Page:My 1102 days of wwii.djvu/39

 There we were told to stand by until they received our reports on the physicals. When these arrived three of us had not passed and I was one of them, and to this day I don't know why. I was relieved knowing that I did not have to go through that again, at least not for the present.

When I told my company commander (a second lieutenant) what I had done to have the doctors perform the physicals, immediately he became nervous and shaky at the very thought of an enlisted man going to the Captain of the base to solve his problem. (Normally, one must go through proper channels with a request of this nature.)

After eight hectic days of being pushed around, I had it pretty soft from then on. Two other Chiefs and I were put in charge of a large barrack holding about a hundred young men just out of boot camp. These were being held back for correction of some medical defect, mostly bad teeth, before being assigned to an outfit. We took turns in going down each morning at 0800 to call muster (roll call), march them up to the drill field and turn them over to some work detail. Usually our work for the day was over other than seeing that the men kept the building shipshape. I had several requests to take other jobs on the base, but I was short of only a few "points" to be eligible for discharge, and in this case they had rather not use me. This suited me fine!