My Accidental Venture into Writing

By Chester Campbell

How authors get started in writing is a fascinating subject. I've read countless stories of people who wanted to be an author from the time they learned to hold a pencil. Others knew it would be their fate on reading the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew as youngsters. I'm not one of them.

I've told a bit of the story on the F.A.Q.s page of my website. Although I was a dedicated reader of short stories in The Saturday Evening Post and other weekly magazines as a teen, I never considered writing them myself. My closest connection to the printed page was as co-business manager (make that advertising salesman) for my 1943 high school annual, The Grey Eagle.

After graduation, I volunteered for Aviation Cadet training in the Army. My World War II military career did not consist of air raids on Tokyo or Berlin, however. I was shifted about from base to base waiting for openings in the next phase of training. I wound up in the summer of 1945 at Randolph Field in San Antonio, a legendary base with permanent buildings. I was assigned as a clerk in the VOQ, Visiting Officers Quarters, located upstairs above the Officers Mess.

I had a partner on the job, another cadet named Wolfson, who had spent a year at Yale before going into the service. While chatting one day, he told me that if he had it to do again, he would study journalism. For some reason, that idea took root in my mind. The more I thought about it, the more intriguing it sounded.

We had a typewriter in the VOQ office. I had used it to hunt and peck letters and such. After news of the atomic bomb exploded across the front pages, I sat down at the typewriter and began punching out a story involving a nuclear weapon. I don't think I got too far with it as the war quickly came to an end, and we began to consider what would happen next.

A lot of the guys who had volunteered for Cadet training came from families in high places. I heard that some of them had lobbied the War Department (now Defense) to release us, rather than put us in other Army units for postwar occupation assignments. Whatever happened, orders came down in the fall giving us the option of taking a discharge. I was ready to head home and resume my education, so I split.

I wanted to study journalism. I learned that the big J schools were upper class programs, meaning I couldn't get in until I was a junior. So I enrolled at the University of Tennessee in January of 1946. I considered transferring to Wisconsin, one of the top-rated J schools, but I learned that UT would have a reporting course in my sophomore year. I signed up for that one and enjoyed it immensely. The following year, a full journalism program was established.

I had worked on the student newspaper, the Orange and White, and was tapped to be managing editor of one of the semi-weekly editions. However, my reporting course teacher returned to his post as executive editor of The Knoxville Journal and offered me a job as a reporter. I skipped the student assignment and became a cub reporter at the morning daily.

I quickly found my forte was writing feature stories, finding interesting twists to make articles come alive more than with a straight news treatment. After reading two mystery books by Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and No Pockets in a Shroud), I decided to write one of my own. Going to school in the day and working nights didn't leave a lot of spare time, but I sat down in my basement room at the fraternity house and banged out a mystery novel on my little Smith-Corona portable.

The manuscript was rejected by a publisher, and I was too much a neophyte to know I should try others. I was hooked on mysteries, though, and on writing in general. I've been at it now for more than sixty years. Who knows what I would have done if it hadn't been for Cadet Wolfson?

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.