You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.
General James Mattis
None of the widely touted new technologies and weapons systems "would have helped me in the last three years [in Iraq and Afghanistan]. But I could have used cultural training [and] language training. I could have used more products from American universities [who] understood the world does not revolve around America and [who] embrace coalitions and allies for all of the strengths that they bring us." General James Mattis
If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. William Tecumseh Sherman
There is a movement to persuade General James Mattis to throw his hat (or maybe it is his cover) into the ring in the Presidential race. There is some reason to think that he will not take the bait, which I intend to discuss, but the allure of his candidacy deserves some discussion.
Altogether Bad Ass
I have to say there is something attractive to a Mattis run. Since Jim Webb dropped out after mentioning in a debate that he shot somebody who threw a grenade at him, the altogether bad ass has been lacking in the race
Four Or More Stars In the White House
Actually four (or plus) star generals in the presidency has not been such a bad thing as far as people who rate presidencies rate them. Washington tends to rate consistently high. Eisenhower's reviews have been mixed, but as time goes on keep getting better. Grant's reviews tend to be on the low side, but not at the bottom, and Lincoln was a tough act to follow and Reconstruction a knotty problem.
You can get a little pedantic on this. Grant was the first officer to actually wear four stars, but there was legislation around the time of the Bicentennial to the effect that nobody will ever outrank George Washington, so it is really fair to count him. Eisenhower of course finished with five.
As it happens there are twelve presidents who were general of some sort or other. Probably the least effective was William Henry Harrison, but you really can't fault him for dying after a month in office.
Legos
The guy is creative. According to the Mattis Way of War he ordered six thousand legos for elaborate sand table drills to represent the various vehicles under his command in the race to Baghdad. And he studies history. Some operations in Afghanistan were inspired by Grierson's Raid in the Vicksburg campaign. There was a novel loosely based on the raid which inspired a movie loosely based on the novel. That movie is none other than The Horse Soldiers
By the way I really enjoyed the Mattis Way of War, but the formatting on the Kindle was awful, which was a little annoying. Another View
I thought it might be worth checking in with somebody who had actually been in Afghanistan, particularly given General Mattis's remark about deeper cultural knowledge. Sam Striker who I wrote about here worked for the Army in Afghanistan
Striker is a social scientist in intelligence field operations. He is attached to various U.S. and NATO combat forces, and his work is about the subtle ways the military can become an enabling force rather than an occupying force.
Here is what Sam wrote me:
GEN Mattis for President is indicative of the times and a reaction of the anti-political establishment sentiment sweeping the nation. As a social scientist, I am interested in Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump succeeding. My reasons are purely academic- I wish to test my hypothesis that the system itself is broken. The best way to do that is to put a highly disruptive non-establishment President in place and gauge the success of his ability to change key policies in his tenure. (Mattis might very well be one of these)
He is an excellent GEN who understands the need to comprehend the cultural nuances of the strange places he may find himself, fighting wars. His quote for deeper understanding is not a new one as commanders in both war theaters have been scrambling for this capability for the last 10 years. Simple cultural and language training are a good start...but not enough. Taking it deeper to understanding the cultural dynamics and the interrelated systems of the area is what is truly needed.
As for Mattis for President-
There are reasons why career soldiers do not usually make good Presidents. For one, the highly focused, linear thinking which makes a soldier very effective does not exist successfully in a political arena where flexibility is essential. Not to say that Mattis isn't smart. I don't know any stupid four-stars; but the system in which he was successful (military) is much different than the system he desires to step into (political).
What he needs to win-
A level of perceived threat to safety and security to America on a relatively high scale.
A clear message of how he will protect America
Assurances of economic oversight to 'reign in the evil rich people'
A popular minority running mate (Condeleeza Rice, Collin Powell)
Chaper 32 of Smullen's book is titled Expect The Unexpected. It so happened that for this anecdote Smullen's boss was none other than Colin Powell. Smullen had been a special assistant to Powell when Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and they retired from the Army together to begin a phase that Smullern referred to as "two old soldiers trying to sell a book". They had just
completed the "mother of all book tours" promoting My Ameircan Journey when something new came out of left field.
People were encouraging Powell to run for President. Smullen puts Powell's reaction this way
...as the general always did when making an important decision, he considered all the factors. Not the least of these were the uncertainties and unknowns.
He had to consider where the money might come from. There is something floating around to the effect that there are some billionaires ready to back Mattis, but it is still a tough issue. There was the issue of timing. The issue came up in November 1995 for the 1996 election. Mattis, of course, is on an even shorter fuse. Staffing was another problem. Powell's staff consisted of Smullen and one other person. And here is what is the biggie for Mattis - policies, What are Mattis's postions on domestic issues? Or on foreign policy for that matter. Another problem was space. Setting up a campaign headquarters is not easy.
One concern that Mattis, known as the Warrior Monk, might not share with Powell is concern about the effect that the run would have on his family. The interesting question a Mattis presidency raises is that of first lady. James Buchanan faced with that problem drafted his niece Harriet Lane Johnston to handle the role.
The other issue was aspirations. As Smullern put it soldiers (and I imagine we could generalize this to military men) don't want to grow up to be cowboys or even presidents.
When you don't have the desire to be someone or something in life, you can't fake it. Call it a fire in the belly, call it a need, call it what you will. If your heart's not in it, it's a tough sell to oneself.
Smullen was able to tentatively address many of the practical aspects of a Powell run. There were people to put up money and volunteer. Space could be found. The fire in the belly was the big issue. Powell's conclusion announced at a press conference that Smullern arranged was:
I do not yet have a passion for political life, because such a life requires a calling that I do not yet hear.
The Might Have Been
I have been corresponding with Bill Smullen on another series in this blog and I kind of teased him about the decision, thinking that we might be in better shape today if Powell had taken another course. He advised, well more like ordered, me to reread Chapter 32 of this book again and insists that the right decision was made.
I still think it would make a great Harry Turtledove novel.
Here Is A Great Fantasy
Powell is even older than Bernie Sanders, so having him as a VP does not really make much sense. There seems to be something of a sense that Mattis must be a conservative, because of his somewhat controversial tough remarks. The evidence is otherwise thin. The ethic of selfless service that he embodies is certainly not for the Ayn Rand ilk of conservatives and it is not inconceivable that he might find economic inequality troubling. One of the ways that he economized on logistics in Iraq was to have all marines live the same as lance corporals, which meant everybody got to sleep on the ground.
I probably haven't dug hard enough, but you would think that if Mattis had expressed himself on economic and tax issues, it would not be hard to find. I hope a commenter will embarrass me by pointing to something, but I could find nothing.
So it is conceivable that Mattis would be fine with wealthy Americans paying a lot more taxes and a stronger social safety net like that great socialist Dwight Eisenhower that Bernie Sanders always refers to.
It seems pretty likely that President Sanders would be a one termer and Mattis, born in 1950 is young enough to do two terms after Sanders. So wouldn't it be something to have him be Bernie's VP pick. That would really shake things up.
Peter J Reilly CPA after rolling out his tax plan consulted his exploratory committee and determined that he would not run for president, for reasons too numerous to mention.
"Education in Jesuit schools seeks to transform how youth look at themselves and other human beings, at social systems and societal structures, at the global community of humankind and the whole of natural creation. If truly successful, Jesuit education results ultimately in a radical transformation not only of the way in which people habitually think and act, but of the very way in which they live in the world, men and women of competence, conscience and compassion, seeking the greater good in terms of what can be done out of a faith commitment with justice to enhance the quality of peoples' lives, particularly among God's poor, oppressed and neglected."
Know where you stand and stand there. Attributed to Father Daniel Berrigan SJ as shortest commencement speech ever - reportedly delivered at Xavier High School. Likely apocryphal.
A Metaphor
When I think about the struggle that went on at Xavier High School in the final years of it being in the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia "a thoroughly military academy", I am reminded of the meta-story behind the Repairman Jack novels by F Paul Wilson, who, as it happens, is a Xavier graduate.
Two vast forces are in a long struggle and our planet is a minor trivial prize. Much of what we see in history is an illusion as there is a Secret History of people supporting either the Ally or the Adversary. It is not the eternal struggle between good and evil. Rather it is the very long struggle between really awful and not so bad.
It is a little grandiose, but it is just an analogy and the notion that Xavier was something of a prize to both the Army and the Jesuits is not without foundation.
In 1968, Xavier's military status had been upgraded to "Institute", which apparently was quite a big deal. It was probably one of the most visible Junior ROTC programs in the country as its students rather than being walled off in the country commuted to school in uniform earning them the moniker "Subway Commandoes" and played a role in the City's pageantry most notably the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Unlike the optional programs in public schools, like the one in Detroit where Ben Carson advanced to cadet colonel, we wore our uniforms every day and the entire school was part of the Regiment.
The Jesuits
And our new Headmaster would be a leading light in Jesuit secondary education designating Xavier a a pilot school. Father Duminuco gave the school speeches about his educational theory referring to education in a dynamic society as opposed to a static society.
Many of the younger Jesuits and quite possibly the headmaster himself thought that the military was inconsistent with Jesuit values. My friend Jerry Snee, a year behind me, whose uncle was a Jesuit brother told me that New York Province Jesuits who were not caught up in the Xavier tradtition did not have an appreciation for the way the uniforms and the Army integrated with the rest of the education.
As anti-war sentiment and action increased young Jesuits, some of whom were under observation by the FBI (Ironically a not uncommon career for Xavier graduates) were embarassed by teenagers in pseudo Army uniforms saluting them in the street. The idea of military masses struck some as obscene.
The Army
On the Army side, there was Major Smullen, who was a suberb officer and one of the best teachers on the faculty. He would go onto a distinguished career retiring as a full colonel along with his boss Colin Powell, helping Powell with his autobiography and then serving as his chief of staff at the State Department. As Bill Smullen, he is the director of National Security Studies t Syracuse University and the author of several books including Ways and Means of Managing Up, which I reviewed here.
Bill wrote me that in response to the anti-military pressure in the school, his tour at Xavier was extended by a year. He indicated that among some Jesuits there was substantial support for the program. He was a little reticent about the nature of the opposition. After a second tour in Vietnam, Major Smullen would become the public relations officer at West Point. The Vietnam War speeded up advancement in the Army, but my impression is that Smullen was young for a major, a sign that the Army recognized his value then. So keeping him on an extra year is a sign that somebody thought Xavier was important to the JROTC program if not the defense of the United States of America.
The Students Especially This Student Of course whatever conflicts the grownups running Xavier were having were pretty invisible to us and I'm sure my reconstruction is far from perfect. Nonetheless, the conflict in the larger culture was becoming front and center to anybody who was paying attention. And our teachers were requiring us to pay attention. Mr. Moroney, 2-G's English teacher, required us to get the Sunday New York Times and go through the magazine, the literary section and the week in review. And some of our required reading such as Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn had a subversive tinge to it.
I along with some others spent a lot of time at Barnes and Nobles - THE Barnes and Nobles, not some suburban mall emporium with a built in Starbucks but the original store. And then there was The Strand.
Sometime in the early seventies, there started to be this thing about not whether you were against the Vietnam War, but when you were against it. There was a Barney Miller episode where somebody tried to make an impression by saying they were against it in 1968. Dietrich, the intellectual of the group, countered with 1955. Anyway for me it was early 1968 or late 1967.
I'm sure it was not early 1967 because I remember being confused when Martin Luther King came out against the war. I always wanted the forces of good to be aligned and remember thinking that Martin Luther King being against the Vietnam War, where we were clearly the good guys, was as confusing as Robert E Lee, chief bad guy in the Civil War, being considered a national hero.
All that reading was bound to create trouble though. I subscribed to Avant Garde , which seems like it should have a high collectible value nearly fifty years later, but doesn't because nobody threw them away. I note that in the first issue January 1968 there is an article about American helicopter pilots randomly gunning down Vietnamese civilians. I actually don't remember that article making a big impression on me. There is also an article the Kama Sutra, with line drawings that are pretty erotic. That would probably have caught my 16-year-old attention more.
I can't recapture the intensity of feeling that was going on, but the bottom line was pretty simple. It was not a just war, we were not the good guys.
And as happens throughout American history an unpopular war will bring to the fore pacifist traditions that have always been there. As Christian Appy wrote in American Reckoning
This was no longer Tom Dooley's America. More than at any moment in history, Americans had come to believe their nation as capable of evil as any other. National identity was no longer figured as a kind sailor "bouncing a brown bare-botton baby on his knee." It was more likely to be represented as a napalm-dropping American jet. American exceptionalism was on its deathbed.
I really don't remember hearing about Dorothy Day even while at Xavier. Her Catholic Worker had been a factor for decades and its address is within a mile of Xavier, but it didn't enter into our consciousness as far as I knew (I would learn about her at Holy Cross thanks to David O'Brien, a historian). We did hear about a Jesuit from the New York Province who was influenced by her.
Feeling A Draft? I don't think it is easy for anybody to be 16, Like Holden Caufield you start having to face that there are a lot of phony bastards in the world. But to be 16 in 1968 at a Catholic military school a few blocks north of Greenwich Village was probably extra confusing and I don't think it was just me.
There was the sexual revolution and then there was the just plain Revolution. I remember our teachers talking about our "military obligation". It is amazing how quickly that concept had entrenched itself after only a quarter century of "peace time" draft. As I recall it was six years. Four years active duty could be followed by two years inactive reserve or two years active duty by four years active reserve. National Guard meant six months active and even longer in active reserve with the prospect of being called out to suppress civil unrest. I have not gone back and researched whether that was real. I'm just giving you my understanding.
By the time we were seniors, college no longer seemed like an escape. It really was just a deferral as we knew that there were college graduates who thought they were avoiding the war in 1966 now in Vietnam. By the time I was a freshman in college, it seemed like the war would never end. When asked whether I wanted to go to Washington for the big demonstration to end the war right now in 1971, I said that I would go next year without at all being ironic, but I am getting ahead here.
The existence of the draft forced conscientious young men to consider whether the war was justified. This was compounded for me by the sense that the very small taste of the military that I was getting made me think that I was ill-suited for it. The impression I have gotten from talking to Xavier graduates who did serve was that I may have been a little off there. Apparently the chicken shit aspects of military life were actually at a higher level at Xavier than in the real military. If I made it through basic training, there were probably military jobs I would have done OK at. That is neither here nor there, though.
Being anti-war and anti-establishment satisfied my impulses to challenge authority without getting me in any trouble. One of the ironies of the period was the popularity of the Thoreau quote
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Lots of people were marching to the same different drummer.
Which Side Are You On?
I can't pick the moment when my attitude shifted, but there was one event regardless of how much we noticed it then that was probably most indicative of the great divide. On May 17, 1968 a group of nine activists broke into the draft board office in Catonsville, MD. They took 378 draft files and set them of fire with home-made napalm.
The activists were all Catholics. Among them was a Jesuit from the New York Province - Father Daniel Berrigan. Father Berrigan's relationship with his superiors in the order was somewhat fractious, but they never threw him out and he never quit.
Through all of this, Dan was fully conscious of being a Jesuit. He was aware it gave him an edge, but an edge that came from the Society's spiritual tradition, especially in the Exercises, and from the responses and respect he got from so many of his brethren. He knew he could be a burden at the institutional level, but that was inevitable. The great moment of course was Pedro Arrupe 's visit to him in Danbury prison. "He knew what nuclear destruction was like ... from Nagasaki ."
That was one of those little details I don't think I learned about until well after my time at Xavier. Pedro Arupe elected 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus in 1965 had been in the suburbs of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell.
I remember debating the destruction of draft records on the old gym "stairs" (kind of built-in concrete benches around the balcony). We played chess on my miniature magnetic set, a treasured gift from my brother, and talked about the issues of the day or the gossip of the school. One of the kids focused on it being a matter of destroying other peoples property. My argument was that draft records only served a bad purpose. I was opposed to the draft not only from an anit-war stand but also on kind of libertarian principles. The other thing I mentioned was how I had read that draft records were used to persecute homosexuals. That caused some insulting comments.
Loved That Jacket I know that I was firmly on the anti-War side by late in my Sophomore year, because of one incident that really sticks in my mind. One of my favorite articles of clothing in my entire life was my Xavier jacket. I will never determine the mysterious circumstances under which it vanished some time in the 1990s. It was pretty ragged by then but then but I kept wearing it somewhat to the chagrin of my family. The jacket was not part of the uniform. It was something that one wore when out and about in civilian clothes being true to your school.
The jacket was reversible. One side was kind of silky light blue with Xavier on the back in maroon cursive. I never wore that side out. As I reflect on it, it would have been appropriate if I had belonged to a street gang called the Xaviers. The other side was maroon wool with XAVIER in block light blue letters on the back. Wearing that jacket I felt like the iconic high school student ready to go have a malt with Archie and Veronica and Betty and Jughead. Not somebody studying Greek and being taught infantry tactics.
Not being an athlete there would never be a varsity letter to have my mother sew on the jacket, but there was something. Practically over my heart there was sewed my special unit patch - Regimental Supply Corps. Believe it or not but there is this thing called The Institute of Heraldry responsible for shit like this even for JROTC. They didn't have the first team on this one. On a field of gray, black and brown, there were crossed M-14s. The M-14 was already obsolete and it never became venerable like the M-1 or the 1903 Springfield. Regardless, I was unaccountably proud of my Supply Corps membership and I thought it was a nice touch. Keep in mind that I was 16.
A Change In Speakers
I don't know why I was in Central Park that Saturday in late April. I may have come specifically for that event or it may have been that I had been playing chess and was just following it up with one of my long hikes. I remember a somewhat obnoxious veteran talking about how ridiculous it was in the Army and that they were required to watch The Gallant Men
One of my favorite show, as it happens, but that was neither here nor there. They hushed him up when the main speaker started.
Originally it was to have been Martin Luther King. But he had been assassinated earlier in the month. We had been sent home early due to concerns about civil unrest. Mayor Lindsay was credited with keeping things pretty well under control in New York. Robert Kennedy's speech is also thought to have been helpful in keeping things calm in Indianapolis.
Things were not so good in many other cities. According to wikipedia, dozens were killed and thousands injured. Mayor Daley in Chicago to suppress looting issued a "shoot to kill" order to his PD. When asked about that Lindsay's response was "We don't shoot children in New York City". Chicago PD would go on to earn some more glory in the upcoming summer.
1. Thou shalt not believe in a military victory.
2. Thou shall not believe in a political victory.
3. Thou shall not believe that they, the Vietnamese love us.
4. Thou shall not believe that the Saigon government has the support of the people.
5. Thou shall not believe that the majority of the South Vietnamese look upon the Vietcong as terrorists.
6. Thou shalt not believe the figures of killed enemies or killed Americans.
7. Thou shall not believe that the generals know best.
8. Thou shalt not believe that the enemy's victory means communism.
9. Thou shall not believe that the world supports the United States.
10. Thou shall not kill.
Yeah, I had to look a lot of this up, but I remember the tenth one like it was yesterday.
I became embarrassed by my patch - the crossed M-14s you know - and even folded my jacket to conceal it.
The Campaign
Senator Eugene McCarthy had challenged Johnson for the nomination in New Hampshire and it didn't take long till I was with him. In spirit anyway. I think I may have gotten a bumper sticker not that we had a car or anything and definitely a button not that I could wear it on my uniform. When Robert Kennedy jumped in, I did not switch. Then there was George Wallace mucking things up with a third party. 1968 was the last time a third party won electoral votes.
On the morning of June 6th, my mother on waking me up told me somebody had been shot. I knew about that Andy Warhol had just been shot by a radical feminist. But that wasn't it. It was Robert Kennedy.
My mother made my summer job arrangements again so it was back to Estabrook and Company, but more of a real job rather than an office boy. I joined the army of "runners" who were a necessary part of a securities system that was still paper based. Although we were sometimes sent on special missions, the bulk of our duty was to deliver paper stock certificates in the morning and pick up paper checks in the afternoon. I remember being impressed that NYSE broke the daily volume record set in 1968 - 16 milllion shares. The back offices were buried in work.
I debated what was going on at the Democratic convention in Chicago with the other "runners". More riots as the "Establishment" selected Hubert Humphrey. Of course, there was generally not a lot of actual running going on. Most of the guys were pretty old, maybe even older than I am now. I was designated a "fast man" for the rare occasions when something had to be delivered quickly.
One of the younger guys was a Black Panther, named Fred. I wish I could recover my conversations with him which were very earnest, but I can't. I had also landed a year round every other Saturday job helping Tony Genaro on his bread truck. On top of that none of the other runners were quite as money hungry as I, so I ended up with a sweet overtime gig. After the highly trained professional who knew how to run a card punch machine had typed up the days trading, a box of cards had to be carried a couple of blocks to be fed into a reader that transmitted to the home office in Boston. So I got paid to just hang around listening to the clerks trying to get things in balance and reading. Oh how the money was flowing.
At any rate, it seemed like everybody was pro-war or anti-war. And I was far from the only anti-war cadet that put on the uniform to start Junior year at the still thoroughly military academy on 16th street.
For 1966, the year we first donned uniforms the top pop song for the year had been Ballad of the Green Berets
In September 1968 as we started our third year many of us now corporals, People Got To Be Free was at the top of the charts.
I see now that this will not be the final installment. There might even be two more.
_____________________________________________________________________
Peter J Reilly CPA has been neglecting his tax blog of late.
Whatever Regimental glory I won when I graduated in 1953 is unrecorded. The one item I can point to is that I rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel, commanding officer of the Marching Band. I count that an honor because traditionally the post had been held by a Major.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speech to Xavier High School JROTC Regiment May 17, 2011
Linear Narrative Suspended This is the second installment that treats the peculiar phenomenon of cadet rank. I will take up the growing anti-war sentiment in the next and possibly final installment.
My Crowd
In part III, I focused on my own reference group. There was the Unclique (a recently coined term by the way) of Jean Shepherd fanatics, the Gang of Five- the elite of the Classics Honors program who took both AP Latin and AP English as juniors, McGowan's Maggots - The Regimental Supply Corps. I only alluded to it but there was also the Chess Team. Those were my people.
And they were marvels of military mediocrity. None of them were like my friend science fiction author John Sundman who graduated as a corporal and was displeased with himself, because he did not achieve his brother's feat of going four years without earning a single stripe.
In the great rank sweepstakes at the beginning of Senior year where well over half the seniors were assigned the leadership positions beyond squad leader in the Regiment - from platoon sergeant to the colonel, we all took away one of the prizes, but none of us hit one of the jackpots that would put diamonds on our shoulders.
The enlisted ranks were very similar to the real Army with chevrons and rockers, call them stripes, from 1 for PFC to 6 for master sergeant with a diamond nestled in there for First Sergeant and a star for Sergeant Major.
Cadet officer rank was signified by small circles - pips - or diamonds. 1 to 3 pips for second lieutenant to captain and diamond shaped insignia - one for majors, two for lieutenant colonel and three for the colonel.
My primary reference group the Unclique and the Gang of Five were all pips and stripes. My friend Bruce Strzelczyk from the Chess team achieved some distinction as commander of the MP platoon. MP duty had previously been a random extra assignment of juniors, who could persecute freshmen, and seniors who could persecute sophomores. The new MP platoon got a special marker crossed pistols rather than crossed rifles for their brass, just like real MPs in the real Army. Membership was restricted to juniors and seniors.
There was a flaw in the concept, though. The only seniors Bruce could draw from were part of the less than half the class that had not scored any reserved for seniors postion in the Regiment. I remember being amused to see on of the MPs patrolling the lunch room was a kid who had once had indefintie Jug.
And of course, one of the Supply Corps seniors, Paul Fuller, became commander of the Supply Corps, which made him a regimental staff officer, one of the colonel's twelve apostles, but it was a given that one of McGowan's maggots would get that prize. What Was The Secret of Their Success? I who had lusted after a Sam Browne and saber and gold trim on my hat had a binary view of the matter. There were officers and there were not officers, but then I got a different view when I reconnected with my friend Jerry Snee, the founder of Squidget
Jerry was a year behind me at Xavier. His class was the last to have four years of mandatory military participation. At the same time that I had arranged to be part of the small group of students that the school song notwithstanding did not "keep marching", Jerry saw Lou Saco being dubbed Colonel of the Class of 1968 and determined that he would be in that position three years hence and worked tirelessly to achieve that goal. It takes all kinds I guess.
Fighting The Tide I was under the impression, probably accurate, that becoming a cadet officer was much like the regular promotions - good grades and not getting in trouble with some nod to military merit - which in my mind was tied up with shoe shining, brass polishing and head shaving. In theory hair was supposed to be a pass fail inspection issue, but the really mil guys did not buy that. I think that the scorn that stellar students might experience in public schools ended up being directed toward the zealously military.
Regardless, Major Smullen seemed determined to place more emphasis on military merit instituting an OCS process for prospective cadet officers.
The apparent delay in the selection of cadet officers and the fallout from it seems to have been a result of tension between the Jesuits and the military. As noted I am ignoring the big picture for now, but I did learn that the tension was intense from a source who would know.
A Distinguished Career At the 20th and 45th reunions I chatted up a classmate Scott O'Connnel who I had not known that well at Xavier. He was a career Army officer - tanks and intelligence. He now writes spy novels about the American Revolution and even appeared here with a guest post. He told me about how things had turned out for Major Smullen.
Our Major Smullen had a distinguished career retiring as a full Colonel along with his four star general boss Colin Powell to help Powell with his memoirs. He describes that phase as "two old soldiers trying to sell a book". He also worked for Powell when he was Secretary of State. Now as "Bill Smullen", he is Director of National Security Studies at Syracuse University
Anyway, I corresponded with him a bit. Ways And Means For Managing Up has many anecdotes from his career but none from Xavier. He clued me in a bit on the cadet officer selection. Apparently it was mainly between him and Father Heavey, the Prefect of Discipline, with the list to be approved by the headmaster. I mentioned that Father Heavey terrified many of us and he responded
It was his job and you were supposed to be terrified which made HIS job easier.
Major Smullen got on famously with Father Heavey. They were buds. When it came to Father Duminico, the headmaster, Major Smullen had a much harder time. He saw Father Duminico as wanting to eliminate the military as inconsistent with Jesuit values. So it may well be that the officer announcements were delayed as negotiations went on between factions of the Jesuits supported by the headmaster and the more militant in line with the Prefect and the Senior Army Instructor.
I kind of understand the logic of having it be Major Smullen and Father Heavey selecting the cadet officers, but there is an amusing note to it. The seniors that spent the most time with Father Heavey feeling the full blast of discipline, standing at attention in front of his office for days or getting tuned up in the office were not the most likely to be cadet officers. Actually their chance of being graduates was not on the high side.
It seems though that having Father Heavey know who you were did not necessarily mean trouble. It could also mean that you were on the road to eminence. That is certainly what Jerry Snee, who made a study of these things in his quest for the colonelcy thought. He became one of the Junior Provost Marshalls who were much more implicated in maintaining the reign of terror that passed for discipline than were the likes of me who was drafted into service as an MP.
I did not graph the rank structure of the Regiment, but it has to be somewhat close to a bell curve with my crowd that went from Master Sergeant to Captain within one standard deviation of the mean. Staying off Father Heavey's radar was a rational survival strategy that we all practiced. Apparently those well know to Father Heavey were both tails of the curve. Not only the 17 members of the Privates Club, but also the Colonel and his twelve apostles.
Of course it is also likely that Father Heavey channeled the feedback of the other Jesuits into his part of the list making as Major Smullen would get input from the Sergeants, as he had not yet had any of us in class. We had been learning marksmanship and squad tactics and weapons, not the heady stuff that Major Smullen taught the seniors.
I told Bill Smullen that it was rather amazing how hard kids took being disappointed with the ranks they achieved. I even heard a story about somebody who needed therapy as a result. Bill would not take the bait, though and I may have exhausted his patience with the topic.
I don’t do office politics so choose not to comment on who was in and who was not. Assuming everyone survived even with therapy it is better than the alternative.
Misplaced Sympathy I mentioned how Father Dineen, a kindly young priest who was a counselor showed up as a benign figure as the freshmen were being shaped to be part of the Regiment. He accosted me in the hall after the great announcement and told me that he was upset that I had not become one of the officers and that he, in conjunction with other faculty, was presenting a list of meritorious seniors who had been left behind.
Father Dineen who probably never got down to the basement or been in the Arms Room had no appreciation for what a glorious thing it was to be First Sergeant of the Supply Corps and probably thought I was as butt hurt as other seniors who were disappointed with their position in the regiment. Some of them were officers. I have this vague memory of one senior who was very disgruntled who had a diamond on his collar, a major, one of the twelve apostles. Go figure.
Captain Xavier
The only student who ranked high as a junior who relished his lack of advancement in the grand rank sweepstakes at the beginning of Senior Year more than I did was Tom Piwinski. Tom was something of a prankster and we took to calling him Captain Xavier. He may have been the one responsible for convincing Sergeant McMillen that there was an extra kid in his class who never showed up.
Tom was a good student who did not get in much trouble, so like 80% of my Gang of Five, he was Sergeant First Class at the end of junior year. When slightly more than half the class was assigned positions call for rank of SFC or above, Tom got nothing.
He would be routinely promoted in December making him Master Sergeant. His position was "Squad Member" - same as all the freshmen and most of the other underclassmen and the members of the Privates Clubs whose military function was to be a bad influence on the freshmen who stood with them in the ranks.
The story I heard was that Tom's platoon leader did not want a Master Sergeant standing in the ranks. So Captain Xavier got himself a clipboard and would walk around at drill doing "Master Sergeant stuff". I have not confirmed this story, but if it is not true, it deserves to be.
Unraveling The Mystery Of High Rank As Jerry Snee and I sat in the Gold Star Diner in Worcester last year and he related to me his quest for the colonelcy, I became fascinated that this was a thing. He had a better handle on what had gone on with my class as he naturally made a study of them. His uncle was a Jesuit so he had a lot of other insight.
I might have dismissed this as one of those odd adolescent ambitions. Like wanting to be first board of the Chess Team or get my USCF(United States Chess Federation) rating over 1200 or actually win a game against a kid who was Jewish, but then I attended our 45th reunion last May.
The Reunion I had been pretty regular about attending the five year reunions for the first quarter century. Enough so that I can recall more than once dropping Father Vinny Euk off in his parish in the Bronx as I drove back to Massachusetts. Back in the day, I had enough stamina to drive 200 miles down to New York and 200 miles back in the same day. Unaccountably, I skipped 30, 35 and 40.
The big incentive to going to 45 was that I could stay with my son in Brooklyn. It took me a couple of rides to get used to the subway again (They have this confusing card system, rather than the good old subway tokens), but it is more all those people.
There were two events one on Friday and the other on Saturday. It is only the Friday night event that is relevant. It was a get together at a bar restaurant for the Class of 1970 only.
One of the things that struck was how many people were there that I did not know at all. I was pleased that John Sabini made it, despite the fact that he has developed a disturbing resemblance to Larry David.
I was also delighted that Mr. Moroney who taught English to the Classic Honors Sophomores and the AP English Seniors made it.
If there is any good writing here, thank the guy on your right
The coldly analytical part of me could not resist checking the standard mortality tables used for IRS actuarial computations when I got back home. As it turns out the class isn't doing so bad mortality wise.
What was very interesting though was another presentation, Called up to speak to us was our Colonel, who has the somewhat improbable name of Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown - Cadet Colonel Class of 1970
The reaction, which I totally shared, was rather extraordinary as we all cheered and broke into a rousing rendition of the school song. Goddamn it, Old Charlie Brown was the best colonel in the history of Xavier. I mean Lou Saco might have been OK, but he was no Charlie Brown. Fuck you Class of 1968.
Bob Calcagno also rose. Now Bob was the chair or whatever of whatever the thing was that we had instead of a Student Council (You see what an impression it made), but I think there was more of an emphasis on the fact that he had been the Regimental Sergeant Major. I swear if I blinked I would see the Sam Browne.
Holy shit! Sixty fucking three years old and there I am cheering with the rest of the elderly "kids" for our Colonel. What was this all about? The In Crowd? The term I recently coined of the Unclique has its orgin in a remark that Mike Oleske made back then that people were talking about cliques and he thought he was in the group of people who weren't part of a clique.
I think in a coed high school, there is much more in the way of status hierarchy since the girls will judge the boys by some criteria - athletics maybe - and the boys will judge the girls, by, well you know. If there is one unpropular idea I have as a result of my education and upbringing it is that single sex high schools are a fantastic idea. It is even better for the girls from what I have been able to gather over the years.
It seems rather odd that given that we were wearing uniforms with rank insignia, that we were less status conscirous in our relationships with one another. But it was true. Well in a sense. But there were three incidents in my senior year that made me rethink that just a bit.
Maybe Learning Where I Fit In
I have to give an important preface to the three stories. I have told them to people and their reaction has been that I am somehow telling a tale of adolescent angst and they respond compassionately concerned that I was hurt. That is not my goal in telling these tales. In these tales my role is something of an amateur anthropolgist in the participant observer mode documenting the ways of my own tribe. Frankly, I don't think my feelings were hurt even then, but if they were it passed quickly unlike other things that still haunt me. So here are the three incidents.
PAX Is Not Open At Least To Me During Junior year one of the big event was a spiritual retreat at Gonzaga Retreat House. I think we went by homeroom although there may have been more than one there. My memories of it are a bit vague, but that is neither here nor there.
At the retreat, probably a different one from mine, a few kids were somehow inspired to form a group to make Xavier a better place. It was called PAX (which you and I both know means peace in Latin, but I'm mentioning that for somebody who might stumble in here without our training). Remember this is 1969, there were still 475,000 American troops in Vietnam - down from the 536,100 in 1968 - but still a lot. So peace was on everybody's mind. The acronym stood for Positive Action for Xavier and they would be coming up with all sorts of ideas to make Xavier better.
It really seemed to have caught on by way of influence. They probably had somebody on the school paper or something. Not long into Senior year, but after the great rank sweepstakes, I felt moved to inquire about becoming part of PAX. I do have the tendency to be drawn to things like that.
I was told by the person I inquired of that it was a tightly knit closed group that was not seeking nor could it accomodate new members. I noted that the person I inquired of was one of the twelve apostles and I also noted that there seemed to be more than a couple of high rankers in PAX.
The first evidence of there possibly being an in-group. What Is He Doing Up There? I have always done well on standardized tests. Just to get into Xavier you needed to pretty well on the Diocesan Exam, but probably not extremely well, because then you would have gotten into Regis when you took their test. I don't know, maybe Regis was just a bad day. I do recall it as the hardest test I ever took.
Regardless, you may be interested in the possible secret of my success. On test days, my mother gave me steak for breakfast. My covivant, who runs a vegetarian household, scorns this observation, but just saying.
Given my gift, for filling in little circles with pencils, which in my generation became very important, it is not that surprising that I was a National Merit Finalist. One of two at Xavier. The other Bob Bennett was also captain of the cross-country team, President of The Class (which was different from Bob Calcagno's student governance role), a regimental staff officer (i.e. one of the twelve apostles) and, oh yeah, in PAX. Bob was the only member of our class who went to Harvard.
At an assembly, we were both called up to be recognized. I doubt that was the only thing the assembly was about, but still it was a pretty big deal. That was my moment in the 1% (Remember there are over 200 kids in the class).
Afterwards John Sabini told me that whoever was sitting next to him was rather non-plussed that it was me up there. I forget how I was referred to, but it seemed to him entirely inconsistent that some governing body somewhere had determined that at least by their reckoning I was the smartest or second smartest kid in the class. When I related this story to John at the reunion, he, as you might expect, did not recall it and was concerned about my feelings, but as I noted above this is particpant observer amateur anthropology. Me - Part Of The Establishment - Who Knew? In Part I, I wrote about my first session of Jug, where I was terrified and utterly thankful that Father Dineen, perhaps noting my distress, sent me on an errand. Well it was about three years before I earned my second and last session of Jug (Well I probably earned more than that, but the transgression went unrecognized).
As best I understand it, Jug was run by two seniors, an officer and a senior NCO. And I beleive it was a random duty, like being an MP had been. For whatever reason, it was something the Supply Corps seniors were exempt from (Running Jug that is. Not serving it.) So I never ran Jug.
Senior year, I was often late, but I only got nabbed once. That's what I got Jug for.
A curious thing happened when I showed up at the Old Gym to do my time. The in-charges had not showed up yet, so the Seniors among the miscreants on the steps, who were regular enough to count Jug as their primary extra-curricular activity, seeing the six stripes on my epaulettes, assumed I was there to run Jug.
Somebody more clever than I would probably have just dismissed everybody or pulled some prank, but, feeling a bit like Arlo Guthrie, the litterer, I just joined their ranks. I still found it interesting that they kind of thought of me as being an insider.
So What Made The Elite Elite? I started suspecting that there might be something nefarious about it, that high rank was the way that wealth and influence was smuggled into the school where uniforms and coming by bus and subway pretty well masked our socio-economic status. But then Jerry Snee came through with some great insight. One of the things he did in his colonelcy campaign was help organize the Junior Ring Dance.
It had never crossed my mind that somehow students were in there making things like that happen. Just as it probably never occurred to anybody watching the X-Squad perform at a review how those M-1s had gotten to the right place at the right time.
So my conclusion is that the high ranking officers in the Regiment were somehow those who best embodied the school spirit. It is likely that the apparent struggle over the officer selection may well have reflected what the spirit was to be. The Colonel Weighs In
Thanks to Facebook, I have connected with more members of my class and even managed an exchange with the inner circle. Charlie Brown is a modest guy and his comments on this subject pretty well confirm my theory. Charlie was one of the numerous members of my class that made his way to Worcester for higher education. We had some difficulty accepting something as being a city when it did not have subways or pizza by the slice, but I certainly came to love it and have lived in the area ever since.
Here is Charle's take on the selection process.
My understanding is that the decision process for the top ranks was more inclusive. I believe that a number of the Jesuits were at least polled for their suggestions and then were given an opportunity to weigh in as the list got smaller. My opinion always was that to be considered for rank you had to have at least distinguished yourself academically, participate in some school activities, accepted the military as a part of Xavier life and it didn’t hurt to participate in a varsity sport. I was once told that your ability to relate to other students at all levels also was considered. Can’t attest to any of this as fact, no one ever told me why I was chosen and one of 5 or 6 others who in my opinion were better qualified weren’t.
Interesting that you mention Jerry Snee. More than once during his junior year at Xavier and subsequently during our time together at Holy Cross, Jerry brought up his desire to be and then disappointment at not being appointed Colonel.
That comment about Jerry Snee is kind of a spoiler, but we'll have more on that next time.
Strange as the circumstances were, my memories of Xavier are mostly fond and learning that the selection of the military elite was a benign process makes me kind of happy. It also makes me a little sad about what happened with the military. There was something special about the Regiment and the student body being one. In some ways it reflects what happened with the country as military service has gone from being an expected rite of passage to an unusual vocation.
________________________________________________________________________________ Peter J Reilly CPA has a tax blog on forbes.com to run, so he is hoping that he can get some of his classsmates to weigh in on this series. He has gotten over not having a Sam Browne and saber.
You'll never outrank me, Tom.
Cadet Staff Sergeant Peter Reilly to Cadet Corporal Thomas Burns sometime in 1969. Famous last words.
Most young men - mercifully, they fail to realize it - reach, in the sixth form of a big school, the acme of such power and glory as their lives will provide.
James Gould Cozzens Another Literary Diversion
As I noted in the last installment attending Xavier High School was not like going to one of the prep schools commonly portrayed in literature about teenagers A Separate Peace and Catcher In The Rye for example Still, even working class Catholic kids can identify with the adolescent angst of the Waspocracy. Adolescent angst is adolescent angst.
And the best chronicler of that group is not that well known nowadays. Immensely popular in the late fifties, James Gould Cozzens fell out of favor, a long complicated story. Among the reasons for his unpopularity was a sense that he was prejudiced against Catholics, Jews and blacks. It was rather unfair. In reality, he had a low opinion of people in general including his own tribe of High Church Episcopilians who flirted with Catholicism, but had no use for the manner it was practiced by the immigrant hordes.
Regardless, his best portrayal of prep school adolescent angst is in a collection of short stories published in the early sixties called Children and Others. His viewpoint characters are always not quite at the center of things and new to the school will be impressed by the Sixth Form prefects who carry sticks as a badge of office. The Cozzens protagonists will never be prefects themselves and pretend that it does not bother them, but it does Prep School Prefects With Sabers
And the cadet officers were a bit like that to Freshmen. Remote God like figures going through mysterious motions at drill as we stood in the ranks next to Seniors who belonged to the privates club and mocked the pretentiousness of their contemporaries. To graduate from Xavier as a private was an accomplishment. In order to go four years not qualifying for promotion even once without getting thrown out required that you walk a fine line.
Cadet officers would come into our homeroom once a week to inspect us. Failure meant attending re-inspection. Failure there meant the God awful prospect of Saturday Jug - not staying after school, but having to come in on Saturday in uniform. And the cadet officers and senior ncos ran jug. We did not otherwise see much of them since the school facility could only accommodate two class years on recess or lunch at the time - Freshmen with Juniors and Seniors with Sophomores. So the MPs who served as hall monitors and patrolled the lunch room were juniors corporals at most at the beginning of the year and none higher than staff sergeant - even the mysterious Junior Provost Marshalls in the Prefect of Discipline's Office.
As part of the school blue uniform besides the web belt with a shiny buckle that held up our pants and was covered by the uniform jacket we wore a "garrison belt" outside the jacket. It was the same sort of wide black belt fifties juvenile delinquents wore on their jeans and would use at as a weapon until they graduated to switch blades and zip guns. It caused the jacket to flare a bit over the waist making the uniform look rather ridculous on fat kids. Over the bill of the hat there was a black chin strap (never used as such).
Cadet officers had a gold trim on that hat in lieu of the chin strap and rather than the garrison belt they wore a Sam Browne
They even wore the Sam Browne with the summer uniform. And at reviews and parades a saber hung from the belt. It made quite an impression on a fourteen year old lad.
Where We Left Off
I deviated a bit from a linear narrative, in the last installment of this series collapsing two years worth of Military Science into a brief discussion in order to give a full appreciation for the Sergeants, the most colorful members of the Xavier High School faculty and also in general above average teachers.
I left off the linear part at the first half of Sophomore year - 1967 noting that was the first year that over 10,000 Americans would die in Vietnam including a Xavier graduate who would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor during the Carter Administration once his conduct in captivity was documented.
1968 was an even more momentous year. 16,899 Americans would die in Vietnam in 1968 including Major Alonzo Toal who had just completed a tour as Senior Army Instructor at Xavier High School. Our new SAI, Captain Smullen, had just completed a tour in Vietnam as an adviser which would provide some grist for the lectures that Major Smullen gave us in Military Science class as Seniors.
For perspective the 16,899 is more than the total American war deaths in the last 15 years including the civilians who died in the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, it is dwarfed by the 52,725 traffic fatalities in 1968.
A Break In The Narrative
I find it necessary here to totally break with the linear narrative and pretty much ignore the surrounding circumstances as I explore the peculiar phenomenon of cadet rank. My interest in this odd topic was revived last year when I reconnected with Jerry Snee, Class of 1971, who was a year behind me at both Xavier and Holy Cross. Jerry's class was the last Xavier class to have four years of mandatory military participation.
The Boy Who Would Be Colonel - Or Not
As I indifferent to military advancement found a way to be part of the Regiment without having to march, Jerry Snee a freshman formed a different vision. At the assembly at which the officers in the class of 1968 were announced, Jerry looked up at Lou Saco, our new colonel, and resolved that that would be him in three years. He dedicated the next three years to the project of becoming cadet colonel of the Class of 1971.
Jerry's dedication may have been unique, but a large number of cadets, regardless of their feelings and thoughts on the military and war, cared about their rank and had opinions on whether others deserved the ranks and positions they ended up with.
What got me about Jerry's quest was that I realized I did not have a clue as to how one would have gone about seeking high rank in the regiment and and what it was that got you there. The Structure Of The Regiment
It was quite appropriate that the student body made up a regiment, as at just shy of 1,000 it was about the size of full strength Civil War Regiment. The Army had abandoned the regiment as an organizational level after WWII, although designations were retained for purposes of heritage.
There were two regular battalions with lettered companies and beginning sometime during our term at Xavier the special units were grouped into a third battalion. I think the regular battalion and regiment table of organizations were somewhat similar to the real Army at some point in time
Three or four squads of 10 with squad leaders and assistant squad leaders, who would be juniors, I think, would make up a platoon with a second or first lieutenant platoon leader and a platoon sergeant - both seniors as would be anybody higher up. Three or four platoons made up a company with a company commander first lieutenant to go to captain, an executive officer second lieutenant to got to first and a first sergeant - master sergeant to go to first sergeant (which counted as a rank in the Xavier regiment).
Four companies made up a battalion with a commander (major to lieutenant colonel), executive officer (captain to major) and four staff officers S-1, S-2, etc who have NCO assistants and Sergeant Major. Frankly I'm a little hazy on the battalion and regimental staff officer ranks.
The third battalion was more officer heavy than its numbers called for. The band had several officers. The reason for this I believe is that they did not want kids who were good at playing their instruments to have to leave the band or forgo being officers. The tiny color guard had an officer. I think the X-Squad, which also had a Junior X-Squad had three officers.
The Regimental Supply Corps in one sense did not share in this surfeit of officers as the Supply Corps Commander was the Regimental S-4. There was also Supply Corps Executive Officer, which made about the right number for a unit that was about platoon size. But! The three battalion S-4s, who had no apparent duties were drawn from Supply Corps members. So, as it happens, my desire to avoid marching that had put me a rag tag group modeled on McHale's Navy had actually given me pretty good odds of becoming a cadet officer as a senior, particularly since other officer slots were not, as far as I knew, foreclosed to Supply Corps members.
The peak of the Regiment was of course the Colonel, the Commander of the Regiment followed by the Executive Officer, initially the only lieutenant colonel. Battalion commanders and the Provost Marshall had to wait for the round of promotions to achieve lieutenant colonel. Battalion and Regimental command and staff wore a red special unit cord on their left shoulders.
The inner corps which I would define as regimental command and staff and battalion command, but not staff, was less than 10% of the class. Besides the colonel, there was the Regimental Executive Officer, three battallion commanders and their XOs, four regimental staff officer (S-1, S-2, S-3 and S-4) and the Provost Marshall. Maybe you could call it the Colonel and his 12 apostles, although that is something I just thought of.
After the December promotions which brought many of us to the rank suited for our position the most common rank for a senior was first lieutenant. 85 of the 225 in the class were officers and another 52 had high NCO rank. As I remarked above, though, I have a special appreciation for the 17 privates and 28 PFCs, who may well have been the more sensible members of the class.
How You Got Rank
There were routine promotions for Sophomores and Juniors, that seemed to not have much relation to military merit. If you got good grades and did not get in trouble you would get promoted twice as a sophomore and twice as a junior bringing you to staff sergeant. There was a wave of rank inflation that hit when my class was juniors allowing freshmen to get PFC, sophomores sergeant and juniors Sergeant First Class.
The connection with grades was pretty obvious. I had a couple of reference groups. Probably the most important was the sort of Unclique that had been formed by myself, Tom Burns, Mike Oleske and John Sabini. The other was a sub-group of my homeroom 3-F (We were still classics honors taking Greek, Latin and a modern language. I think F became G through student attrition). There were five of us. The other four were Mike, Victor Donovan, Lenny Langelotti and Bill Orchard. Besides 3-F we were in AP Latin and AP English and were only split up for modern languages. Victor and I took German. Victor and I also became very close friends although he was not really part of the Unclique. I think there were 17 of us from my class that would go to Holy Cross, but Victor was the only one that I hung with there including taking several classes together.
So the 3-F gang of five were all good students and accordingly we finished junior year as Sergeants First Class except for Lenny who somehow missed a promotion along the way. A couple of times I sold him my rank insignia at half price to help finance my new acquisition when we both moved up a notch.
Corporal Burns
Tom Burns on the other hand, who attributes his problems with grades to his high LQ (laziness quotient) seemed to be perennially stuck at corporal. Tom and Mike and I used to continually insult one another and had an undue taste for puns. We used to gather on the "stairs" around the balcony above the "Old Gym". The "stairs" were kind of built in concrete benches of a sort. I had a miniature magnetic chess set that we would play on and we would have intense conversations.
I cannot remember the exact context of my "You will never outrank me, Tom" statement but there were several witnesses. Though I might plead otherwise, there may have been a tinge of arrogance about it. Here though is my case.
Tom's military ambition was to be First Sergeant of the Band. I on the other hand had reasonable hopes of being an officer since officer selection seemed to follow similar principles to the regular promotions. My unit, the Regimental Supply Corps had five officer slots associated with it. The Regimental S-4, commander of the Supply Corps, the XO of the Supply Corps and three battalion S-4s, who had no discernible duties beyond wearing a red cord and being near the front of the battalion at parades and reviews. And other officer slots were not out of the question. Failing all that, there was First Sergeant of the Supply Corps. So my ultimate fallback position was the height of Tom's ambition making it certain that he would not outrank me. Or so I thought.
I just recently talked to Tom about all this and he explained to me why he wanted to be First Sergeant of the Band. "You had enough power so nobody could fuck with you, but not the responsibility of being an officer."
The New Regime
Until I reconnected with Jerry Snee recently, I had never given any thought to what was involved in achieving really high rank. My analysis of the whole process as it played out in my year was that historically good grades and staying out of trouble would have you selected as an officer in the big sweepstakes at the beginning of Senior Year.
In my year things changed as Major Smullen decided to double down on military merit as a consideration and required prospective cadet officers to go through an OCS process. Our collar rank insignia were replaced with a crest. We got the crest by going to see Major Smullen. As part of the process you saluted him and said "Cadet Candidate Reilly requests permission to speak". Permission granted, I did not know what the fuck I was supposed to say. He just handed me the crest and smiled. I saluted and left. Major Smullen somehow always had a warm humanity that channeled with perfect consistency with his occasional sternness.
Poor Angelo
OCS had already cost me seven dollars, a not inconsiderable sum, that I would ultimately learn was the responsibility of my sometime best friend sometime nemesis Tom Burns.
Junior year MP duty was not something you volunteered for. It was just assigned. The Band was exempt, but not the Supply Corps. So one week in three the loud speaker would summon the third junior guard mount to fall in on the old gym "stairs", Nick Linkowitz, who embodied military merit (He would be commander of the X-Squad and go to the Citadel) was sergeant of the guard, which had a touch of irony. Due to the way grades might trump military merit I remember Nick being a corporal when I was a sergeant, but I guess in the MP hierarchy military merit was supreme.
For most of recess and part of lunch MPs stood “at ease” wearing their hats, coming to attention when faculty or cadet officers passed. In theory they might write up their fellow juniors for infractions, but in practice, they only persecuted freshmen. My post was a landing on the "band room stairs", an odd spot that saw very little traffic. But then one day I nabbed a freshman band member for out of uniform (probably a missing nameplate) and wrote him up.
Tom and Mike were merciless towards me in bemoaning the fate of "Poor Angelo", but verbal criticism did not suffice. Vengeance was required. One lunch time having finished my time on the stairs I found my regular seat at the table with Tom and Mike, put down my hat and lunch bag and went to get a drink. When I returned my hat was top down in a partially eaten plate of spaghetti. I think pressed and twisted to make the stains indelible.
At a Holy Cross reunion I once met a retired FBI agent who had worked the docks in Hoboken back in the "On the Waterfront" days. He told me that longshoremen were great aviation aficionados. Standing near a dead body on the dock, they would all say they had been looking up in the sky whenever what happened happened. That was the spirit of those at the table as I almost wept at the ruins of my hat. It would be years before Tom would confess still maintaining that it was just retribution for my persecution of "poor Angelo".
Slovenly as I generally was, I could have lived with a stained hat. Besides being 6'4" who was going to know? Still OCS was approaching which I took as a shoe shining, brass polishing, head shaving contest which is what seemed to make up military merit. Regardless of the fact that most people, even Major Smullen, are short, I bought a new hat. Recently, my book-bag had totally collapsed. Since we were already in summer uniforms, I started using my garrison belt as a kind of strap to carry books. Not good for the belts appearance, but I wouldn't be needing it next year. Would I? The Great Drama
My memories of OCS are rather dim. It is unlikely that I did well in the shoe shining, brass polishing part of the game, as other kids had been practicing that much harder for the last three years. It is quite likely that the patriotic essay we had to write did not help my chances. I don't remember anything about it other than the title "Dissent The Highest Form Of Patriotism". There would be Woodstock that summer, something which my covivant who is way cooler than I attended. And I had become a regular reader of Ramparts, but more on that later.
I don't know if it was actually any different than any other year, but as we started senior year, it seemed like the announcement of the officers was being held up. Rumors flew. Enough so that there was an assembly of seniors at which Father Heavey, the Prefect of Discipline, chewed us out and told us that if we didn't stop with the rumors the Regiment would be run for the year with us as NCOs.
Finally the officers were announced and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I don't know if it was unusual compared to other years, but I think it may have been. People who it seemed "should have been officers" were not and by implication it went the other way. I was by all accounts in the "should have been officers" group. It Was All About The Sam Browne
I realized though that the only reason I cared was because of the Sam Browne and saber. And I still had a chance. The four sergeants major also wore Sam Brownes. I think I went so far as to ask Sergeant McGowan to intervene for me. My new ambition was to be Sergeant Major of the Third Battalion. No gold trim on my hat, but a Sam Browne, a saber and a red cord.
That brief hope was quickly dashed. The NCO list came out and I was First Sergeant of the Supply Corps. I was particularly chagrined that the Sergeant Major of the Third Battalion had not even been in the battalion. It must have taken me a couple of hours to recover from the blow. The reason it was easy was that being First Sergeant of the Supply Corps was something of a thing in Supply Corps tradition and the role and persona suited some of the anit-establishment aspects of my character. I'm sure I got much more satisfaction out of being First Sergeant of the Supply Corps than I would have being the Second Battalion S-4, with no duties other than showing up at drill and standing next to the S-3.
My reference group was altogether remarkable in its military mediocrity. Mike got one of the numerous band officer slots and John Sabini got a platoon. Victor Donovan and Bill Orchard were the military stars of our group Victor S-1 of the Third Battalion and Bill, I think a company commander. Lenny was Victors assistant in his almost non-existent duties. While everybody else was having these leaps, the effect was that Lenny and I each moved up one notch, allowing me to continue our tradition of my selling him my rank insignia for half price.
Thanks to the recent rank inflation, I have the distinction of being one of the first Xavier students to achieve the rank of Master Sergeant one stripe at a time. My friend Tom achieved his dream and gained four stripes and was now equal to me. Well at least I had the comfort that Tom did not out-rank me. The Famous Last Words
I realize that this has grown too long and that I will need another post to adequately address the mystery of achieving high command in the Regiment. But I must give you the punch line to this part of the story. Sophomore and Junior year, Military Science did not seem to speak to the great events that were happening around us, but Senior year was different as we were largely done with the Sergeants and getting most of our classroom instruction from Major Smullen. One of the blocks of instruction was Counter-Insurgency and that was too much for the reader of Ramparts to take. I deliberately failed in a futile protest. Military Science did not affect our academic average, but my gesture did have a consequence.
In December there were promotions bringing seniors to the rank appropriate to their positions. Company commanders went from first lieutenant to captain and battalion commanders went from major to lieutenant colonel. And First Sergeants went from Master Sergeant to First Sergeant getting a diamond nestled in between their three chevrons and three rockers. Of course if they got in trouble or had bad grades, they did not advance. Or if they, for another example, flunked military science.
So the day came when Tom was promoted to First Sergeant and I remained at Master Sergeant. He chortled about it for years afterward, decades actually - soon to be a half century.
The End Or Not
There was a round of bonus promotions right before graduation moving many of those below lieutenant colonel up a notch. I advanced to First Sergeant and Tom maintained his lead going to Sergeant Major. He had an impulse to purchase a Sam Browne and saber but he restrained himself - a wise decision.
We wore the blue uniforms at graduation, but we were told to remove our rank insignia and we all wore garrison belts. So we ended as we began in a state of military equality.
The last time I reflected on this story over twenty years ago, I thought that was a good ending. That the regiment was a metaphor for our lives where we leave behind the accouterments of one stage as we move on to the next, but my recent meeting with Jerry Snee the would be Colonel and the experience of my 45th reunion have prompted me to take another look, which will be the topic of the next post.
____________________________________________________________________________ Peter J Reilly CPA should probably be working on tax returns right now, but he can't help himself.
Back in the day, the day being my childhood, youth, young adulthood and you might say prime - i.e. 1952-1992, every President had some claim to being a World War II veteran. Granted Jimmy Carter was a cadet at Annapolis and Lyndon Johnson's claims to military glory are dubious, but they all had been in uniform during WWII. Bill Clinton broke that chain. Now we are at a stage where there is discussion of candidate's experience as high school cadets. Specifically Donald Trump a graduate of the New York Military Academy and Ben Carson who rose to the rank of colonel in the Junior ROTC in Detroit. Being a Junior ROTC "veteran" myself, I found this kind of fascinating that this could actually be a thing. A little over a year ago, I wrote a rambling piece called "How I Accidentally Impersonated A Veteran" the gist of it was I spent a lot of time with a veteran-dominated group presided over by an older guy with serious veteran credential, whom I viewed as having strided off the pages of history. My detailed knowledge of an obsolete weapon impressed him and me impressing him impressed the rest of the group enough to confuse them into thinking I was an actual veteran. Of course, that detailed knowledge was the result of Junior ROTC, where in the late sixties I supervised an arms room that would have outfitted the heavy weapons platoon of a WWII rifle company. I also have pretty vivid memories of some of the classroom instruction we received. In particular I remember the Psychology of Leadership as being some of the best management training I ever received. Regardless, I have a lifetime fascination with history including military history, so I could not help but wonder to what extent my Junior ROTC training had any connection at all with actual soldiering. The obvious answer was to ask an actual soldier, who had had the same training. I did not know Scott O'Connell that well while we were attending Xavier High School together, but I had some really interesting conversations with him at a couple of our reunions. He had come a long way for our 25th as he was stationed in Germany doing counterintelligence work. That was in 1995. At any rate, I figured he was the guy to ask and I found his answer pretty interesting. ________________________________________________________________________ Your question about JROTC's relevance to the "real army" is interesting. It also made me reflect and on reflection, I realize I have been serving this country since the Johnson administration!
I think the issue is how good the JROTC program was, and Xavier's at the time, was one of the best in the nation. Our cadre were veterans, sometimes of many wars. They may have seemed (a few at least) as kind of dense, but they were men who served in a serious way. They were old brown shoe Army. A few of the officers were more "progressive." Major Buck Wilkinson was a Green beret when they were at the height of their fame. Capt Alonzo Toal was with us only a year before he went back to RVN and was killed in action two weeks after he arrived. The NCOs were classic, a bit out of Beetle Bailey. But remember, to them we were a bunch of spoiled little kids. As you know, Major Smullen went on to full colonel and was Colin Powell's Public Affairs officer and ghost wrote his biography. He now teaches a post grad program on National Security at Syracuse.
The actual Program of Instruction (POI) was excellent and identical to what is taught in college ROTC. In fact, it was more challenging. Map reading is a crucial skill that you can't get enough of. Really! The assembly and disassembly of weapons and study of the nomenclature is the same as ROTC and the Army. But of course we were doing it with the Garand M1, which was long out of use. But the M14 and later M16 (I think we only had a few to pass around) were useful. The military theory, heritage and tactics were all real. Same as the Army. The military history course was identical to college ROTC. Overall, it was an A plus, and good slice of basic (very basic) military learning. It was enough to exempt any of us from taking the Military Science 1 course in college ROTC. I took advantage of that, and still had an edge with the other ROTC guys in sophomore year. Xavier was that good. I wound up Fordham's battalion Sergeant Major as a junior as well.
With regard to the regimental side of things: the infantry drill training that we received the first week before school and then every week at the 69th Regiment Armory was equivalent to and even superior to college ROTC and even the real Army (minus the lack of rifles - would have been cool if the 69th would have provided them). In real army units, except for the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), they only march to and from training by platoons and have big parades maybe twice a year. For that, they have a few drills the week prior, that's all. Because of Xavier I was very comfortable at running these parades and pass in reviews throughout my Army career.
Quick aside: as a Infantry Battalion staff officer in 1977, I was directed to set up the canned music for one of these rehearsals - about 3,000 troops of 5 battalions in a massive pass in review. I asked what kind of music. The major said, Lieutenant, I don't give a fuck what kind of music it is. Marching music! Guess they expected John Phillip Souza. But I have eclectic tastes in music and a large collection of military music from many nationalities. When the rehearsal went down I asked the major how he liked the parade music as the battalions tramped by us. "Pretty good.... what the fuck is it?" "A Soldier's Song," I replied. He chomped his cigar and said, "What soldier? We're all soldiers." I looked him in the eye and said, "A Soldiers Song is the name of the Irish national anthem." Miracle I made it to Captain.
Back to Xavier: The "Mickey Mouse" stuff such as short haircuts and the obnoxious focus on brass and shoes is more extreme than the ROTC or the army, other than real Army Basic Training (or any given day in the USMC). But it was good training and helped build character - I hated it though. I hated worrying about my spit shine and brass more than whether I had prepared myself enough for Latin class. But it is a military academy tradition such as West Point, VMI, and the Citadel put their cadets though. Although I'd say Xavier then was harsher than they are now.
The biggest difference for us: we did not LIVE there. I can tell you, until one is about four years into the military life, being away from home is the toughest thing. We got to go home every day. Although I'd say in my case riding the A train for 90 minutes in uniform through the worst neighborhoods in New York (Bed Sty, Est New York, Jamaica) was not fun. Thinking back, if we had lived at Xavier, I would have had more time to polish my shoes and work on my brass.
____________________________________________________ I missed out on the weekly infantry drill training after Freshman year. I was in the Regimental Supply Corps, the only unit that did not march. Our version of the school song might have been "Sons of Xavier keep counting of the inventory". Probably a better background for a public accounting career. I had only a vague memory of the Senior Army Instructors prior to Major Smullen and was not aware that Captain Alonzo Toal was killed in action. The other eerie thing on reflecting on our first year or two where we were learning to march and shine our brass was that Xavier's most militarily distinguished graduate Donald Cook Class of 1952 was a prisoner of the Viet Cong. His Medal of Honor citation reads in part:
Repeatedly assuming more than his share of responsibility for their health, Colonel Cook willingly and unselfishly put the interests of his comrades before that of his own well-being and, eventually, his life.
His biographer gives the Jesuits of Xavier some credit in forming his character. ________________________________________________________________________
S.W. O'Connell is a retired US Army intelligence officer who has served in a wide variety of counterintelligence assignments around the world. The Patriot Spy is the first novel in his Yankee Doodle Spies series. You can follow Scott on Yankee Doodle Spies. Peter J Reilly CPA, hopes to become the first tax blogger to give up his day job. His failure to absorb the lessons in bearing and appearance imparted at Xavier High Scholl would hamper him in his career in public accounting where he would often be marked low in executive presence. For those of you not in on it, the title is a reference to the school song. Here is a typical performance of it.
