No Ordinary Joes Read Online Free
Author: Larry Colton
help replace the alarming number of British ships sunk by German U-boats. The president had pledged to make the United States the “great arsenal of democracy” in the fight against Hitler. At the same time, he’d imposed an embargo on oil and steel to Japan in response to its aggression against China, as well as its entering into the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy and its moving troops into Indochina to build air bases for possible attacks.
At home, the first peacetime conscription in the nation’s history took place in 1940. Over 16 million men, ages twenty-one to thirty-six, signed up. The standards weren’t high—an inductee had to be at least 5 feet tall and 105 pounds, had to have at least half his teeth, and could not have flatfeet, a hernia, or venereal disease. Nevertheless, almost 50 percent of the applicants were rejected, and hundreds of thousands of others were turned down because they could not read or write.
Chuck hadn’t enlisted out of patriotic duty or the wish to be a hero. His father had convinced him that America would be pulled into the conflict, and the sooner Chuck enlisted, the better his chances of getting a good assignment. His father said that the military would make a man out of him and that it would be a good career. That made sense to Chuck. But what appealed to him even more was the money. His only hope of buying a horse was the steady paycheck the military offered. And the idea of eating three square meals every day—“three hots and a cot,” as the saying went—seemed like a luxury. In the two weeks prior to enlisting, he’d eaten beans and cornbread every night, and nothing at all during the day.
Leaving the depot, he headed for a hotel in downtown Buffalo, where he would stay for three days while he was being processed before boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island. He checked his wallet to make sure his money was still there. Before leaving home, he’d sold his shotgun and several chickens he’d raised in the backyard. The $14 he’d gotten in exchange was his total net worth.
Originally he had tried to enlist in the Marines. More than anything, he liked the uniforms, especially the ones with the red stripes down the blue pants. But he was only 5 feet 7 inches and 135 pounds, and the sergeant said he wasn’t big enough to be a Marine. “Go down the street and try the Navy,” the sergeant suggested. Chuck passed the physical, and a couple of days later a Navy recruiter came to his house to tell him he had been accepted and would be called up in six months, maybe a year. The call came the next week.
Entering the hotel lobby in Buffalo, he noticed three young recruits sitting in a corner, passing around a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag.
They seemed much older. Chuck pulled his pipe from his pocket and headed to the desk to check in.
He didn’t regret his decision to enlist, but he was nervous. Despite his mischievous ways in high school, he didn’t drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, and he was still a virgin. Smoking a pipe was just about the boldest thing he’d done until then.
The recruits in the corner motioned to him, offering him a swig of wine.
“Sure, why not,” he said.
2
Bob Palmer
of Medford, Oregon
I t was a Sunday morning in the summer of 1927, and eight-year-old Bob Palmer was playing with his new wagon in front of his grandparents’ house in Ashland, Oregon, trying his best not to make too much noise. His grandfather, a deeply devoted Methodist, had warned him once already: “Don’t make me come out here again.”
But it was hard to play quietly. His father had made the wagon for his birthday out of wood carved from a southern Oregon pine, and Bob was excited. He’d spent the last two summers living at a construction site in the southern Cascades with his dad, Martin Palmer, a stern, taciturn man who worked on a crew building the road around the rim of Crater Lake. They lived in a stone cabin surrounded by sturdy mountain hemlocks and
At home, the first peacetime conscription in the nation’s history took place in 1940. Over 16 million men, ages twenty-one to thirty-six, signed up. The standards weren’t high—an inductee had to be at least 5 feet tall and 105 pounds, had to have at least half his teeth, and could not have flatfeet, a hernia, or venereal disease. Nevertheless, almost 50 percent of the applicants were rejected, and hundreds of thousands of others were turned down because they could not read or write.
Chuck hadn’t enlisted out of patriotic duty or the wish to be a hero. His father had convinced him that America would be pulled into the conflict, and the sooner Chuck enlisted, the better his chances of getting a good assignment. His father said that the military would make a man out of him and that it would be a good career. That made sense to Chuck. But what appealed to him even more was the money. His only hope of buying a horse was the steady paycheck the military offered. And the idea of eating three square meals every day—“three hots and a cot,” as the saying went—seemed like a luxury. In the two weeks prior to enlisting, he’d eaten beans and cornbread every night, and nothing at all during the day.
Leaving the depot, he headed for a hotel in downtown Buffalo, where he would stay for three days while he was being processed before boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island. He checked his wallet to make sure his money was still there. Before leaving home, he’d sold his shotgun and several chickens he’d raised in the backyard. The $14 he’d gotten in exchange was his total net worth.
Originally he had tried to enlist in the Marines. More than anything, he liked the uniforms, especially the ones with the red stripes down the blue pants. But he was only 5 feet 7 inches and 135 pounds, and the sergeant said he wasn’t big enough to be a Marine. “Go down the street and try the Navy,” the sergeant suggested. Chuck passed the physical, and a couple of days later a Navy recruiter came to his house to tell him he had been accepted and would be called up in six months, maybe a year. The call came the next week.
Entering the hotel lobby in Buffalo, he noticed three young recruits sitting in a corner, passing around a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag.
They seemed much older. Chuck pulled his pipe from his pocket and headed to the desk to check in.
He didn’t regret his decision to enlist, but he was nervous. Despite his mischievous ways in high school, he didn’t drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, and he was still a virgin. Smoking a pipe was just about the boldest thing he’d done until then.
The recruits in the corner motioned to him, offering him a swig of wine.
“Sure, why not,” he said.
2
Bob Palmer
of Medford, Oregon
I t was a Sunday morning in the summer of 1927, and eight-year-old Bob Palmer was playing with his new wagon in front of his grandparents’ house in Ashland, Oregon, trying his best not to make too much noise. His grandfather, a deeply devoted Methodist, had warned him once already: “Don’t make me come out here again.”
But it was hard to play quietly. His father had made the wagon for his birthday out of wood carved from a southern Oregon pine, and Bob was excited. He’d spent the last two summers living at a construction site in the southern Cascades with his dad, Martin Palmer, a stern, taciturn man who worked on a crew building the road around the rim of Crater Lake. They lived in a stone cabin surrounded by sturdy mountain hemlocks and
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