At Work

	The first thing that comes to mind when you say "typical day" is sandbags! We filled sandbags for everything, including outlining the walkways you see in my company area pictures. My wife still doesn't understand my fear of the beach.
	How can I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Probably unique to army bands during the draft era was a significant number of professional musicians. As a result our Big Band was pretty good, as long as I didn't play too loudly!
	That's enough practice. Back to your real jobs. Did I mention that all the hooches in our company area were built by the band? This particular job was for the PX workers. And do you know, after we finished this dwelling, thus rescuing them from their TENT, GP, MEDIUM, we still didn't get discounts at the PX?
	OK. Time for a little more practice. Big Band this time. That's me, the tenor sax near the center of the picture.
	At Ft. Polk, the band didn't pull KP duty, by the time I reached Ft. Bragg, I was an E-5 and only E-4 and below got KP. The 1st Division Band did KP duty, though. In fact, a guy could make $15 or $20 a day taking someone else's KP duty. And why not make a buck--after all, it isn't like not being on KP was that much better, was it?
	Is there no dignity? Qualified musicians chopping weeds out of the lawn with machetes! I did yard work at all three of my army stations. In the background is the tower from tower guard.
	Tower Guard. No, we didn't guard a tower; we sat near the top of a radio tower--one of those tinkertoy jobs--with a binocular, starlight scope, and an azimuth indicator, from dusk to dawn in regular 2-on-4-off shifts. Watch for lights or other indication of activity outside the perimeter and call in to the Fire Direction Center anything seen.
	The FDC would direct outgoing mortar fire if the detected activity was non-friendly, thus preventing a mortar attack--or to return fire on the origin of a mortar attack. Tower guard was even more lucrative than KP. A few guys in the band and some in HHC never got comfortable with the tower. $20 a night plus you're off until noon the next day. And that starlight scope. This picture is through the scope looking at the nurse's quarters.
	And here's something everyone does in everyone's army everywhere: Wait. I can't remember what we were waiting for here: to go somewhere, to come back from somewhere, to figure out where we were. I guess it doesn't matter. Waiting is waiting.
	Night job: bartender and later manager of the HHC Support Command Officers' Club. The pay wasn't much--about a dollar an hour as I recall--but what else was there to do if you didn't have tower guard, KP, or ambush patrol? Oh, did I mention ambush patrols?
Picture me scared!	Ambush patrol. A small group (I guess for us it should have been Ambush Ensemble!) goes outside the perimeter at dusk and sets up an ambush with claymores, grenade launchers, and so on. Umm...could you run that by me again? Did anyone mention that we are a band? You know, trumpets, saxaphones, etc?
	Among the more rewarding things we did during my year with the 1st Division was three days of nonstop hops playing an assortment of traditional Christmas favorites and popular music. Near the end of the three days, we stopped at Lai Khe to work as the warm-up band for the Bob Hope show there.
	Some weeks later Bob Hope commented, on the Tonight Show, about how exhausted the 1st Division Band was after days of endless concerts at jungle firebases and how impressed he was that we still were there to provide entertainment during the several hours required to set up their show. Our fifteen seconds of fame.
	A couple of the guys in our band had friends in the Les Brown band. During a break they visited and told them of our three day tour. In turn, they passed the story on to Bob. Here is Racquel Welch, singing Different Drummer.
	That's about it, except for pacification runs and about a hundred change of command ceremonies. Never got a picture of those. Funny, the things that don't occur to you until later.

Last modified: May 13, 2004