My Experience with a Strange Missile

By Chester Campbell

Ghost stories, lethal varmints in the desert...how's a guy gonna top that? I seemed to have missed all the scary stuff. Real scary stuff, that is. Tim Hallinan's ghost story under the coconut palms in Bali reminded me of an experience during my early days in the Army Air Corps during World War II. I had to rough it at the basic training site at Miami Beach. Yep, that Miami Beach. The Army had taken over several hotels to house the troops. We did much of our training on a golf course. Not playing golf but listening to noncoms giving instruction on how to march, give first aid, and other things like the eleven general orders of a sentry.

I was assigned to sentry duty as part of the training and knew I'd be challenged on the general orders. One I remember was "To walk my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert, and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing." Sometime after dark, I was issued an unloaded M1 rifle and hauled out to a small commercial building on a street with little traffic. During my tour of duty, I was to march around the building, which could have been vacant for all I knew, and challenge anyone who came near it.

A street light not too far away provided the only illumination, which was partially blocked by palm trees. The Sergeant of the Guard came around once, and I had to challenge him and recite some general orders. Other than that it was a lonely vigil with no one around, which was okay, since I wasn't supposed to talk to anyone "except in line of duty." But as I was walking (I wouldn't call it marching) around after a couple of hours, a loud thud sounded just behind me.

I spun around with my useless rifle at the ready. There had been rumors of German subs in the area, possibly infiltrating spies. But the only thing I saw was a big fat coconut that had fallen from a tree. I was lucky it hadn't conked me in the head. When I was relieved by the next guard on the post, I warned him to look out for flying missiles.

I received no Purple Heart in the war, since I wasn't wounded in action. Heck, the only action I saw was in Miami, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. I should have gotten the Purple Shaft, however. I was supposed to be in Aviation Cadet training, though most of the time I was shifted about various bases doing odd jobs. Part of the program involved assignment to a College Training Detachment. I spent my time at Winthrop College (a girls school back then) at Rock Hill, SC. One of our assignments was to take ten hours of flight instruction in a Piper Cub. However, I only managed seven hours.

What happened was we young kids just out of high school did the usual silly things while waiting our turn in the Piper Cub. I was showing my agility at turning cartwheels when my toe slammed into a rock. It hurt like hell and my foot began to swell. They took me to a nearby air base where it was wrapped and I picked up a crutch. I hobbled around for a couple of weeks and missed the rest of the flying hours. That was as close to being a pilot as I ever got.

It wasn't all for naught, though. While on my last assignment at Randolph Field in San Antonio, I roomed with a fellow cadet who had spent a year at Yale before entering the service. He told me if he had it to do over, he would've studied journalism. Somehow that resonated with me. When I was discharged, I enrolled at the University of Tennessee with the idea of studying journalism. It wasn't offered at the time, but they started a reporting class in my sophomore year and expanded it into a full curriculum the following year. That led to a writing career that hasn't stopped yet.

Things always seem to work out for the better in the end. But it could have been a bit more exciting.

An old saw is worth a thousand blades

By Chester Campbell

As writers we often insert expressions into our manuscripts without thinking about where they came from. They may have been buried back in our subconscious from many years ago. One I’ve used in at least one book is “guaran-damn-tee.” It struck me as really funny when I heard it back in 1944 and it just came rolling out on the page 60 years later.

I volunteered for the Army in the summer of 1943, shortly after graduation from high school. I wasn’t called to active duty, however, until I turned 18. When I reported to Camp Shelby, Mississippi in early January, I found my new home consisted of a large olive drab tent occupied by several other neophyte soldiers, mostly draftees. It was cold and rainy, and the area had been worn down to a muddy goop by thousands of souls wandering about in wonder of what lay ahead.

I soon met a few of the other boys named in my orders. Most of our fellow G.I.s figured they were headed for the infantry. They gave us a big horse laughs when we said we were headed for Miami Beach. But we had it right there in our orders:

“By direction of the President and pursuant to authority contained in War Department radiogram, SPXPR-I, 30 December 1943, each of the following named enlisted reservists (ACER), having been found qualified for Pre-Aviation Cadet (Air Crew) training, is ordered to active duty affective 6 January 1944, in grade of private, and will proceed on that date from the address shown after his name to the station indicated, reporting upon arrival to the Commanding Officer, Reception Center, for processing and assignment to the Army Air Forces Basic Training Center #4, Miami Beach, Fla., reporting on 13 January 1944, to the Commanding Officer for Pre-Aviation Cadet (Air Crew) training.”

We were only at Camp Shelby to draw uniforms, have the medics treat our arms like dart boards, and get indoctrinated into the Army way. That occurred each morning at roll call, when we stood on the muddy ground in a cold drizzle and listened to a burly First Sergeant give us hell. He wore the Smoky Bear hat popular in pre-war years. One morning as he ranted about something, he bellowed this warning. “If you do that, I’ll guaran-damn-tee you it won’t happen again.”

That’s what’s known as an indelible memory.

One I have used more as a personal aphorism than as a phrase in books is “he who hesitates is lost.” It was a familiar saying of my high school science teacher, Miss Roberta Kirkpatrick. I use it as an excuse to move ahead whenever somebody wants to wait on something. The idea in the saying, though not the exact phrase, is credited to the English writer Joseph Addison. It’s first appearance in the U.S. is given to Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table.

Do you have any favorite old sayings from the past?