Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Tales of Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island second to the last installment

Those who have followed my Fort Wadsworth tales know that I had an unusual Army career that did not include foreign deployment.  I spent the final eight months of m two ear hitch stationed at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, under the might Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The place mainly held miscellaneous soldiers who were appealing overseas deployments based upon the well known sole surviving son policy of the US military, something that whoever assigned  Chuck Hagel and his brother to the same combat unit in Vietnam had overlooked. Also, courtesy of the US Army Clerk's Mafia, which I had informally joined, there was a constantly changing group of mainly disgruntled combat veterans on their ways to Germany where their toxic attitudes would not infect raw recruits.

Now as part of doing my Army thing I'd get periodic assignment to overnight guard duty at Miller Army Air Field. This always enraged me as I would see a cop car enter and head for the beach without so much as a "by your leave" to me, who after all was representing the majesty of the US Army  at this US Armi facility. I'd leave hours later not having seen them exit. Clearly the officers in it  were sleeping in their cop car on the beach of Miller Field.

Staff Sergeant  DiNapoli explained that a complaint would result in a shower of parking and moving violation tickets against the Fort's staff and that I'd be identified as the culpable party. At that very moment Staff Sergeant DiMedici showed up with a bag of pot, way more than an ounce, that he had confiscated in a search of the transient barracks. The three Staff Sergeants informally vouchered the contraband.

Miller Field (Staten Island, New York) is located in New York City
Location of Miller Field, Staten Island


We also had a case hardened veteran, Master Sergeant Dumbham,  recently arrived from Saigon where he won a medal for devising a method by which Army documents would not be scattered by the wind caused by gigantic office fans, and sporting a Pacific Islander young wife who he began pimping out in the transient barracks. He represented the true Army spirit.

Lo and behold, as remote an outpost as this was, and under the tutelage of a mafiosi commander, the US Army did make sporadic attempts to assert its authority there.  Somehow word of the good Master Sergeant's entrepreneurial undertaking leaked to the ears of some do-gooder and as a consequence, Dumbham got reassigned.

And once the Inspector General actually made a call, something for which we prepared diligently, buffing and waxing floors, scrubbing kitchen tiles, and more importantly having me review the files of documents whose relationship to Fort Wadsworth were a great unknown, Me being the only one there who had gotten and training in Army Personnel Records (with Dumbham gone) it fell to me to make a command decision, which was: any document that I could not identify or explain would be incinerated.

This we did and Fort Wadsworth passed the IG inspection with flying colors.


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Jan 15, 2013
Back in this post I told you little bit about the mafia at Fort Wadsworth back in my time there, I told you about the three instantaneous staff sergeants, and the orders to Brooklyn and Staten Island GIs to not report for duty.
Jan 05, 2013
How I tripped over a wrinkle in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. i've started to tell the story of me and Fort Wadsworth. It's pretty incredible, people who hear it usually say it's bullshit, but it's the truth, I've just started it in this ...
Jan 09, 2013
When Fort Wadsworth was assigned to mount the 21 gun salute for General Eisenhower there was one artilleryman on the post, a black Master Sergeant. There were some Howitzers stored in the base as well as blank ...
Jan 07, 2013
Fort Wadworth III- Fort Wadsworth was a transient barracks, now meet the clerk's mafia as well as that other mafia. Miscellaneous soldiers inhabited Fort John Lennon Buy This at Allposters.com. Wadswoerg in 1968 - 69.
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