Reminiscences
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| From Leonard Lewis 6/13/00 The most vivid memories I have of ASTP are mostly incidents that stand out -- seemingly ordinary occurrences -- but ones that typify our lives in that chaotic time. Maybe the fact that they seemed ordinary made them special. The first occurred on the trip from Camp Crowder to Lincoln, Nebraska. Early in the morning (about 6:30) the train stopped at a little town (Union, Neb.) The train commander took us off the train, into formation, and marched us to the local church. The women had prepared a real country breakfast for us. We were treated like conquering heroes. The other memorable event took place at SUI. I remember the wrestling matches which our instructor would stage between Joe Cuba and Bob Rinehart, occasionally substituting Fred Ellerbusch in the mix. I remember Bob Rinehart on the rifle range. Steve Wright at the blackboard in Mr. Beck's classroom is an example I use to try to convince my grandsons that the human brain is the best computer ever devised. There's a TV commercial involving a jogger who has a brilliant idea, jogs up to a dumpster, finds a piece of chalk and starts with the problem; eventually he has the whole dumpster covered with his calculations. |
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| From Brock Corbin joejoe@sanjuan.net 4/23/00 I have a lot of memories but you couldn't publish most of them. I brought my civilian suit back after one break and left it at my girl friends home. On weekends I would be out of Uniform. I use to take the suit to Danceland and we would all take turns wearing it, those that were small enough to get it on. I had it on the weekend I took the movie and when I showed the movie to the guys, 2nd Lt. Silverman remarked, "who's the civilian" but nothing else was said. Anything to get out of uniform for a few min. or hours. I remember going Golfing one Afternoon without our shirts on and boy what a sunburn. I got some cream and put it on our backs and it turned sour fast. I'm not sure who made up the foursome but am pretty sure one was Merl Benning. He doesn't remember for sure but said he did go Golfing at SUI. This was the 2nd game I had ever played so I'm sure my score was plenty high. In 1959 I helped buid a Course here in Monticello, and my Father said I became a Golfaholic. I did get my handycap down to a 7 at one time. |
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| From: Vince Dowling evdowl@nemaine.com 01/19/00, 10:02 PM This bit of Iowa ASTP history involved me and perhaps would jog someone's memory. I came to the ASTP program from Fitzimmons Hospital in Denver where I was taking an Air Force training program for Xray Tech. Had just received a Congressional Appt as an alternate candidate to West Point from the State of Maine and continued taking a battery of tests to qualify. The local commanding officer at Iowa saw this in my records and decided to make me some kind of unit leader "for experience when you get to West Point", so I ran around barking hip, hop and attention for three months until they assigned some other guy. At that point I joined the goon squad because I had never had basic training and never learned manual of arms --- the commanding officer was shocked to find me in the goon squad. Some of the guys may remember the rookie who "led " the marching. Anyway, the principal candidate from Maine passed all the tests and I never did learn the basics but I guess the Air Force didn't care much for they took me back and let me fire my first 50 cal. at a Jap plane from an A-20 --- they had trained me in radio/radar mechanics but were short of gunners. And we won that war? |
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| From: Irv Brown, ibrown@snip.net 11/18/99, 7:38 PM This may be stale news by now, but the last issue of the Iowa Engineer (from the Iowa College of Engineering) reported that Aaron V. Donnelly had died in October '98. You may remember he was an assistant instructor who taught us radio communications. I remember that his hobby was hi-fi and he proudly demo'd his system to a few of us. (Remember, those were the monaural 78-rpm record days and speaker components were hardly what they are today. Still, he was very proud of the system he had built.) I also remember that he passed out some AM radio kits which we assembled and kept. |
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| From: George Abarr, Georgeabar@aol.com 11/11/99, 12:29 PM These two memories in particular that may jog some thoughts on the part of a few of our members. I was assigned to SUI from Lincon, NE along with many,many others. We arrived at Iowa City in the wee hours of the night and , needless to say, were BONE tired. We were sent to an auditorium for temporary quarters where we found that our cots had been made up by a previously arrived class.... for which we were all very thankful. However, in just moments there were heard howls of anger and distress when we found the about a third of the cots had been 'shortsheeted'..... Moan, moan ! This created great joy on the part of the perpetrators I 'm sure. The next event was about the midterm when on a Saturday night, we were pretty much settled in the movie house with our dates, or without,, when we were hit with a massive dose of food poisoning. I remember heading for the 'head' to find it backed up, so, I left the theatre and ran toward my home frat about a mile down the street where I was able to spend the rest of the night in torture..... The funniest story was of one of my fellow ASTPer who headed for his frat which was across the river... When he realized he couldn't make it to the frat, He detoured into a park area, dropping his pants on the way, and squatted down next to a Navy Cadet who was stretched out in the grass with his date...... Nothing else had to be said. Any way, it was publicized the next day that a contaminated pot was found that was blamed for the food poisoning... Who knows. Many thanks for the efforts you have put into this venture. I have been able to contact Rudy Lenich who became a great friend at Truax Field in Madison,WI, where we both ended up as Instructors in the radio school.... He actually kept a diary and has been able to recount many of our week end jaunts around Wisconsin and Illinois. |
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| From: Anthony Benz, seven77@fuse.net Sep 14, 1999, 1:14 PM Numbers refer to Photo of Corbin's Barracks Mates # 12 is Urban Telsmeyer from Cincinnati. His wife visited him at Iowa.....a beautiful woman.....a few months later he received a Dear John letter.....2 years later I met him on a street corner in downtown Cincinnati.....a forlorn, dejected person. # 2 is Whitney.....one of my roommates in the Theta Xi frat house along with Quentin Conley. Whitney was famous on campus and even had a dog named after him. The dog was a beautiful cocker spaniel.....white with beautiful light brown spots on it and a beautiful light brown nose. Whitney was famous for his penchant for getting in good with the professors # 3 is Bill Quinn.....the fastest thing on 2 legs. I can't identify Conley on the picture but I have got to tell you this. When he drank.....which was often.....he collected things.....like salt and pepper shakers, beer glasses, hard boiled eggs, signs,etc.. An army overcoat would hold an amazing amount of collectibles. He was not overly fond of Whitney.....mostly because Whitney would be your best friend when you got a package from home but when he got one he would hide it and open it when no one else was around. I am not sure but I think he was the one that named the dog Whitney. He would frequently say ask Old Hose Nose cause Hose Nose knows. Most Saturday nights when he would come home he would empty his collectibles on his or Whitney's bunk. I think his favorite was keep off the grass signs. he liked to put them on Whitney's bunk. I will never forget the night he came home with 2 or 3 keep off the grass signs, (1) 2'x4' sign announcing a dance and the dog named Whitney and tried to put them all on Whitney's bunk.....the top bunk over his.....what a riot. My last view of Conley was as we were leaving Iowa in an army truck and driving through the square. There was Conley and a taxi driver in some kind of an altercation and I think from the way it looked, Conley was trying to collect the taxi sign from the top of the taxi. |
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OFFICE THE CADET COMPANY June 12 1943 SUBJECT: Complaints and Suggestions of Enlisted Personnel.
Inquiry is made as to the possibility of setting up a company fund for the purchase and stockage of these items,
purchase to be made from some Army post.
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