The Army Years.- Fort devon, Mass

I joined the Army as a volunteer on September 15, 1954. (Some days just live on in your memory.) Basic Training was eight weeks at Camp Chaffe, Arkansas. Then after a ten-day leave at home, I was sent to Fort Devon, Massachusetts.

This was a "casual company". Which meant we were waiting for our next duty station and available for any menial duties. I was supposed to go to the Army Language School in Monterrey, California. But, first we had to pass a language aptitude test to see if we could handle the stress of learning a new language. After taking the test, but before getting the results, we had to choose a language out of the dozens of languages taught there. I really wanted to study German and get stationed in Germany, since my ancestors came from Austria and Germany. But there were only 40 openings for German and 180 for Russian.
So, I hedged my bet and picked Russian as number 1 and German as number 2. When the results came out, I was 1oth on the list and could have gone into any class I wanted. However, I was given my first choice, Russian. There were two different classes for Russian, a six month course for basic skills and an 11 month course for a deeper study of the language. I opted for the 11 month course that would give give me a chance to study the language more fully. (and get 16 college credit hours).

The next Russian class started in mid-January. That meant a whole month at Ft. Devon, doing KP and other menial duties over Christmas and New Year's holidays. The commander let us go off for the holidays - half for Christmas and half for New Year's. I was in the New Years group and watched, sadly, as the Christmas guys left for home.
Some of us got a pass to go off-base on Christmas Eve. We went to Worcester, had a few beers and went to a Pizza Parlor for dinner. We were in uniform, 'cause we did not have any Civilian clothes with us at camp. The owner insisted on buying a bottle of Chianti for us and added pieces of cake and coffee for desert. Then, when it was time to pay the bill, he said it was on the house. He said he felt honored to help us have a Merry Christmas so far from home.

When we got back to Ft. Devon, we found out that the commander had granted us an extended leave and we could go home right away for Christmas and New Year's. I booked a flight to Chicago and called my folks and some friends to say when my flight would arrive at Chicago. I was home in time to have Christmas dinner with my family.
My orders for the Army Language School (ALS) were waiting for me when I returned to Ft. Devon. The Russian Class would start on Jan 13. We boarded a C-47, the military version of the DC-3, to fly to California. The C-47s were not fast planes and we made two stops to refuel. At the second stop, in Arizona, we ate dinner at the local mess hall. Then flew through a pass in the Rocky Mountains with the mountains towering above on both sides. Then a bus ride to The Presidio of Monterrey where the ALS was located.

Suddenly, we were in a far different camp than we had been in before. Since there were officers and enlisted men as students, the officers had the base commander rule that saluting was not required on base. We all would have suffered broken arms from saluting all the time. One Captain said to me, "you guys have to salute any officer first. Then we return the salute. We officers have to determine which one of us has the lower rank and salutes first. The higher ranking officer has to wait and return the salute."

There were many languages taught at the ALS, including Russian, German, French, and three different dialects of Chinese. We were housed in barracks by language and class. A new class for Russian started every month. My barracks was only for 11 month Russian Class from January '54. we were housed in cubicles-two men to a cubicle. The idea was to immerse the students in the language. Classes ran for 6 hours a day. Evenings were devoted to study. From day one, we were to speak only Russian in class. The first few days, our speech was limited but, by the end of the first week I had developed quite a vocabulary and quite a bit of the grammar. Our instructors were Russian expatriates. "White" Russians who had fled the communist take over by going through Europe or through China and Hong Kong. Each one had a harrowing story to tell of how he had made it to America. They were a very interesting group of men and women. Many spoke fluent French, German, etc as well as English. One man learned English as his eleventh language.

The Russian teachers included a Mr Gasporov, (Mr. "Sparrow"). He organized a choir of members of the students and taught us to sing Russian folk songs in four-part harmony. He had us divided into high tenors, low tenors, baritones ans basses. He would sing the tenor part to the tenors, the baritone part to the baritones, etc. An amazing talent for music. He came alive as we began to get our parts down pat.

We became quite good and performed several times in San Francisco for the Russian community there. We would march in to a hall,in uniform, singing an old patriotic song. There would be old men, with medals on their suit coats, and tears in their eyes hearing the old songs again.

We were warned about speaking Russian with the expatriates in San Francisco. Because most of them spoke "San Francisco Russian" , a mixture of the native language, often heavily accented with their rural upbringing, and the English that they picked up in the US. We were being taught the "Pure" Russian and needed to speak it when we were needed as interpreters or translators. I dated a Russian girl that I met in San Francisco. She was the daughter of two college professors of the Russian language. They insisted that their children only spoke "pure" Russian at home. This worked well for me as she would help correct my mistakes. We would converse in Russian, then switch to English when it got too difficult for me to continue. I picked up great fluency from her and her parents.