GI COLLEGE MAN GAZES UPON GOLDBRICKING AT FORT BRAGG

College men have gotten all the breaks in this Army of the United States. Sure, we all know about the former graduate student in architecture who first blows up the pillbox on the local beach and only then gets down to work plying his trade in the form of sundry beach-landing structures. He can claim the Army has read the qualification card too literally. So can the disgruntled G.I. who is in the mechanized cavalry because his mother was a bareback equestrienne for Barnum and Bailey. Nobody's denying they make mistakes in classification. It's a big Army of the United States. But Joe College has no kick coming. Not if I can judge by what I've seen in assorted Posts, Camps and Stations.

The theme here is "Breaks Gotten by College Men In A Ten Million Man Army Where There Isn't Too Much Time To Look Into The Individual Qualifications of The Guy Who Thinks He Ought To Be An Officer Because Well Just Look At That Dumb Shavetail." The Army is chuck full of officers, so forget it if you're thinking of having your Old Man buy you a commission in the Black Watch or the Third Highland Fusileers when you graduate from A-12 or Boy Scout Troop 74. It's no go.

Gold Bars aside (Ha, Ha), though, the College Man in the Class of '45 has gotten the breaks. Proof, you say? Well, let's take that indispensable quantity, conviviality. Not everybody's got conviviality in the Army. Suppose you were manning an AA gun on a dreary building somewhere along Broadway or Fifth Avenue. Or suppose you were one of the lucky privates who beat the Meteorology racket. A guy I know did, and now he's buried away atop an office building on Third Avenue and 42nd Street in N. Y. What kind of conviviality is that?

You want to know what we had in those bags, Doc? Well, we had nicknames, for one thing. A well turned nickname was always good for a belly laugh. There once was a Lieutenant named House. We called him Flop. Not to his face, of course, but he probably got the ideas, and we certainly did. It was not too funny, but good for our battered Egos. Then there was one from Old Nassau (a fine example of the manic depressive among College Men At War) whom we thought should be called Tiger.

Tiger was a mere wisp of a man, but he had no intention of taking a ribbing from some Ivy League Privates. So he got mean and wrathful and sent some of the boys to see the mess sergeant because their beds were a quarter of an inch from the crack in the floor that stood as the great divide. Two nights later we ate Tiger. Not literally, of course, but it was delicious. In the midst of a black and tortured night march, we broke into a sombre dirge. "Hold that Tiger, rrrrrrooomph, hold that Tiger, rrrrromph. The Tiger turned tail and promptly got out of earshot. Some of the boys sang "Nassau Hall" as we put up our tents that night. Toujours gai. Toujours gai.

All persons and events mentioned above are not in the least fictitious. As a matter of fact, anything can happen when the colleges, and especially the Class of '45, goes into the Army. Basic Training is about the same all over. Except that at Fort Bragg there was many a laugh. Conviviality did it. We got the breaks.