The Infantry Adventures of Sgt William G. Altenhofen

By SGT William G. Altenhofen

When I was assigned an infantry MOS, in spite of having a profile, I first thought about what the Psychiatryst had told me. He said I lost my temper very fast and it was uncontrolable. My first reaction was to get very angry, my mind seemed to blow up, I wanted to scream at him that he was wrong. Than I realized that was just what he had just told me. So I always worried that I would get into a situation where I would need all my facilities about me, and I would loose it and cause one or more people to get injured because I was not thinking properly. I found it easy to operate in the infantry. The operating manuals were written so they were easy to understand. I passed all the schools I had to attend, and I was considered very efficient. However, I was not the loud, screaming bully that was typical of the Infantry Sergeant. I was often critized because I did not scream at the troops. I found that if you talked to them using good english I got more done. So I did not use curse words, or degrade people in any manner. I learned when I went to my first Infantry unit, that if I told them I had a profile, and that I could type, I would be put in a dead end job that earned no rewards, so I would just be marking time. I could not operate that way. As soon as I could I got rid of the profile. I got a few breaks, and considered myself very lucky to accomplish as much as I did in the Army. I wrote mostly about myself, but I did include bits about people who I considered outstanding, good or bad. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed living it. SFC (Ret) William G. Altenhofen

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Dec 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490720654

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© Copyright 2013, 2014 Sgt William G. Altenhofen.

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I started my military career in the Army Security Agency. I was in it for nine years, I was stationed in Japan, and one day, I was told to report to a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) agent. After an interview, I was told that my clearance was suspended, which put me out of a job. In the next four months, I was given a psychological examination, a profile for mental instability. I was told to report to a board of officers for reclassification to a different military occupation specialty (MOS). The board changed my MOS to an infantryman. I asked if it wasn’t illegal to have an infantry MOS with a profile. The president of the board, a lieutenant colonel, explained that since I had graduated from a noncommissioned officer (NCO) academy, I was eligible to be an infantryman. I was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas. When I reported in to the personnel section for an assignment, a sergeant told me that I should not have an infantry MOS with a profile. I asked him if he would change my MOS for me. He said it would take a lot of paperwork, and then he found a unit that would accept me. I was assigned to the 1/28th Battle Group, First Infantry Division and later to Combat Support Company and attached to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company for duty as a dispatcher in the motor pool.

When I reported to the company, the first sergeant told me that I would be sleeping in the motor pool barracks. He went on to say that it was the worst barracks in the company. It had never passed a daily inspection and did not do well on weekly inspections. He asked me if I could do something to improve the situation. I told him I would try, but I would like a little time to study the situation. He agreed, and I went to work as a motor pool dispatcher. The job was not that hard, and out of boredom, I started to give soldiers who needed a driver’s license their preliminary tests. I tested their eyesight and coordination and gave them a written test. The unit gave them a driving test. I started working there when John F. Kennedy (JFK) was sworn in as president. Under Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE), the army was under a policy for vehicle use called administrative storage. It was designed to keep the use of vehicles down to a minimum. To get a vehicle dispatched, you had to put in a request the day before and state a reason for its use. Some vehicles were dispatched every day. The commanding officer of the BG and staff were given vehicles, as were company commanders. Some administrative vehicles were dispatched, but over half of the vehicles were not used. During the Cuban crisis, all units were alerted, and the army found that the vehicles that had not been used for so long were not serviceable. The army was forced to purchase all new cargo trucks. Before we could draw the new vehicles, we had to turn in the old ones, and they had to be in factory new condition when they were turned in. They had to be serviceable—good tires, good canvas, all pioneer tools and accessories.

After I had been in the company for a week, I typed a list of all the cleaning duties that had to be done each morning. Under the duties, I typed a list of names of people who slept in the barracks. On Saturday afternoon, I called a meeting of all the people who lived in the barracks and explained my plan for cleaning the barracks each morning. I explained that I would wake everyone up at five o’clock. They were to clean around their bunks and get ready for reveille. After breakfast, they would come back and work on their detail. I would change the men on the details every two weeks. The men understood and agreed to start the following Monday morning. That Monday, I woke the troops. Everyone got up, and things went according to plan. However, at six thirty, the barracks were invaded by the sergeants who lived off post. They started telling people what to do. When they protested, they were told that they outranked me and they better do as they were told. I took my roster and went to see the first sergeant. I told him what I had planned to do and what was happening. He asked what I could suggest. I said to put the barracks off-limits to the people who live off post, tell them to go to the mess hall and buy breakfast, or stand in the assembly area, but the barracks are off-limits. He talked to the company commander who agreed. So that morning, he made the announcement. The motor sergeant was very upset, but he lost the battle. The next day, we started using my plan. The first week, the barracks came in second in the company. If they had made first, they would have been excused from reveille. The following week, they came in first and never relinquished that position for as long as I was there. Later, I was able to get the mechanics’ safety shoes and coveralls to use in the motor pool. It made life better because the men did not ruin their clothing or shoes on their jobs.

The officer who had been there when I came in the company had retired. We got in a lieutenant, who liked to party and was not very ambitious, and a warrant officer (WO), who was very ambitious. He was a captain in the reserve and wanted to be called to active duty. He was also a man who liked to make deals. During DDE administration, the air force got almost anything it wanted, while the army starved. When we had to repair all the vehicles, the WO arranged to have an ordnance platoon set up in our motor pool. When they needed parts that were hard to get, the WO would make a call to one of the two air bases that were within fifty miles of Fort Riley to see what was available. He found out that one of the procurement officers liked to shoot on the range. He promised a special services officer something and got a case of .22 ammunition. One day, he left our motor pool with a convoy of two-and-a-half-ton trucks and came back that night with all of them loaded and towing a five-ton truck with a snow plow. We had all the parts we needed to repair our trucks. The snow plow was traded to someone in Kansas, but the truck became a wrecker for the motor pool. He loaned it to the ordnance platoon to use if they had to change engines in a vehicle.

The motor sergeant’s biggest complaint was that drivers did not come to the motor pool to pull driver maintenance. It put an extra burden on the mechanics. I suggested that we should send a letter to all the units and have them submit a list of names of people to be drivers and assistant drivers for each vehicle they had assigned. I told them I could test all the people who did not have licenses and teach them how to fill out all the forms that they would use while driving. Sergeant East, the motor sergeant, could teach them how to perform driver maintenance, and the truck master could give them driver training to include driving with trailers, in convoys, day and night, and with blackout lights. The S4 officer, Major Smeds, liked the idea and was a big reason for the success of the program. The program lasted eight weeks. When we finished, we would send the units a notice when one of their vehicles was due to be serviced, and they would send the driver or assistant to the motor pool to work with the mechanic when the vehicle was serviced.

Our unit passed all its inspections with excellent results and came in first in the division in the yearly field training exercise. For that reason, we were picked to go to Camp (now Fort) Irwin, California. I had typed a list of all the vehicles that were assigned to the battle group, by type with unit number, serial number, names of drivers and assistant drivers. It was only logical that I was given the job of planning the trip by convoy from Fort Riley to Camp Irwin. We did not have freeways. Convoy speed was thirty miles per hour. I had to notify each city the convoy would travel through what day and time they would reach their city and how long it would take to get through the city, going and coming back. I had to do the same thing with the military bases the convoy would be stopping at both ways, and it had to be done thirty days before the convoy started. I decided, when I got to my next unit, I was not going to tell anyone that I could type. I did not travel with the convoy, but after it was all over, I heard they got excellent cooperation from the cities and bases. The unit got a convoy rating of 95 percent.

For the maneuver, I joined my unit. The first day, I was riding around in an armored personnel carrier (APC). The next day, we drove into an area where they had a simulated artillery barrage. The squad leader got excited and told me and another man to jump out of the vehicle. As soon as we did, an umpire asked us why we did something so foolish. I said because we were told to. He said, Well, you’re dead now, might as well grab your bags. You’ll have to be transported back to the division.

We watched the tracks leave and settled down to wait for our ride. That night, we started a fire and ate some of the Hershey bars I had in my bag. The next morning, an artillery battery came by. The first sergeant told me he needed a mess sergeant. I said I didn’t know anything about cooking. He said his mess sergeant didn’t either. I was hungry, but I didn’t take the offer. That night, we built a bigger fire. I was getting tired of Hershey bars. The next morning, an intelligence unit with drones came by. They gave us some breakfast and radioed the unit and told them where we were. We were picked up that afternoon. The driver said he couldn’t find us the first day. When we got to the division, the mess hall was closed for the night. A sergeant got us a quart of milk each and gave us a case of individual cereal boxes. We ate them. The next morning, we got breakfast, and they sent us back to the unit. We were in time for the noon meal. After we ate, I noticed a lot of cans of C rations in the track. I started to open the cans and eat them. After I had eaten twelve cans, the medic told me to come to the dispensary when we got back and get checked for tapeworm.

The motor sergeant and I never did get along after I had the barracks put off-limits to him. I thought my plan for training drivers would soften him up a little, but I was wrong. The man was humorless. One day, a motor sergeant from another unit came over to find out the secret of our success. I called my motor sergeant on the phone and asked him to come to the office.

When he got there, I jumped up and said, Sergeant East, I want you to meet Sergeant West. When he grudgingly shook the sergeant’s hand, I said, Now who was that guy that said ‘East would never meet West’?

He didn’t even smile.

One day, he asked who the duty drivers were. I said, Knight and Day, and he said, Of course, I mean day and night. Why do you think I said duty drivers?

I said, I just told you, Sarge. Sp4 Knight is the day driver, and Sp4 Day is the night driver.

He turned and walked away.

While I was attached to the HQ Company, I pulled a staff duty NCO at BG headquarters, line units pulled sergeant of the guard. The sergeant major was a crusty old soul. He had made E9 twice. He was reduced once when he chased the BG commander out of the command tent on a field problem with a .45 but was reinstated two weeks later when no one could do his job. He would come in the morning and inspect the building. A detail would come in every night with an NCO and clean. The staff duty NCO was supposed to inspect. If it wasn’t clean enough, you stayed until he was happy. I could make good coffee in those big fifty-five cup urns they had. I would make sure the coffee has finished perking just before six. He would come in, get a cup of coffee, and tell me to leave. When we got back from California, the BG commander was promoted to general. The WO was called to active duty as a captain. I hung around about two weeks and went down to see where I could go if I reenlisted. They said I could go to Europe or Panama. I had always wanted to know what it was like to live in the tropics. I went to Panama.

S tay at Fort Dix, New Jersey until they had transportation to Panama. While I was waiting I had a detail counting people who ate in the mess hall, and later picked up a prisoner from Fort Sheridan, Illinois. We boarded a ship to travel to Panama. Our first stop was Puerto Rico, where we picked up cargo, next we went to the Naval Station in Cuba, to drop off some supplies, from there we went to Panama. The trip was boring, the Caribbean Sea was so calm it was like a mirror. The only thing that disturbed the water was the wake of the ship and the occasional school of sharks that followed the ship. When I got to Panama I was assigned to the First Battalion Twentieth Infantry at Fort Kobe on the Pacific side. I was welcomed into the unit by a squad leader who had come from Minnesota. He told me I would have a couple of days to get my gear squared away, made sure that I knew where the mess hall was, and took me to the club that night. He told me that the platoon sergeant was airborne and loved to run every time we had physical training. That was a bit scary because I had been smoking for about ten years. On the following Monday morning, we fell out, and the platoon sergeant took us on a five-mile run. I made it all the way to the end, even though a lot of the men fell out on the way. When we finished, I was gasping for air like a fish out of the water, and one of the guys came over to me and asked for a cigarette. I pulled my pack out, looked at the sweat-covered package, handed it to him, and told him he could keep the whole pack because I had just quit smoking.

During the next six weeks, the unit had a training exercise in the jungle. We were supposed to follow the Las Cruces trail that the pirate Blackbeard had used when he crossed the isthmus to attack the Spanish fort on the Pacific side. The Boy Scouts had been on the trail two weeks before us and had marked the trail with yellow paint. The sergeant who was leading the company still managed to get lost. We had to shorten the exercise because the battalion was due for its inspector general (IG) inspection, and we had to get ready. For the inspection, we set up our tents and laid our equipment out in front of them. This was during the dry season, no rain for six months, and since it never got cold, we just left the equipment on the ground until after the inspection. The whole brigade stood inspection on the parade field. It looked like a manicured green carpet. The engineers put down markers where the front stakes of each tent would be placed. Everyone, from the brigade commander to the lowest private, stood the inspection. The general personally conducted the inspection. As it happened, the brigade commander was promoted to general effective the day of the inspection. The story that went around was that the brigade commander had called the general at his office and reminded him that he would be promoted on the day of the inspection. The general told him that he would inspect his .45 first. After the inspection, we went to a training area called Ria Hatta. for a battalion field training exercise that would last one week. Ria Hatta is an area described as an upland desert. It is three thousand feet high and gets very little rain. It is not in the Canal Zone but was rented by the U.S. government for training purposes. During WWII, it had been an air base, and after the war was over, the Panamanian government had wanted it back. During negotiations, the United States build another airfield in the Canal Zone, and then used the Ria Hatta site for bombing practice. When they offered the base back to the Panamanian government, they declined and signed a long-term low-cost lease. There were few buildings on the site. The area was covered with sparse scrub trees and clumps of grass. The main inhabitants were snakes and spiders. We were supposed to be up there for one week, but at the end of the week, we were told that we were to be the aggressor for another infantry battalion for their FTX, so we got to spend a second week up there.

We had been eating C rations all week the second week we were there, but at the end of the week, we were going to be treated to a hot meal. I remember because when I went through the food line, the cooks had put roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, bread, and canned peaches on my tray. I even had a cup of hot coffee. I was just turning away from the line and was going to find a place to sit down and enjoy my meal when the sky opened up. The rain came down so fast and hard that before I could move, my cup of coffee was overflowing. My potatoes were melted, the corn jumped off the tray, the bread slid off the edge. I grabbed the coffee cup, hoping to get some hot coffee out of the mess, but I was too late. It tasted like warm rain water. I looked back at the food line, the cooks had all ran for cover, and all the cans of food were running over with water.

The other bad experience I had up there was when I was running away from some of the good guys one day, I happened to brush past a small tree, just barely touching it. On my way past it, I went about a hundred yards, and it felt as if someone had hit me hard across the shoulder. I was shocked. I could not imagine anyone being fast enough to catch up with me and then be able to hit me too. I stopped and turned to see who could have done it, and there was no one in sight. I was wondering if I could be losing my mind. When it hit me again—same shoulder, same jolt—I looked under my shirt, and there on my shoulder was a red ant. It had a very large head and a short body, and it was trying to get a piece of me. When I hit him, I think I must have made him mad because he bit me again. I picked him up and threw him to the ground, and then I felt my arm go numb. Just one of the many hazards of the jungle. I was happy when we went back to the fort. When I had been assigned to the unit, they told me that there were three things I did during the year: I stood the IG inspection, I went to Ria Hatta, and I trained in the jungle. I had done all three in just six weeks and felt pretty good about things, and then they told me that I was being sent to the Jungle Warfare Training Center, as a member of the support platoon, for six to twelve weeks.

W hen I got to the Jungle Operations Center (JOC), as a new man on the support platoon, the platoon sergeant gave me a briefing. I was told that while I worked for the JOC, I did not have to tuck my fatigue shirt into my trousers, wearing a belt was optional, and wearing underwear was not recommended. The doctrine of the center was that you needed more ventilation, so wearing the shirt outside the trousers allowed more air around the body; that had a cooling effect. They did not recommend wearing underwear because when it got wet, it tended to bunch up and chaff the skin. Sores did not heal well in the jungle and was an opening for infection. They issued me a poncho, a pistol belt, a machete and leather sheath—the tools that I would need for my job in the support platoon. Going into the jungle was as simple as following the men I was in charge of when we were sent out to get materials to set up a class or clean up a class site in the jungle. I was in it without even thinking that it could be hazardous. The men who made up the support platoon were a collection of nonconformists that the companies in the two battalions of infantry in the Canal Zone deemed as misfits—a rowdy bunch but men who did their jobs and generally stayed out of trouble. After I had been there for about a month, the unit was reorganized as a committee of the School of the Americas. We became a part of the committee, and my new job title was