Monthly Archives: August 2007

Going through all my grandfather’s paperwork, I came across an interview he did with the Reichelt Oral History Program at Florida State University. Instead of writing the last post on this topic like I mentioned before, I’m going to sort of backtrack and fill in some pretty cool holes that I found. This personal interview helped me get a little more into his head and see some of the peripheral things going on at the time.

My grandfather, James A. Stuthers, Sr., was born on July 20, 1925 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had great parents – his mother was of German descent. After the war, he would realize that he was actually bombing some of his own forefathers and relatives that were still living in Leipzig, Germany. In April 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. In order to sign up so early, he had to obtain his father’s signature and get their permission. He didn’t actually enter service until after high school in October of the same year. There was a lot of talk about joining the military at the time and the fact that his friends were joining only heightened his desire to join. He initially wanted to become an officer and join the Air Cadets, but washed out of the Nashville tryouts after ending basic training.

He went to basic training in Greensboro, North Carolina where he spent ten or eleven weeks. He wanted to be a pilot. They weren’t supposed to tell him why he failed out of the Air Cadet program, but his math scores were low, which prevented him from becoming a pilot, navigator or bombardier. He ended up going to Lowrey Field armorer school to become an armorer-gunner. At the school, he would learn everything about bombs and how to load the bombs on airplanes and how to wire them. The school was three months long and from there he was sent to gunnery school at Fort Myers, Florida. There are worse places to get trained!!

While he was in school, WWII was being waged across the globe. When asked if he was worried about what was going on in Europe at the time, he responded: “A lot of us were afraid that we weren’t going to get over in time to even fly any missions, you know, towards the end.” After training, they were sent to meet up with their crew at Westover Field, Massachusetts and to obtain their crew training and certifications.

One of the reasons he was worried he wouldn’t make it over to Europe was that they were having “very, very bad experiences.” Before he got to Europe, he was trained to crew a B-24. The B-24s weren’t exactly the darlings of the Air Force at the time. On one particular day, he was coming in from a training flight over Cuba. It was sometime between 1800 and 1900. His crew was following a plane in to land at Chatham Field (now Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport) and the plane he was following exploded right in front of him. He was waved around and had to circle for the better part of an hour while they cleaned up the wreckage. His friend Al Tochman and crew were killed. They shared the same barracks together. Each barracks held four crews – 24 enlisted men. Six of those men died that day. A few weeks later, another crew that was with in the barracks blew up. If that wasn’t enough to spook my grandfather, the following is. The first crew to blow up was crew #297. The second crew was crew #298. My grandfather was in crew #299!! All bad things happens in threes and they all knew this. Was it coincidence that they were blowing up in sequential order? They were all afraid, but got away, finished their training, and later found out that a third crew had blown up on the base shortly after they left. Three crews killed before ever seeing combat within the span of a few months.

The what Act?! That’s what I’m saying. Is there some other law in effect I don’t know about called the “Ensuring All Bills Are Rhythmically Named And Excessively Long and Redundant Naming Act”? This act is a piece of work too. It just passed the House, narrowly, with a 229-194 vote margin. And what does it do for us?

The law would require the services to guarantee troops as much time at home as they spend deployed. While this sounds all wonderful and hunky dory, I have to admit I’m opposed to it. As a Soldier, I think I can express my opposition to a bill meant to help me and my family out. As someone who has deployed and will do so again, I also feel qualified to feel this way. I also realize I’m not going to get a lot of support for my way of thinking on this.

You may recall that I wrote about my grandfather’s time in WWII as a gunner and togglier in a B-17. Back in WWII, and later in Vietnam, there was no such thing as this “stability and predictability” crap. What’s so predictable about the enemy? If they were predictable, we’d be done by now. I’m offended that politicians who haven’t served a day in uniform think that I’m not strong enough to handle a deployments to a combat zone. Have our Soldiers become so weak and whiny that we now need Congress to tell us how much combat is too much? I thought we were Army Strong? The Few and the Proud? Aiming High? and Full Speed Ahead? (forgive me if some of those slogans are out of date. You get my meaning).

Thankfully, the President has threatened to veto such a bill and he should. It’s not the right thing for our military, though I’m sure many family members would disagree with me. We’ve already softened up our fighters with PC basic training, the abolition of uniform standards, the watering down of our NCO Corps (in the Army) by promoting without leadership school, etc. Now, we’re going to be coddled with our deployments. I wonder if Al Qaeda has the same policy of pulling their fighters out and giving them downtime for each day spent in combat. Probably not since they usually get killed or blow themselves up before they get the chance.

The other problem is Congress is attempting to take away the power from the Commander in Chief and his officers to decide deployment schedules. National Guard members would be required to have three times as much time home as they are deployed. By law, it would impose specific deployment timelines and homestation dwell time. That’s not Congress’s job to manage. We have Generals who are grossly overpampered to make those decisions.

What happens if during a particular unit’s dwell time at home station, another emergency flares up and those troops are needed? Are we breaking the law if we use them? Do we just ignore the emergency since the law is quite clear about when a Soldier can deploy? Some on the Hill think it’s in our best interests because “our troops and their families are tired.” Hell, yeah, we’re tired, but that doesn’t mean we want to give up. Al Qaeda’s a lot more tired than we are and I kinda like it that way. Our exhaustion means that Americans get to be lazy and continue about their lives as if nothing is going on to ensure that their way of life isn’t altered the least bit. We Soldier on so that Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan can safely put others in danger with their bad driving. It’s important that we remain free.

One can tell that Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., has never served in the military nor does she any knowledge of how we work. “The Bush administration’s current strategy of multiple back-to-back deployments has stretched our military and is breaking our all-volunteer force,” she said. President Bush doesn’t decide who deploys, who doesn’t, and who does multiple back-to-back deployments. That’s the job of each individual service. If President Bush or Secretary Gates is the one deciding that the Marines deploy for nine months while the Army deploys for 15, I’m throwing up the BS flag!! But they DON’T!! The service Generals do!!

If I sound cynical and frustrated, I am. There are better things that Congress needs to be focusing on than how long my deployment is. How about fixing the tax code? Is Social Security already fixed? How about a bill to eliminate all the absurd toll roads on PUBLIC INTERSTATES here in the northeast!? I’m sure the border could use a lot more attention!! Come on, Congress! Get it together. Let us do our job or lace up your boots and get out here and do it for us.