediately chimed in. “So, Ell-Tee, you’re a doctor?”
“Of mathematics.”
“Does that mean we get to call you Doc?” he asked with a laugh.
I should have known this was going to happen, and I needed to nip it in the bud. You can’t have the men calling you by a nickname; it degrades their respect for the rank. I moved back around my desk and stepped right up to him. “No, Specialist Jones, it does not. You may call me Lieutenant or Sir, is that understood?”
He was surprised to find me in his face like that, and he stammered out, “Uh, yeah, sure.”
“What did you say?”
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant, understood, sir,” he answered, coming to attention.
“Much better.” I stepped back and glanced at his desk, and noted that he had the PT, or physical training, schedule on his desk, ready for posting. “What’s on the schedule for tomorrow?” I asked rhetorically.
“Conditioning Drill 1, followed by a five mile run, sir,” he answered.
That was indeed what was written. “I think there’s a misprint, here, Specialist. I think it says an All American mile.” An ‘All American mile’ is 8.2 miles, so named for the 82nd’s nickname as the ‘All American’ division.
Jones looked confused, and took the schedule from my hands. “Uh, no sir…”
“I love to run, don’t you, Specialist. I’m sure it was supposed to be an All American run. I’ll let you tell everyone to make sure they know, and that you’ve volunteered to lead the run. I think that shows great spirit. Don’t you agree, Sergeant Hammersmith?”
Sergeant First Class Hammersmith simply grinned. “Great spirit, sir!”
“I look forward to it, Specialist!”
I sat down at my desk and bundled up my dissertation, and I heard the sergeant tell the Spec 4, with a laugh, “Nice work, Jonesy, the guys are going to love you!”
Lieutenant Brimley had been watching this from his open doorway, but he didn’t say anything to them or to me, and I think if he thought I was out of line, he would have called me into his office and chewed on me a bit. The next morning more than a few jokes were made at Spec 4 Jones’ expense about the longer run. Then again, we were young and tough paratroopers; it wasn’t something we couldn’t do in our sleep.
You run at a pace called double time, but you would break up the run on occasion at a march pace called quick time. During quick time you can sing a cadence, usually named a jody call. At that point, with Jones leading, he sang the cadence, and used this as his chance to get back at me in a novel way, by calling me ‘Doc’ in the cadence. A cadence is a rhythmic song that the leader sings and then the troops sing back as they run. It keeps time and keeps them amused.
Leader
Runners
“Hey! Hey! All the way,”
“Hey! Hey! All the way,”
“Doc loves to run every day.”
“Doc loves to run every day.”
“If he was President and had his way,”
“If he was President and had his way,”
“There wouldn’t be a fat man in the Army today.”
“There wouldn’t be a fat man in the Army today.”
“Sound off!”
“One, Two!”
“Sound off!”
“Three, Four!”
“Sound off!”
“One, Two — Three, Four!”
The ‘Sound Off’ lines serve as the chorus after every four line stanza. There are any number of lyrics and songs and verses, most being insulting to someone, especially other services or branches of the Army, and many are hilarious. Jonesy had to add me to the mix, so I returned the favor.
“Airborne arty’s here to stay!”
“Airborne arty’s here to stay!”
“Private Jones will lead the way!”
“Private Jones will lead the way!”
“He’d rather type than have some fun.”
“He’d rather type than have some fun.”
“But Private Jones just loves to run!”