Drei Jahre in Deutschland

The couple sailed to Hamburg from Boston
On a Displaced Persons ship deadheading back to Europe.
The quarters were spartan, and the food was mediocre,
But the baby settled down to sleep regularly on the eleven day trip.

They were quartered first in an old resort hotel in Bad Wildungen,
Then given a requisitioned house in town, with a maid.
He went off to work in a kaserne in Fritzlar, close to the border,
That housed the First Battalion of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

This was his first encounter with enlisted men in the army,
As platoon leader of thirty men, two light tanks, five jeeps,
   and two old half-tracks.
The G.I.s were a mixture of urban delinquents and poor rural boys,
Who had been encouraged to join the army by local authorities.

Fortunately, the sergeants were experienced men
Who had stayed in service after the war
And also stayed in Germany during the occupation.
They were patient and helpful to the new lieutenants.

Work was mainly maintenance of equipment and
Classes for the troops in their various combat specialties.
He took to teaching classes with ease,
Developing original material in addition to the field manuals.

Periodically, the battalion traveled to Vilseck or Grafenwoehr
To fire their weapons on the ranges;
Or engaged in patrolling maneuvers along the border
Between East and West Germany.

The strategic mission was to be the early warning of
A Soviet invasion, and to fight a delaying action if it occurred.
So when the U.S. forces were enhanced and reconfigured,
The new commander moved the battalion to Fulda,
   in a less exposed salient.

The families were moved to Frankfurt, to live in the
Old I.G.Farben apartment building,
Until new quarters were constructed in
Giessen, nearer to the kaserne in Fulda.

This caused a period of almost nine months,
When they only saw each other on two day leaves.
She almost decided to pack up and go home,
But her mother forbade her to do so.

So their second son was born in Frankfurt,
And has a German Geburtsurkunde to prove it,
With the parents listed as, Beide Katholische.
The family of four moved to a new airy apartment in Giessen.

When the battalion adjutant returned to the States,
He was given the job, and liked it, as primarily office management.
But the new battalion commander thought he belonged in the field,
And made him executive officer of Tank Company.

This was a job in motor pool management
Keeping seventeen M26 heavy tanks on the road,
And acting as range officer at Vilseck,
Where he lost about forty percent of his hearing.

Thinking of his posting after his three year tour in Germany,
He remembered how impressed he was by Colonel George Lincoln
Who was a Rhodes Scholar and department head at West Point.
His lectures on leadership were intellectual and inspiring.

So he applied for graduate school, to study for a Ph. D.,
And to teach military history at West Point.
His new battalion commander was also a scholar,
Gave him an enthusiastic recommendation, and sent it up
    for command endorsements, duly received.

Fort Riley and Fort Knox

After a two week honeymoon in Daytona Beach, Florida,
The newly married couple drove their Chevy coupe
To visit parents in Birmingham, Michigan, and Chicago
With all their worldly goods stuffed in the rear.

The assignment was a four month indoctrination at
Fort Riley, Kansas, to all aspects of the U.S. Army;
What they would have received at an officer candidate school,
But featuring very little training in the field.

The only value of the experience was the fostering of
Camaradarie with Regular Army R.O.T.C. graduates.
Then, after a quick Christmas leave,
On to Fort Knox for Armor officer school.

That featured a full round of field training, driving tanks
And firing their armament on the ranges.
As well as learning how to maintain these elephants,
And sometimes pull them out of the mud.

This was called branch training by the Army, as
Graduates dispersed to similar schools for their service branches.
One byproduct was the assignment thereafter of almost all
Armor officers to Germany to join the Armored Cavalry regiments.

The infantry officers, in the main, were to be sent to Japan after
Their training at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The Armor officers would spend three years in Germany
Patrolling the border between East and West Germany.

The infantry graduates went immediately to Korea in 1950
And never saw Japan unless wounded or in transit back home.
Twenty-seven of the class of 1949 were killed,
One was awarded a Medal of Honor posthumously.

Worse for the class of 1950 who had no field training
After graduation, and were sent into combat as replacements.
After such losses, new second lieutenants were pulled
Off the line and given a one week orientation in survival.

Meanwhile, those assigned to Germany sailed to Europe
With their families, for a three year tour of duty.
At Fort Knox hospital, the couple had added a dependent,
Who went along as the youngest passenger on board.

Hicks in New York

In her third year at Northwestern,
She developed an internal infection
That was cured by the new drug, penicillin,
But kept her home for the spring quarter.

Unless she went back to N.U. in the summer,
She would be behind, so during her convalescence
She explored alternatives, and found
Literature for The New York School of Interior Design.

She convinced her father that she had learned
Enough from Northwestern's program.
Whereas the NYSID experience would be
A much more professional preparation.

Her mother was not about to let her move
To New York without suitable living arrangements.
Through customer contacts, they found a pension
On Park Avenue that boarded girls studying
  in various academies as day students.

These girls all came from good families in the East,
And were to  be carefully chaperoned by the landlady.
In fact, they turned out to pretty wild kids who
Were anxious to get away from home and sample
  the delights of Manhattan.

So our heroine emigrated to the Big Apple
And never looked back thereafter.
She made friends with the cream of society's debutantes,
Absorbing their mannerisms and savoir faire.

In those days, NYSID was not yet accredited,
Offering only a one year program of study.
She took her classes very seriously,
Spending hours sketching in the city's museums.

Among fond remembrances were meeting the
Debutante of the Year, one Jacqueline Bouvier,
Who had roomed at Miss Porter's School with one of the girls,
And the night one girl's mother took them to the Village Gate
  to hear the new French chanteuse, Edith Piaf.

Of course, there were also weekend bus rides to West Point,
Where the boyfriend was in his third year.
In fact, they became engaged at Christmas vacation,
Though marriage was still a year and a half in the future.

The following year, she got a job
As an order clerk for an import firm in NYC,
Renting an apartment first with the fiancee of his roommate,
And then later with a friend from home who later
  met and married a cadet from the Class of 1950.

As a senior, or first classman, he got weekend leaves,
So they explored Manhattan together
From Greenwich Village to Riverside Park,
Specializing in the small, inexpensive cafes.

On other weekends, there were football games
And Saturday evening hops at West Point.
On nice Sundays, buying the New York Times
Sitting in a grotto on Flirtation Walk, watching
   the boats going up and down the Hudson.

USMA Class of 1949

906 young men were admitted to West Point in the summer of 1945.
Only 574 graduated four years later, an astonishing loss.
The reason is that over half the entering cadets were in the armed services,
And many saw this as a ticket to a free college education.

About that time, the G.I. Bill was beginning to be used by disabled veterans,
And would later be financial assistance to all in seeking higher education.
Thus a considerable number of admitted cadets decided rather quickly
That they didn't need all the verbal harassment afforded "plebes."

But many servicemen stayed, resulting in a great age disparity:
Five years, from seventeen to twenty-two, in the 1949 class.
The effect was soon realized in promotion opportunities for cadet rank,
And in ability to absorb the limited Army officer training cadets received.

Half the class was destined to join the new Air Force service,
Because the Air Force Academy was still an unrealized idea.
Army training was rudimentary, occuring only on the West Point reservation,
Outside orientation was almost entirely at airbases.

Otherwise, the college education at West Point was superb,
Utilizing the system of daily recitation and grading instituted by
Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, the superintendent of early years, who is
Memorialized on his statue as the "Father of the Military Academy."

He enjoyed the academic instruction in all phases,
Forging a linear engineering approach to solving problems.
He was entranced by military history, devouring textbooks of the subject
As if they were first rate novels.

He should have been on the dean's list, missing academic stars by a hair.
His parents were disappointed that he didn't apply for a Rhodes Scholarship.
But his last two years were occupied by other interests,
That is, by someone else who commanded his attention.

Most important, he absorbed the ethos of the military academy,
Its emphasis on the motto:  "Duty, Honor, Country."
West Point molded his entire life thereafter, giving him an attitude
Of righteousness which was not always well received.

West Point's culture of self-reliance gave him the fortitude
To cope with almost any situation he faced.
He was not awed by authority figures,
Walking into meetings of the mighty as an equal.

He has attended every one of the class reunions held
At five year intervals at West Point.
A picture taken at the 60th reunion shows him standing erect,
Holding the guidon for the class, waiting for the Corps of Cadets
  to pass in review.

Old Detroit

She came from what residents called "Old Detroit."
That is, her parents' people predated the automobile era.
Her father's kin fought in Michigan regiments in the Civil War.
Her mother's parents came from Scotland.

He was a marine engineer, training ore boat engineers
Who sailed the Great Lakes after the discovery of iron ore
  in the Mesabi Range near Duluth.
Her mother was the manager of the Elizabeth Arden store in Detroit,
Serving the newly rich automobile aristocracy.

Her father sold real estate until the Crash, was out of work,
Until their connections got him an expediter's job at Ford.
They married late in life, had only one child, a girl
Whom they alternately spoiled and repressed.

Her mother did not take to mothering, so they
Packed her off to a Catholic boarding school at eleven,
Where she stayed until the end of her sophomore year,
When she found out the nuns would only send her transcripts
  to Catholic colleges.

Back in Birmingham for the last two years of high school,
She learned how to smoke and drink and generally
  have a good time.
Her parents wanted her to go to Ann Arbor, but
She chose to get farther away from home.

She heard that Northwestern had a program in
Interior Design, and thought that might be interesting.
She hadn't counted on being pursued by a young, blond twerp,
And from time to time gave him the slip.

But after he moved to Evanston for the Spring Quarter,
And was initiated into the Phi Delta Theta fraternity,
They spent time together with the brothers and their dates,
Sampling the roadhouses on "West Campus" near Evanston.

In late spring, he gave her his fraternity pin,
Which was sort of being engaged to be engaged.
The fraternity showed up at the freshman womens' dorm
To serenade her with the great old college songs.

By prearrangement, the freshman women responded with
"It Had to Be You," and that became their lifelong song.
Before his departure for West Point, they agreed that no strings
Would be on her social life for the next four years.

Northwestern Prep

You have to be seventeen to enter West Point
This presented a dilemma:
How to obtain an appointment for a year hence;
What to do in the meantime.

Robert Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago
Invited him and other top graduates of Chicago high schools
To enroll in the new program of great books
With a full academic scholarship.

While flattering, his parents vetoed the idea.
Sixteen was too young for him to be away at college
Especially as far distant as the South Side.
He didn't want to do it anyway.

So a compromise was achieved by
Enrolling him in the engineering school at Northwestern
Meeting in new buildings in Evanston,
And easily reached on the El from home.

Then the problem of securing a West Point appointment
Could be addressed separately.
His father found out that it could be obtained by
Making an unaffordable donation to the local congressman.

He reported to Northwestern for freshman orientation
A week before classes commenced.
Among the scheduled events was a mixer for
Members of various Christian denominations.

The hand of God was evident on that bright August day.
He and a very attractive girl approached a clergyman
In a clerical collar, thinking he was a Catholic priest.
Alan Watts, of later fame, directed them across the room.

This chance meeting led to a romance of fifty-eight years,
Resulting in four children, and seven grandchildren.
It is her story, more than his, which deserves
To be chronicled elsewhere in this volume.

A year at Northwestern proved invaluable as
Academic preparation for the military academy.
Later in 1944, Senator Brooks of Illinois
Held an open competition for his appointments.

He took the train downstate to Bloomington,
Scored second on the test.
The winner declined to accept,
Thus his appointment to West Point was assured for 1945.

Junior R.O.T.C.

He graduated from grade school in Kansas City in 1940.
He was twelve, short and slight, with a baby face.
The nuns at Visitation parochial school wanted him to
Enroll at the Jesuit high school in the city.

But he rebelled, told his parents that
He wanted to go to the public high school.
He had heard that the Jesuits beat the boys
At their school, and wanted no part of it.

As the third of three boys, he easily got his own way,
By staying out of trouble and excelling at school.
So off he went, and in his second year,
Enlisted in the Junior R.O.T.C. program.

War was imminent, and the draft had begun.
He liked wearing a soldier uniform with blue facings.
The R.O.T.C. instructor was an old sergeant
Who had fought in the trenches of France in 1918.

At the annual citywide drill competition of
High school R.O.T.C. units,
He was picked as the individual representative
Of Southwest High School.

The drill took a long time,
And was wearing on spectators and competitors.
Finally, one of the judges said
"Kimball looks pretty smooth!"

So he got the individual drill medal
And from that day on
Made service in the U.S. Army
His life ambition.

When they moved to Chicago,
His parents wanted him to go to Chicago Latin School.
But he insisted on the public school again,
And became a cadet major in the R.O.T.C. unit.

He enjoyed Waller High School on the Near North Side
And made a group of friends from diverse backgrounds;
All of whom, boys and girls, were college bound.
He made the graduation speech in June, 1944.