Sore Feet and Foxholes

The next day we had off long enough to take care of our feet, soak them and let the rest of the guys go to the hospital who needed to go and there were a plenty of them. In the meantime, the rest of the guys in the tent slept so Albert Duhn and myself took another hike and that was a three miler up to the main P X, post office, grocery store, and cafeteria. We stopped at nearly every PX on the way up there and got ourselves revived by sipping a few drops of beer, then we proceeded on, we finally made it. Both of us did spend an enjoyable afternoon, but we took a bus back though. Anyway we didn’t get as sore and stiff as the follows did back in the tent, who lay around all day. When we got back they wondered where we had been, we told them, they thought we were plain nuts. Ain't you fellas got enough dam walking yet, next time they’ll take us out on a 25 miler. Poor LES HILL’s feet did hurt him so. That evening we wrote a few letters, saw a good movie, brought back some ice cream, had a lunch, and then we hit the sack, called it a day. It was mighty sweet of them to give us a day off; we wondered if they could afford to do that. We later found out they could, for the next day we were out in the training area digging fox holes in the prone position. What a job that was. We were always wondering just why we were carrying that shovel on our backs for, but we found out that day too, it wasn’t used to cover up military secrets with. For days we dug trenches, different types of fox holes, and there are plenty different ones, also machine gun placements. Camouflage was an important idea so they told us to use branches, twigs and grass to do the trick. Another fellow and myself dug a fox hole at the training area one morning. so completely did we camouflage it that one of the officers in charge of training couldn’t find it, in fact he almost fell into it then we had to show him where it was.. Well both of us got a very nice complement for it. Next day we dug some more, by that time we thought we were a bunch of gophers, we dug gun emplacements then there were 4 or 5 men assigned to a hole, and it was our job to go ahead and build an emplacement to their satisfaction. That day the whole battalion was out there doing the same thing. We also had to dig intercommunication trenches leading to the said gun position. Digging wasn’t too bad that day, as this Mississippi dirt is rather sandy, but it was difficult for us to keep them from caving in. Along about this time we were being instructed on guard duty. We rehearsed that a couple of days then finally Company D’s turn came for pulling area guard. I hit it pretty lucky, didn’t have to pull any of that at all, until part of our company pulled out for a 5 day problem, then so many men out of each Company were picked and detailed to pull a warehouse guard for a solid week, while the rest of the outfit was gone, we hit it pretty lucky as it rained almost every day, and it really was a mess out in the field, most of the guys almost washed out there. However, we fellows didn’t have a snap exactly either. We were on guard 6 hours and off 12. It was always nice and quiet back there in the company, no one to bothered us, and no one to blow a whistle, or hollering at you. I’d really enjoyed that peace around my shack, and I could sleep, write letter, go to the service club or up to the PX anytime I wasn’t on guard. It was heaven for us. Another fellow and I had the two laundries to guard, he had one half and I had the other. It was a good go, with the exception of those grave yard shifts from 12 at night until 6 in the morning... These hours did drag pretty heavy. At the post there we had access to a coke machine as long we had plenty of nickels and the Officer of the Day didn’t catch us, we didn’t go thirsty anyway because it gave us that extra lift. One Saturday afternoon we were through with guard, and I never did catch any kind of guard while we were at Camp Shelby. By that time I had a few blisters on my dogs, carrying that old M1 around fully loaded. We had a fine chance to get a good look at those southern gals who worked at the laundry there, 50 % were black babes the other 50% were white at least they looked that way, maybe their darn souls weren’t, never asked them.