It was during the early summer of 1928 that we had a house party at the 'Moore's cottage' on lake Pelican in Minnesota. It wasn't a very large cottage, and I think there were eight of us, all freshly graduated from high school. I don't know how my mother got everyone bedded and fed, but she did. At that time, I was scheduled to enter Stanford University in the fall. I think all the other kids had made similar arrangements. The only requirements for entering most universities at that time were a high school diploma and a papa with enough money to finance the deal. I suppose there were a few exceptions, like Harvard and MIT, for example, but this was the general rule.

As a group of youngsters, I suppose we were somewhat typical of upper middle class America in that era. Of the girls, three "married well," if marrying well means marrying into a family with money and with some public distinction, and as I mentioned before, one became a fairly well known movie actress. Of the boys, one went to Annapolis and became a Naval aviator. He was shot down and lost in the Pacific during World War II. Another became well known world-wide as a children's doctor before he died a few years ago. Still another by the name of Ken Wyard became quite successful in the life insurance world.

Anyway, in the middle of this 3-day house party, I received a telegram that changed the rest of my life. It was a telegram from my Congressman saying that his "principal" for West Point had failed the entrance exam and that I could travel to West Point immediately if I wished, with the understanding that if they accepted me, the travel expenses would be paid by Uncle Sam; if not, the round trip expenses would be on me. I accepted, of course, and that was how I happened to enter West Point on what they called a "dog ticket," meaning that you get in without taking the entrance exam because it is too late to administer it.

I won't bore you with all the details of my four years at West Point. I am not trying to put myself down when I say that I was neither a good scholar nor a natural athlete, and at that young age, I also didn't show any special aptitude for the art of the military, if one can call it that. I am simply being honest. I graduated number 229 out of a class of 265. I was the last man in the class in mathematics, but near the top in French, and about in the middle in such subjects as English and History. A large percentage of the class had already had one or two years of college before entering the Academy and all but a very few were older than I. If I had to counsel a young person today, I would advise him or her not to enter West Point at the minimum age of 17 unless he or she was an exceptional student, especially in the fields of mathematics and the physical sciences.

As for athletics, I decided at the very start that I had to choose something a little out of the ordinary where the competition would be less severe than in the traditional American sports of football, basketball, baseball, etc. Of course, we all had to do a little of everything, including boxing, wrestling, swimming, gymnastics, track, etc., but I chose fencing as my major sport and specifically the sabre as my weapon. As a sabre man, I developed rather slowly but surely, and toward the middle of my last year, I can say that I was fairly good at it. I had the opportunity, as did most of the team members, to try out for the 1932 Olympics, but I assessed my chances realistically and passed it up. I believe that at least one sabre man - a Maurice Kaiser - on the West Point team, with whom I had worked for three years, did make the Olympic team that year.

Speaking of fencing, I have an anecdote which might be interesting. I should preface this anecdote with the fact that two Italian brothers named Nedo and Aldo Nadi were among the greatest fencers in the world in the early 1930s. One of them was the world champion epee man and the other was the world champion sabre man. I have forgotten which was which, but I seem to recall that Aldo was the sabre man. In any case, I was sitting in the stands of Michie Stadium at West Point at a Saturday afternoon football game in the Fall of 1931 when I heard myself being paged. I answered the page and was told to report to the gymnasium immediately. There, I found a handsome young Italian who introduced himself as Aldo Nadi. He said he was to fence in Madison Square Garden in New York that evening and he would be ever so much obliged if I would work out with him that afternoon. Needless to say, I was thrilled and practically speechless to have the chance to fence with the great Aldo Nadi. Part way through the workout, Aldo did what they call a mouliner in fencing jargon. It takes its name from the French word, moulin which means windmill. It starts with the sabre held slightly to the left with the point down and then the sabre is moved through a great arc like a windmill striking the left side of the opponent. Normally, it is not too difficult for the defender to parry it because you can see it coming. However, Nadi's mouliner was so fast that I never saw it coming. The point of the sabre tore through my heavy canvas jacket and penetrated the flesh of my upper left arm - not badly, just slightly. For the next couple of weeks, I kept picking the scab off the inch long wound because I wanted to have a scar to which I could proudly point and say, "Aldo Nadi did that when I fenced with him."

As for vacations, West Point was quite different in those days than it is now. We were not allowed to leave the Academy either for our first Christmas or our first complete summer. In other words, we lived within the Academy borders for a year and a half - until our second Christmas, before being allowed a vacation from Cadet life.

At the time of my second Christmas in 1929, I had a roommate named Lund Hood from New Mexico. I liked him very much and especially admired his rather dashing, daring style of life. I remember that he was a natural athlete and an accomplished polo player even before he entered West Point. Before we left on Christmas vacation - I to Fargo, and he to someplace in New Mexico - we decided to take our dress uniforms with us, not for use in Fargo or New Mexico, but for a night on the town in New York on New Years Eve before returning to the Academy. I looked forward all during the holidays to my first venture into the great city of New York. When I met Lund at the Astor Hotel in New York on the afternoon of New Years Eve, I wondered what we could possibly find to do in a city where I, at least, knew no one. I reckoned that it might turn out to be a dull evening after all. But I reckoned without the innovative daring of my friend, Lund Hood. He had already bought a New York paper and was perusing the society pages when he came across a real "find." It seems that two of New York's top debutantes were having a joint party at the Pierre on Park Avenue. I seem to recall - for what reason I don't know - that one of the debutante hostesses was a Miss Robbins. I never did learn the name of the other hostess. Lund then called a "friend" in New York and got two names. He told me that when I checked in at the security desk at the entrance to the Pierre, I was to tell them that my name was Mr. Benjamin, and if they asked for my invitation, I was to answer as nonchalantly as possible, and even perhaps a bit annoyed with the question, that I had mislaid it. Lund used some other name which I have forgotten. Sure enough, when we arrived, they checked my name - Mr. Benjamin - against a long list of guests, and I was in and so was Lund. I have often wondered whether Mr. Benjamin and Lund's fictitious namesake ever came to the party and if they did, how they got in. Lund and I went down the double receiving line, resplendent in our gray tails and brass buttons. Each of the hostesses and their parents greeted us warmly - almost effusively - and were each "so happy that the other hostess had invited us." I guess the only way to describe the evening is that "we had a ball." The champagne and other goodies flowed freely. It seemed to us that there couldn't have been many of new York society's "400" and Hollywood's directors and producers who weren't represented there by their offspring. Everyone seemed to accept us until quite late in the evening, or perhaps I should say, early in the morning, when two young swains from Princeton came up to us and ventured the opinion that we may have crashed the party. Lund responded immediately that if they would care to step into the men's room where all of us would take off our jackets so as not to get them bloody, we would try to convince them otherwise. For some reason, the conversation sort of petered out at that point, and we never used the men's room except for its rightful purpose.

I'm somewhat disappointed to say that there's no particular moral to this story, but if I can use one of my "reflexions," it would be that it's quite easy to crash parties anywhere in the world if you're young and daring and resourceful. And what's the harm?

Lund Hood did not make the grade academically at West Point beyond his second year. He failed some stupid examination. I think it was descriptive geometry, which very few understood anyway. And the regular Army lost a very talented man. I'm sorry to say that I didn't keep in touch with him personally after he left the Academy, but I understand that he rose fairly high in the Reserves and become quite a credit to the Army and to his country.
In the summer of 1930, I was let completely "off the hook". It was what they call Yearling Furlough at West Point - three months vacation. My mother and father decided to finance a trip to Europe for me. I was 19 years old. They bought me a round trip steamship ticket with the Holland America lines (S.S. New Amsterdam) and gave me $300.00 spending money for a month or so in Europe. One has to remember that this was the beginning of the so-called Great Depression which began in 1929, and a little money went a long way at that time. I suppose the round trip steamship fare was probably less than $200.00.

This trip was the greatest thrill of my 19 years of life. Here, I was completely free of parental or any other authority for the first time in my life. I'm afraid I let it go a bit to my head. There were about six other West Pointers on the ship - all newly commissioned second Lieutenants from the class of 1930. They were all watching this "yearling", which is what they called second year cadets, to see how he behaved himself. I was perhaps a bit obstreperous or even obnoxious in the eyes of these judges. The first night in Paris, we went to Harry's New York Bar where someone bet me a dollar that I couldn't toss off a two ounce jigger of Calvados in one gulp and hold it down. I won the bet and had another one which went down easier, and finally I decided to buy a bottle of it just for sipping purposes during the rest of the evening. We all went reeling down the Champs Elysees singing and insulting the French police, and when anyone asked me what I was drinking, I remember that I said "Quo Vadis," which was a near as I could come to Calvados. If I remember my Latin, it was probably an appropriate reply. The net result was that I was so sick the next day that my friends decided to call a doctor who ventured the observation that it was a very dangerous thing I had done and told us that a young Canadian tourist of about my age had died from doing essentially the same thing the previous week.

After seeing all the standard tourist spots in Paris - the Follies Bergere, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Invalides with Napoleon's Tomb and the horse races at Longchamps, we all took a train for Switzerland. Oh yes, I almost forgot. At the Longchamps races, we ran into another group of young people, one of whom was named Doris Duke, the tobacco heiress. The name meant nothing to me at the time. What a lost opportunity! (Don't take everything I write too seriously.)

To give you an idea of how far money would stretch in 1930, if you chose you restaurants carefully, you could get a very decent dinner in Paris or elsewhere, with soup or salad, meat, potatoes, vegetable, dessert and a glass of wine for under a dollar. I got into the wrong place by mistake one evening and was too embarrassed to leave. My dinner that night cost me almost $11.00. I was depressed for several days afterward about the fact that I had almost ruined my budget for the trip. As for hotels, again we chose carefully and found that we could get a room for two or three people for about $2.00 each per night. In Paris, for example, we chose the Paris-American Hotel at 21 Rue Vaugirard on the Left Bank very close to the Luxembourg Gardens, managed by a Turk and managed very well, incidentally. When Gerda and I spent several months in Paris in the winter of 1979, attending the French language school, Alliance Francaise, we lived in a pension on Rue D'Assas, just on the other side of the Luxembourg Gardens from Rue Vaugirard. I walked across the Gardens one day to see if I could locate the old hotel at 21 Rue Vaugirard. I found that the address still existed, but not the hotel. There was some sort of retail store where the lobby had been and I suppose the hotel rooms had been converted either to offices or apartments. (There went my nostalgia for that nice little hotel down the drain.)
Our trip through parts of Switzerland and Italy might best be described as "hitting the high spots", or in other words, the standard tourist attractions - a boat ride in Lake Geneva, the old bridge in Lucerne, the painting of the Last Supper and the La Scala Opera House in Milan, the Piazza San Marco, the Bridge of Sighs, and the Lido in Venice. As for Bavaria, of course we couldn't miss the Passion Play in Oberamergau, 1930 being one of the ten year periods when it was held. I recall window shopping early one evening in Oberamergau when suddenly I heard a female voice behind me say, "Hi Roy." I turned around and there was a lovely young lady named Eileen Fowler from my home town of Fargo. As a matter of fact, I hadn't seen her for a number of years. When I was about 12 years old she was my first date, if you can call asking a girl to the movies a date. After we got over our surprise there in front of the store window in Oberamergau, Eileen said that she was traveling with ten other "Kappas" from the University of Minnesota. She added that they had picked up a one-man escort somewhere along the way. His name was Fred Hovde. Fred had been a well-known football star at Minnesota - possibly All American; I don't recall exactly. At that time, 1930, he was a Rhodes Scholar. It was suggested to me that Fred might welcome another male to help him escort these eleven beautiful young ladies. It didn't take me long to make a decision, especially after I met the young ladies. We had a very pleasant day or two in Oberamergau and then traveled all together to Munich where we took in the standard tourist sites and where Fred Hovde and the girls initiated me into what they called the "Cardinal Club" - a beer drinking rite where one has to keep his wits about him or else drink more beer than he usually wants to or should. Let's not get too specific about the results of that evening. I left the group someplace in Germany and went on to Boulogne to catch my ship back to the United States. Fred Hovde eventually became President of Purdue University. I never met him again, although I should have, because he was a member of the Advisory board of the National War College in Washington, D.C. during the years when I was on the faculty there. We just never happened to meet.

In relating the incident of the eleven young American ladies in Germany, I am reminded that West Point cadets were seemingly held in quite high esteem at that time by most young ladies and their parents without what might normally be considered social or financial barriers. Perhaps this is still true, but I can't help but wonder if it is as true as it was then when West Point was so glorified in the movies and the media in general.

This may sound as though we cadets were being pursued. Perhaps we were in some cases; but generally speaking, I think we did the pursuing. My only point is that the young ladies and the papas and mamas frequently made the pursuit into the higher echelons of our American society quite easy.
Some examples - the young lady and her mother from Cleveland, Ohio, who, on more than one occasion, traveled all the way from Cleveland to West Point in their chauffeur-driven limousine for a Cadet weekend. The father was president of one of the large steel companies. I later stopped in Cleveland for a visit on one occasion and was duly impressed my both papa's office and mama's home. Then, there was the young lady whose father's name suggested to me that he might be President of U.S. Steel. I never bothered to check this out. In any case, I enjoyed visits to their Long Island estate with its tennis courts, pool and riding stables, as well as to a Sunday dinner or two at their New York City apartment with what might be called a "good address." And finally, there was the young lady whose great grandfather, Ulysses S. Grant, had been President of the United States. She also had a living grandfather on her mother's side who lived in New York City. I had no idea what his name was. However, one football weekend during my last year at West Point, her grandpa sent his car and chauffeur and granddaughter to pick me up at the Astor Hotel and drive me to Yankee Stadium to join the rest of the cadets for the game. I don't think I made any points either with the cadets or with the Commandant of Cadets when they saw me arriving in such style. After the game and after a night on the town, I took the young lady to grandpa's apartment in the wee hours of the morning. As we entered, I saw a bust in the hallway of a man with his hair combed forward onto his forehead and I asked in too loud a voice, "Who is the funny looking guy?" At that point, a light went on in the hallway and grandpa stepped out saying, "That funny-looking guy is me. My name is Elihu Root. How about some breakfast?" The name seemed to register. It should have. He had been Secretary of War under President McKinley and Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt.

On still another occasion, I happened to stop in the Orderly Room (office) of "A" Company one day when a call came through from a man saying that he wondered if there were two relatively tall cadets who would be free for the evening after a coming football game in New York. He had evidently done his homework because "A" and "M" Companies were the tallest in the Corps. He went on to explain that he had two relatively tall daughters and that he and his wife and daughters had tickets for the game and would like to be hosts for dinner after the game to two cadets. As it happened, neither my roommate - Thor Bengston - nor I had any commitments after the game, so we said, "Why not?" After the game, we met this delightful family and enjoyed a beautiful evening with them in a couple of New York's best spots. It turned out that the man who had called and who was our host was a Senior Vice President of E.I. Du Pont & Co. It is interesting to note that the two original Du Pont brothers were graduates of West Point. A few months later, just before graduation, when I found that I would be assigned to a forlorn little post called Fort Lincoln, North Dakota, as my first duty assignment (after the Battleship Wyoming), I wrote to my "friend" from Du Pont and asked for a job. He was apparently a very wise man. Otherwise, I suppose he wouldn't have been near the top of the heap at Du Pont. He wrote back that he felt that my application had something to do with my disappointment at my first duty assignment, but that if I would write to him again after one year, he would seriously consider my employment with Du Pont. Obviously, you know the rest of this story. I never wrote again, and I never met his daughters again.

Just before graduation in June 1932, the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy decided to try a new experiment. West Point would send three graduated cadets (2nd Lieutenants) on the annual midshipmens' cruise and Annapolis would send a like number of graduated midshipmen (ensigns) to some Army assignment. I was one of the three who volunteered for the midshipmens' cruise.

Originally, this was to be just an "observation" cruise insofar as we three were concerned. However, this was a period of time in the depth of the great depression and, in the very middle of our graduation furlough, which was to have lasted three months, the U.S. Government decided to cancel the remainder of our furlough in the interest of economy. We all received a telegram saying that we had the choice of remaining on furlough without pay or reporting to our first duty station immediately. My first duty station was the Battleship Wyoming, which was used for the midshipmens' cruise. Incidentally, that was the first U.S. Government promise to us which was broken. Our class of 1932 instituted a suit against the Government for the lost furlough pay, but to no avail. Other broken promises were to follow in the years ahead during those periods when the public became disenchanted with military preparedness. I will have a "reflexion" or two on that subject later on.

At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the day the cruise was to begin. I reported aboard the Wyoming to a young Lieutenant Commander named Baker, who said he had received a telegram from the Adjutant General of the Army to the effect that we were no longer to be considered as "observers," but, due to the so-called Economy Act of Congress, we were to be "put to work" during the cruise. Baker then told me that, in view of this directive, I would instruct a group of 30 midshipmen on such-and-such a deck the next morning on the "breech mechanism of the 5-inch gun." I laughed and said I had never seen a 5-inch gun. He laughed too, and said he had anticipated that comment, and he handed me a stack of instructional material on the 5-inch gun. I laughed again, and said it would soon be too dark for me to see the breech of the 5-inch gun. He said he had anticipated that too, and he handed me a flashlight.

Fortunately, the next morning, the group of midshipmen seemed to know or sense what was going on, and they made it very easy for me. As each day went on, I had a new group of midshipmen to instruct and I became quite proficient at my task. After about a week at sea, Baker stood behind me one morning and said, "That's quite good. Tomorrow morning you will instruct a group of midshipmen in the turrets of the 16-inch guns." I then realized that the Navy was having a lot of fun hazing an Army Lieutenant. But I took it in stride and actually enjoyed it.

I learned some 45 years later when I moved permanently to San Diego, California, that the Admiral Baker Golf Course in San Diego is named after this same Lieutenant Commander Baker who gave me such a hard but enjoyable time aboard the Wyoming. He must have loved golf, and despite the hazing, any guy that loves golf can't be all bad.

During this cruise we visited Ponta Delgado in the Azores for a few days and sort of "lived it up" ashore. We were originally scheduled to visit various ports in Europe, but at the last moment, the U.S. State Department decided that, since there was a "Peace Conference" in progress in Geneva or some place in Europe, it would be inappropriate for the U.S.S. Wyoming and its Midshipmen (and 3 Army Lieutenants) to possibly disrupt the peace of the world by touching the shores of Europe. Any "reflexion" I might make about that decision would probably insult your intelligence. All I can say is "What a laugh!"

After the Azores, we went back to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a few days and then took off into the teeth of one of the worst hurricanes in Western Atlantic history. I was told that we broke the world's battleship record for roll from side to side (39 degrees each way). I was quite seasick for several days despite the fact that I spent all my time high up in the fresh air on what they call the flag deck, eating nothing but oranges. From time to time I had to leave my perch to visit the toilet (the "head" in Navy terms) and in so doing, I had to pass through the wardroom (Navy term for officers' dining room). On one such visit, I saw four Naval officers sitting on the floor (deck) of the wardroom playing bridge, eating Hershey bars and smoking cigars. I just barely made it to the "head" before losing my oranges.

Reflexion: Some people are born to be sailors. Others are definitely not.

Toward the end of the cruise, after the hurricane was over, Captain Dutton informed the three Army Lieutenants that it was a Navy custom that all new members of the wardroom were expected to provide some form of entertainment to the rest of the officers after the last evening meal at sea. Whether this is actually a Navy custom or not, I don't know, but we accepted his word for it. Of the other two Lieutenants, I recall that Norman Ford, who later resigned from the Army and became a professional writer, composed a poem based upon the cruise. Dale Means, as I recall, composed and told some stories. Both were well received. We had the U.S. Naval Academy band aboard, so I borrowed a clarinet from the band. Having not touched a clarinet for some six years, it took me a couple of days to get accustomed to it again and to get the right tone out of it. On the appointed evening, I played two numbers: Aquellos Ojos Verdes (Those Green Eyes) and for an encore, La Paloma (the Dove) with the accompaniment of this very fine military band. Both numbers were quite simple and well suited to a clarinet solo. It was a great thrill for me and I think it went over quite well with the audience.

The experience of reporting to my first Army post after the Midshipman Cruise is possibly interesting enough to recount here. The Army post was Fort Lincoln, North Dakota. When I learned that this was to be my first duty station, I thought perhaps someone was pulling my leg. I had lived in North Dakota most of my life, and I had never heard of such a place. To my great disappointment, I found that it really did exist. It consisted of four red brick barracks on one side of a long parade ground, each housing an infantry company of about 200 men, nine or ten red brick officers' quarters on the other side of the parade ground, a headquarters building at one end, and various warehouses, stables, a Post Exchange, a movie theater, and a non-commissioned officers quarters in the background - a really forlorn looking little place sitting out there on the plains of central North Dakota. I guess there were about a dozen officers there, only one of whom was a West Pointer, named Clark Bailey, out of the class of 1924. This was certainly not his first duty post, but it was to be mine.

Just before graduation at West Point, we had all been thoroughly briefed as to the correct procedure for reporting to our first duty station. It was like the rules of Emily Post's book of etiquette. Everything had to be done exactly right. We were to present ourselves first to the Adjutant who would then present us to the Commanding Officer. We were to wear our Peale boots (from London) and our leather Sam Brown Belts, both well shined. We were to wear our officers' sabre, and we were to wear our parade yellow gloves. When presenting ourselves in this 'get-up' to the Adjutant, we were to salute and say, "Sir, Second Lieutenant so-and-so reporting for duty."

The Adjutant at Fort Lincoln at that time was an elderly (to me) pot-bellied, stoop-shouldered, cigar-chomping Captain named Connor. When I presented myself to him in the prescribed manner, I had never before heard such 'hootin' and hollerin' and peals of laughter. He called in all the personnel from the surrounding offices and said something to the effect, "Just look at this. Have you ever seen anything like this before?" It was my first experience of Army prejudice against West Pointers. I was to undergo a few more such experiences during my two years at Fort Lincoln, but very few thereafter. We read sometimes of the so-called "West Point Protective Society" in which West Pointers are alleged to stick together and to look without favor on non West Pointers. I never observed this and certainly never practiced it during my 30 years of military service, but I venture the observation that almost nothing has been written or told about the exact reverse - the prejudice in at least a few isolated places against West Pointers.

Anyway, the Adjutant finally ushered me into the presence of the Commanding Officer, a fine and kind old infantry Colonel named George Warren Harris. He treated me with respect and understanding during this first meeting, and he and his wife treated me almost like a son during the ensuing two years. In fact, a year later, I was married in his home.

Life at Fort Lincoln was dull in those days, to say the least. Everyone went thorough the motions of soldiering, but it wasn't real soldiering. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, to put it mildly, about national defense, with the result that we had no ammunition for rifle practice and, for a period, not even enough rifles to go around. Neither did we have any grenades for grenade practice. We did a little close order drill in the mornings and inspected the barracks. I frequently had to give a blackboard chalk talk to my company about small unit infantry tactics, about which I knew virtually nothing. Nobody would believe that this was not part of the curriculum at West Point. Luckily for me, some of the 45 and 50-year old non-commissioned officers who had served in World War I, gave me a little help on this subject. After lunch each day, nobody did much of anything. I asked my Captain one day what he would suggest I do in the afternoons. For lack of anything useful to do, he suggested that I read all the Army regulations from cover to cover. I think there must have been more than a dozen volumes of them. I guessed he was joking, but I never knew for sure and it didn't matter, because he never came to the orderly room after lunch anyway. Sometimes, we went out into the countryside for "maneuvers" against an imaginary enemy. It was pretty unrealistic. I didn't have any idea what I was supposed to do, but neither did anyone else, so I pretended I did, and apparently got away with it.

Fortunately, Colonel Harris finally made me the Post Exchange Officer and the Motion Picture Officer. This gave me a little more to do, at least in the area of paper work. We also had a very small band on the Post from which I was able to organize an orchestra. There was some fairly good talent among the band members and the orchestra was not all that bad. They played for Saturday night dances sometimes in the combination theater/gymnasium, and I finally got them a weekly spot on the Bismark radio station.

An event which I remember quite clearly was when I was shown my efficiency report at the end of my first year at Fort Lincoln. The aforementioned Army regulations clearly stated that all officers were to be compared only to other officers of equal grade and length of service when grading them. The grades were, from bottom to top, unsatisfactory, satisfactory, excellent and superior. I was quite amazed to read that I was merely satisfactory in every category, with the comment on the report that I showed considerable promise and could possibly be graded very satisfactory or even excellent after a few more years of service. I couldn't believe my eyes, but to argue with my superiors would have made matters even worse, so I held my tongue and my temper. Apparently, even good old Colonel Harris wasn't too familiar with Army regulations.

REFLEXION: It is a fact that life is not always fair, but it is sometimes advisable to use discretion as to whether to call public attention to it. (As you will note later, I disregarded this reflexion in two specific instances in subsequent years, somewhat to my sorrow.)
As I indicated before, my two years at Fort Lincoln were relatively uneventful, with one exception which I will explain shortly. During the first year, the only other bachelor on the Post - Clark Bailey - and I each had an upstairs room in one of the red brick officers' quarters. The rooms were sparsely furnished with a straight back chair, a desk and a G.I. (Government Issue) iron cot and bedding. When my parents first visited me they were somewhat taken aback by the Spartan nature of my living accommodations. They bought me an arm chair, a floor lamp and some curtains for the windows. I could hardly afford these luxuries myself on a total monthly paycheck of $113.00. An Army Sergeant and his wife occupied the ground floor. They took care of all the housekeeping and cooking for the household in return for the living quarters and a small monthly donation from Clark and me. We split the cost of the food between us.

I spent some of my spare time - and believe me, there was plenty of it - riding horses around the surrounding countryside and hunting prairie chickens, ducks and pheasants during the appropriate seasons. There was no such thing as television in those days. I rented a piano for, as I recall, about four or five dollars a month, which provided me with a certain amount of relaxation and pleasure, especially during the long, bitter cold, sometimes snowbound weekends in winter.

It was the piano which led me to visit the music store in Bismark rather frequently. It was a young lady in the music store named Helen House who led me to visit it even more frequently. She more or less managed the store. She was also quite an accomplished pianist, having spent one summer as a guest artist on tour with a nationally well known orchestra called Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. She and I were married in May of 1933 in the home of Colonel Harris. We went to the Chicago World's Fair in the early spring of 1934. While there, we went to the hotel where Fred Waring and his orchestra were playing nightly, and to the wonderment of all the patrons, we were given a most enthusiastic welcome by all the members of the orchestra. Soon after we returned to Fort Lincoln, Helen developed pneumonia and died within just a few days. She was buried in her home town of Grand Forks, North Dakota. She was a lovely young lady whose precious memory will remain with me for the rest of my life.