Where did you live in N.J.?
I was born there, grew up in Roselle Park, went to college in New Brunswick, swam at Ocean Beach.
With regard to transport, I remember reporting for duty at Ft. Benning OCS, in civilian clothes, after spending a day and night in a dirty railroad day coach where there were no vacant seats. I spent the entire trip sitting on the floor at the end of the car.
My next experience was crossing the Sahara desert in a 40 & 8 boxcar full of replacements, 3 days and nights, one blanket, cold C rations and a 5 gallon water can, bitter cold at night with wind whistling up through the cracks in the wooden floor, sleeping in shifts on the floor because of limited space. There were no sanitary facilities aboard. If you had to go, you waited until the train made it's next unannounced stop, got out, did it, and hoped the train didn't start up before you were finished.
When I was finally eligible to come home, we were trucked to a freight yard full of 40 and 8's. It was snowing and the temperature was below freezing. But by now, I was an experienced infantryman who took no XXXX from anybody. My buddy and I walked up to the Pullman car at the head of our train which was where the Transportation Corps crew responsible for the shipment rode. We climbed past the "Off Limits" sign and strode up to a Transportation captain in Class A uniform at a desk in the front half of the car which was carpeted, warm and had the seats removed. We wore our combat jackets with 3rd Inf Division insignia, steel camouflaged helmets, wore our combat Infantry Badges, and carried holstered .45
caliber pistols and hadn't had a bath in a week.
We walked up to the desk, the REB looked up and said, what can I do for you gentlemen. "I'll tell you what you can do!" "You can find room for us both up here in this nice warm car! We've been freezing our ass for 2 Fxxxxing years, and by God, we have had enough!!! Alright, he said, find a seat in the rear half of the car and when we get all the troops aboard I will whow where we eat and sleep. We did, and when he came back, he showed us how to lower the overhead Pullman beds, showed us the rest room, and said we would get hot meals in the second Pullman which had a GI cook, a kitchen, and a dining area. We played cards with him, told stories and spent the 48 hour trip, with hot meals, our own beds, and convenient sanitary facilities.
We felt bad about the hundreds of other GIs in the rear of the train. But we rationalized that there wasn't anything we could do for them and besides, they weren't our men. We arrived in Le Havre and waited there until our smelly little freighter, boarding 2,000 returning vets, started the stormy, seasick trip home to N.Y. harbor. When we docked, 11 days of garbage were brought up on deck and was loaded aboard trucks lined up on the dock.
Our turn finally came and we were marched to a railroad siding where we were loaded aboard day coaches to travel to the separation center for 3 days of outprocessing.
3_7_I_Recon - Russ Cloer