Arrive at Camp Shelby

By Sunday morning we were getting close to our destination, which by that time we knew it was going to be our home CAMP SHELBY, MISS., supposed to be one of the worst camps in the states, boy it was too. Our morale dropped to a new low. After we got it all cleaned up it wasn’t too bad a place, but there are a lot better ones. But still a hot hole as far as weather was concerned. We arrived at noon, got off the train at camp, we had to carry our bags about a ½ a mile, then we were loaded on trucks and taken up to the area where we were going to stay, in some of the damndest tents that could be set up for people to try and stay dry in and also keep clean, what a mess that turned out to be. Calling our names off we split into six men groups, and these were the guys you were going to live with for the period of your basic training, which was going to be twelve weeks. In this God forsaken hole they call MISSISSIPPI. We had really been taken for a ride south and it wasn’t any more. When we arrived at our company area, the first thing we had something to eat, which wasn’t very darn much, in fact all we had was a half cup of black coffee, one piece of dry bread, and one soft boiled egg, about the same menu you'd find at Alcatraz, because we were now already fenced in. Orders were being handed out right and left, scrub the tents, get your beds set up, grab yourself a mattress, go to the dayroom the supply SGT was handing out your G.I. blankets, mattress covers, along that time the whistles were blowing like mad, here it was already late Sunday afternoon and they were now starting to organize the company. Weren’t we busy people, you aren’t just a bird tirdin any. The six of us moved into that tent that day got everything in line, were we ever tired bunch of guys. Cpl. Lee Andrews was in charge of our shack, along with him were PVT. GARMOE, PVT. JOHN CURRIE, PVT. LESTER HILL, PVT. ALBERT DUHN, PVT. POP ROGERS, and yours truly PVT. JOHN SCHAEFER, I nearly forgot PVT. ZEEK RHOLF or POP as we called him. Later, after getting all settled in our living quarters that afternoon we sat there trying to figure each other out looking at one another. Along came Texan named HOPPY. He informed us that if we liked beer we could bring it in the tent and drink it, providing of course that we would police the bottles up and take ‘them and pile ‘them in back of the latrine, also bust then up and we did. So the next morning. It was to somebody’s disliking that this was no place to throw broken beer bottles. We policed then dam bottles up slick and clean. An order came through, no beer in the tents anymore. That fixed things for a while, until we were more acquainted with the First SARGENT. We got acquainted with him in a hurry, he was a big guy and could lick any one two times his big.