Things didn’t quite work out that way. In 1979, shortly after I became the exec, Captain Harris transferred to Fort Rucker for flight training! I have no idea where he had gotten the desire to fly choppers. In my heart of hearts I hoped he would be happier there than he had been at Bragg. Maybe he’d do better there. By Halloween we had a new commanding officer, Captain Waslow. We continued to improve in our rankings, but Captain Waslow resigned his commission in January 1980 and left the service to find a job in the private sector. His replacement, Captain Ozawa, had a lot of promise, but ended up in a very nasty divorce and left us in April.
Not only was the battery going through a lot of upheaval with the quick changes, but I was getting a lot of unrated time, since neither Captain Waslow nor Captain Ozawa were around long enough to qualify as my rater. You needed at least 60 days working for a new boss for him to rate you, and neither ended up doing the paperwork. Since I rated the other lieutenants and the battery commanders were the senior raters, it was only me that was affected.
I think at that point the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Buller, simply decided to leave well enough alone. Bravo Battery had become, by any measure, the best battery in the division. We had fewer problems in our drops and landings, set up faster, fired faster, and were more accurate. We had a higher reenlistment rate and fewer problems with the civilian cops. We even had a lower incidence of social disease. This was not to say that the other two batteries were fuckups, far from it. We were simply the best battalion in the DivArty, and we were the best battery in the battalion. Buller simply left me in charge, as an exec without a commander, and gave me another second lieutenant to fill in. Buller would rate me.
Marilyn was happy for me, but didn’t really understand. There is simply something about a line command, having the authority, and the responsibility, that you just don’t get in staff positions. The closest I could remember was when I was a sales manager for Lefleur Homes, and bossed my own sales lot. This was even bigger and better. It’s not for everyone. My father only wanted a staff job; even when he had engineers reporting to him, he stayed away from line positions. He never understood my hankering for line jobs. He had a saying, “Management would be great, if it wasn’t for the people!”
In early January 1981 I was called over to battalion. Now that I was effectively in charge of the battery, this wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Once in the battalion office, one of the sergeants knocked on the commander’s door. At a shout of ‘Enter!’, I was ushered inside. Lieutenant Colonel Buller wasn’t too starchy, but I noticed another officer, another light bird in there with him, so I marched up to his desk and came to attention, and then saluted.
The colonel returned the salute and said, “At ease, Doc. Have a seat.”
“Yes, sir.” I sat down and looked over at the other lieutenant colonel. He had most of the same fruit salad that Lieutenant Colonel Buller had — some ribbons from Viet Nam, a Bronze Star, similar qualifications — but there were differences, too. He was Signal Corps, for one thing, was a straight leg (not jump trained), and had shoulder insignia indicating he worked in the Military District of Washington. He was from the Pentagon, in other words.
“This is Colonel Halliwell.”
“Sir.” I stuck out my hand and Colonel Halliwell shook it. I turned back to the battalion commander and gave him a curious look.
“Doc, what are your plans for the future? What was your commitment to the Army?” he asked.
I blinked at that. Whatever I had been expecting, this wasn’t it. “Four years, sir. I guess I haven’t thought about it. It will be four years this summer.”
“Were you planning on staying in after that?”
I opened my mouth, and then shut it again. After a few more seconds, I answered, “I just haven’t given it any thought, sir. I’ve enjoyed my time here, but I’ll have to talk it over with Marilyn. I just haven’t thought about it.” I gave him an embarrassed shrug. We should have talked about it before, but we just never got around to it.
Colonel Buller looked over at Colonel Halliwell, who swung around in his chair towards me. “Lieutenant, when your four years is up, you’ll have done four years with Battery B. Let me ask you a question. Is there anything in an Airborne battery you don’t already know how to do by now?”
I glanced over at Colonel Buller, but then said, “Honestly? No.”
Colonel Halliwell nodded. “Correct answer. You’ll have had the battery as an exec and de facto commander for three years by then. The Army is not going to leave you here to make major or colonel in the 319th. It’s time for you to move on.”
Colonel Buller added, “Colonel Halliwell is right. Oh, don’t get me wrong. If we end up dropping into the Fulda Gap or some damn place, I’d want you here. You could probably handle the battalion without a problem. So could your counterparts, too. But since that probably isn’t going to happen, what are your plans for the future? Were you planning on making this a career?”
I was silent, and I could feel the eyes boring in on me. I shook my head. “I just haven’t thought that much about it. I like it, the Army I mean, and I think I could do it. I have to talk to Marilyn about it.” Colonel Halliwell gave me a curious look at that. “Sir, Marilyn knew I was going to be in for four years when we met, and when we married, but she didn’t sign up for a career. I have to talk to her about it.”
“Fair enough. Interested in hearing about why I came down from the Pentagon to talk to you?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, actually I would. No disrespect, sir, but what’s a Pentagon light bird doing coming down here and talking to a two-bit artillery lieutenant? There must be a hundred of us here on the base.”
Colonel Buller snorted and seemed to be suppressing a laugh. Colonel Halliwell simply smiled. “Probably. Here’s a few more questions for you. How many of those two-bit artillery lieutenants have doctorates in applied mathematics? — Yes, I know what the nickname is for — How many of them made battery commander in under four years? How many have had an unblemished series of OERs marked ‘Outstanding, Recommended for Promotion and early attendance at CGS’? Answer me those questions, will you. You know that answer.”
I hadn’t really given it any thought. My biggest concern at times was simply blending in, but it looked like I hadn’t been that successful. “I guess I never gave my career much thought, sir. I just wanted to do the best I could.”
“Why is that, Carl?” asked my commander. “Half of those other lieutenants don’t think of anything but their careers! Why don’t you?”
I looked at Lieutenant Colonel Buller. “It’s hard to say, sir. It’s just that… sir, you get out of life what you put into it. If I put a hundred percent into something, I generally get that and more back. I’ve tried to do that here. If it wasn’t working, somebody would have let me know, of that I’m sure.”
“Well, it’s time for you to give it some thought. Colonel Halliwell came down here to speak to you about that, so give it some thought.”
I turned back to Lieutenant Colonel Halliwell. “Sir?”
“There’s a job at Fort Sill, in what we call ‘The Board’, but which is more accurately named the Fire Support Test Directorate. It’s not precisely a lab job, but it works with the labs, which is where your PhD comes in handy. They do live fire testing of the various rounds they develop. You’d be working with different batteries assigned to III Corps Artillery — 105s, 155s, some 8 inchers, even a recoilless rifle or two — testing new rounds and explosives. For that we need somebody with active experience. Since we don’t have any captains with combat experience at the moment, we looked for top end men in the ready divisions, like the 82nd. Your name is at the top of that list.”