Miscellaneous soldiers inhabited Fort
John Lennon
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Wadswoerg in 1968 - 69. While my case was unique the place was meant to hold soldiers who were in some sort of bureaucratic limbo, like I was, caught between my orders to go to Vietnam and my civilian criminal court case in New York City.
I already introduced the commander, who I'm calling Colonel Italianname. There were also three staff sergeants stationed permanently at Wadsworth. These three guys had less than two years in the army and had never been stationed overseas. That they were staff sergeants was an odd thing.
The Army dud have at that time an "Instant CO Academy" that took big burly smart (but not all that smart) new recruits out of Advance Infantry tarining and put them through a "shake and bake" training and they'd come out a few months later as shake and bake staff sergeants but theirs were grisly fates. The entire reason the program existed was because Vietcong snipers were picking off sergeants and lieutenants, sparing the rank and file relatively speaking. They had limited time to make their statements before the artillery and helicopters would go after them so they went to decapitate US units. But I digress.
I'll call these Wadsworth staff sergeants (not to be confused with the unfortunate shake and bakes of Vietnam) sergeants DiNapoli, DiSicily end DiMedici, not their real names but you might be getting the drift of things. DiNapoli had a part time job on base, buffing the floors of the headqurters which was something that we others also wee assigned to do more or less in rotation. DiNapoli got paid out of the unit fund, a fund meant to provide the troops with little extras. Get the drift?
For a long while my sergeant was a refrigerator repair specialist and his sergeant was I don't quite remember but not a nice guy and not tained in Army personel matters as I was. In fact I was the only such soldier in the place..
At this time n history the discipline and order of the US Army was fraying at an alarming rate, particularly in Vietnam ,
