Speck's Military Years

Pat's note: This story was told to me on Day 3. Although it is long, it is very interesting, so I hope you read the whole thing. If you're in a hurry, though, skip to the "beginning of a dream" section. If you're really in a hurry, know that entering the military got my father off the farm and away from hard work with no compensation, and that it was ultimately one of those white shirts he envied in his early years who saved the day in his military years. Also know that he became one of those "white shirts" in his searching years.

OFF THE FARM AT LAST
After graduating from high school, I went to work on a farm for my uncle in St. James, Minnesota and ran the farm for the summer. I also joined the National Guards and our unit was mobilized in January of 1940. We were so excited because it was January in Minnesota and we were going to sunny California. We didn't know that Pearl Harbor would be hit within a year.

WHO CAN TYPE?
While I was working in the laundry, my superiors came in and asked, "Who can type?" I said I could. When they asked if I could run a teletype machine, I said that I could even though I couldn't. I knew I could learn it quickly. They moved me to the Signal Corp, the communication center of the army and then they moved the whole regiment out to the Mohave Desert. My friends had to play soldier in the Mohave Desert while I, a private with no stripes, sat in the general's cool tent.

THE BEGINNING OF A DREAM
Across the base from us was an Air Force base. I would watch the planes come in and I got the bug to fly. I wanted to fly in the worst way, but in order to be a pilot, I would have had to have had two years of college, so my desire to be a pilot looked like just a dream.

THE BEGINNING OF A NIGHTMARE
While I was working in the tent, a master sargeant named Paul V. Meyers from Mankato, Minnesota, my superior, was also in the tent. I stayed with my unit when I began working with the teletype machine but I was in what's called "detached service" so Meyers couldn't order me around. There was a caste system of sorts in the army and the polished guys became officers (they were called 90-day wonders) and liked to throw their weight around. Because Meyers couldn't order me around, he hated me and I hated him. We had what could be called an antagonistic relationship. I didn't care; I was cocky and thought he couldn't touch me, but this relationship would come back to haunt me later.

ARMY WASN'T MY BAG
We played soldier in California until the fall of that year and then they sent us to Kodiac Island in Alaska. They weren't ready for us up there, and we lived and worked in the rain and the muck and the slush. All of the guns that we would need weren't there yet, so they would put up stakes on which was written "37 millimeter gun" and we'd have to stand out in the rain all day and night guarding those stakes. I thought that was stupid (army wasn't my bag), so I started a long career of volunteering for other things, even if I didn't have any experience in it.

I CAN! I CAN!
The army did not have any laundry services but there was a large naval base there that had modern facilities, so they asked for volunteers to work in the laundry. I raised my hand, and so did my friend Leroy Finke. By doing that, we had an easy time compared to the rest of our unit. We worked eight hours inside while the others had to be in the rain at all hours of the day and night. The soldiers hated us because we worked inside and had access to real sheets when everyone else had wool blankets and no sheets. Another benefit was that we got paid by the army and the navy; I was getting as much pay as a three-stripe sergeant, but I was still only a buck private. It was had work that we had to do; we did the laundry for the army, navy and for Russian ships that would drop off huge loads of laundry.

THE DREAM GETS CLOSER
We heard through the grapevine that pilots were getting slaughtered all over the world, so the air force dropped the college requirement to one year of college. I had hopes that my dream to fly would possibly come true.

TYPING SAVED ME AGAIN
Again, we were asked if anyone could type, and I was the first to raise my hand. From then on I had a gravy train. I worked in the office of the laundry, tallying up each person's clothes. Once I was done with the day's work, I could go to sleep. Of course, I worked fast so I could get a few more hours of shut-eye.

I CAN TOUCH THE DREAM!
So many pilots were getting killed that the Air Force finally dropped the college requirement altogether, so Shorty Nash, a friend from home, and I went right over to fill out the required forms to become pilots. We had to go before a first lieutenant and answer some questions, but we heard that this was only a formality. Shorty went in first; when he came out, he told me that the questions were dumb, and that we were sure to be pilots in no time. I walked in and immediately my heart sank.

THE NIGHTMARE RESUMES
There sitting in the room was Paul V. Meyers, now a first lieutenant, and he wryly said to me, "Well, well. Private Speckman, so you want to be an officer in the Air Force." He asked me to identify the names of the Russian and German generals who were meeting on the Western Front. I didn't know the answer. The next day I got the word that I had been rejected. Shorty was accepted and immediately became a major. I called Meyers' office and asked to reapply, but I was told that I had to wait thirty days. At the end of the thirty days, I reapplied; I didn't get an interview, but I did get another rejection letter. I didn't know what to do. I knew the Air Force needed pilots because they were getting shot down right and left, but I didn't know how to get past Paul V. Meyers.

A WHITE SHIRT SAVES THE DAY!
I went back to the laundry office while I watched Shorty Nash go home for a White Christmas before attending flight school. One day a full Air Force Colonel came in to get his shirts done. After he left, I went back to the laundry and told the guys to do those shirts as well as they possibly could and to rush them through. Before the day was over, the shirts were done and wrapped up. The colonel's office was on the base, and risking court martial, I left my post and went to his office.

ONLY IN THE MOVIES
I walked into the colonel's office and walked right by the first enlisted man who asked me where I was going. I ignored him and walked by the 2nd lieutenant who couldn't stop me because I walked right into Colonel Peterson's office, which was also unheard of. He looked up and when I told him that I had finished his shirts, he said, "Well, I really didn't need them that quickly." This was my opportunity, and I told the colonel my story of trying to become a pilot but being stonewalled by First Lieutenant Paul V. Meyers. He picked up the telephone and called a Colonel Cook and told him that he wanted him to hear my story and then called in the corporal and told him to bring me to see Colonel Cook.

TYPING SAVES THE DAY AGAIN
Colonel Cook asked me, "Are you a mechanic?" My heart sank as I said no. I knew I couldn't fake mechanical work. He then asked me what I could do. "I can type," I said and my heart sank further. He said, "Well, Private Speckman, the Air Force might need typists." I was brought back to the laundry. The next day, an army officer walked in and told me that I was out of that outfit and told me to get my belongings. I went with him, thinking that I was being brought to the brig for leaving my post the day before. He took me to the Air Force Quonset hut. I was in the Air Force, on my way to becoming a pilot!

A DRUNKEN WHORE IN A RED DRESS
When I walked into the Air Force Quonset hut, I felt like a drunken whore in church with a red dress on. There the pilots were drinking beer and eating cheese and crackers, something that was unheard of in the army. Everyone had stripes but me, but they accepted me anyway. I was home. While waiting to become a pilot, I worked in the office and did the payroll. A First Sergeant that I worked with looked at me one day and said, "Speck, you don't have any stripes, and it's about time you got some." He got a man named Dibble to sew them on, and immediately I was Corporal Speckman.

I worked in the office until I could get transportation back to the states to join the ranks of the pilots. Finally I got word that I had passage back on a cabin boat that was usually used for tourists. We returned in what is now a tourists' dream…the Inland Passage, but I just wanted to get back home. I couldn't wait to be a pilot. It took a long time for us to get back to the states, and I was losing time that I could be flying.

WASTED TIME
After we hit Seattle, I was able to go home for two weeks, and then I was sent to Camp Haan at March Field at the air force base in California. We did nothing there. For months, months that I could have been flying, we did nothing. Then I was sent to Miami Beach, Florida. A lot of the men there had been in heavy combat, and they were not taking any crap from their superiors there. They would just walk away from a superior who asked them to do something they did not want to do. Once we were walking in file and one by one, the veteran pilots would leave the column until there were only a few of us left. Shortly after that, our superiors stopped trying to tell us to do anything because they were not listened to, and there was nothing they could do to the pilots who had been in heavy action.

Off I GO INTO THE WIDE BLUE YONDER
Finally, the air force sent those of us who were new to the Air Force to a six-month pilot school at the University of Tennessee where we were taking courses entitled Physics of Aeronomics. Here I was, barely a high school graduate, taking two years of physics in one six-month period. We didn't care about those courses; all we wanted to do was fly! We passed by hook or by crook. I have to admit that I was a con-artist through a lot of my military career. However, we also got some flight training in a J3 Cub where they washed out some of the men. In the airplane, I couldn't be a con-artist, but I didn't have to be. I still have the log book from that time where my instructor had written "will make excellent pilot." Those words meant the world to me.

TUBA-PLAYING PILOT
I volunteered again to play in the Air Force Band. I had played the tuba in high school and lo and behold, they needed a tuba player for the Air Force. Because we were in the band, we got a lot of perks that the other pilots did not get. Once again, my volunteering paid off.

NASHVILLE: THE PROVING GROUNDS
We were then sent to Nashville, Tenn. for advanced flying school. More men were washed out of the program then, coming back from flight training crying like children. The war was ending, and the Air Force didn't need more pilots. I was not washed out, but finally, before we became cadets, they told us they had an abundance of pilots, and our training was going to be stopped.

THE UNFULFILLED DREAM
After receiving the word that I would not be able to become a pilot, I was sent to Scottfield, Illinois, where I became a radioman. The code in my ear all day long almost drove me crazy. Six months later, I was sent to the airbase closest to my home and worked sorting mail until I was honorably discharged on October 8, 1945. I was not to become a pilot...at least not yet.

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Copyright ©Pat Speckman 2002
pspeckman@mail.ntc.mnscu.edu | last modified April 2002

Speck's Journal

Introduction

Early years

Military years

Searching years

Chiropractic years

Retirement years