LIFE AS A SPECIALIST page 5
Fort Knox, on Saturday, Oct. 17, 1942:
“Today we received our grades on a stiff exam we took on Wednesday and my mark was a good one. Today we received invitations as for enclosed.
“Then we sign our last payroll as an enlisted man and after that our discharge papers as an enlisted man. We received our ‘preference’ sheet as to where we would like to go and I’m classified as a ‘Specialist’ in Motor Maintenance’.
“Tomorrow we get inspected wearing our uniform, by Majors and Colonels, to see if our clothes fit. Then there’s a talk we are to receive by the General of this place.
“This all seems like a fairy tale. After all of the hard work that has been put in, there’s a sight at the end. There will be no slouching on my part as this thing is brought to a successful conclusion.”
I never knew my dad or anyone in his family to be very keen or interested in motors -- internal combustion engines, diesels, nor hydraulics. He took his salesman’s car, a Chrysler with a big trunk, over to gas up and have the oil checked at the Berwood Standard gas station, on the borderline between Berkley and Huntington Woods, where we lived in Michigan. The tune-ups, as they were called in that era, were done at the dealership in Royal Oak. That Abe was classified as a Motor Maintenance Specialist by the Army is surprising. Yes, before enlisting he owned his own car, but I don’t believe he loved it or knew exactly what made it run. And certainly, after his Army days, he never even checked or changed the oil in any of his automobiles.
Yet the U.S. Army slotted him, at least temporarily as a Specialist in Motor Maintenance, and off he went, to where the action was, to Europe.
Until Feb. 2, 1944, Abe's longest and only saltwater sea voyage was the nickel ferry ride he took from lower Manhattan to Staten Island. On that Wednesday in 1944, fully four months before D Day, he was on a troop ship he thought was bound for an unknown destination and wrote home:
“The sea has been very rough for the past 24 hours. We are somewhere in the Atlantic and it is getting warmer as we progress. Each time the tables were set, the boat would sway and everything in the dining room was on the floor. As a result, this was solved by us eating cafeteria style, from individual trays. There is an officer lounge from which this is being written as the boat is swaying very much.
ABOVE: The invitation to the O.C.S Graduation Exercises - where after ninety days of classroom and field training, Abe Sacks officially became Lieutenant Sacks.
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"This is the first V-Mail to be written. It is the first letter since I left the States. Am at a loss. There’s so much I can write about, but must not. By the time this is recv’d, you’ll have been notified as to my whereabouts.
“Life aboard is not bad for an officer. We are in small rooms. There are 12 in mine, with triple berths. I occupy the one on top. We eat twice a day, it is better that way. There are showers across the hall from us. This is a new type of boat and is okay. The officers are allowed on the upper decks. The enlisted man is not so fortunate as the officers.”
Twenty-five days later, on Feb. 27, a surprised Lt. Abe, proudly wrote home:
“Here we are in Italy. Arrived here after an air trip.”
(Their troop ship had first landed in North Africa.)
“You don’t have to be told what this place is, or what we are here for. We might be here for a day, week or month and then right into the fireworks.”
Three months later, the first lieutenant, the army designated as a Motor Maintenance Specialist, was now running the PX, the Army Post Exchange store. Somebody must have discovered he had “been in retail” before enlisting.
May 26, 1944 – twelve days before D-Day:
“Our place was closed, no merchandise to sell. We stock up tomorrow for the next 2 weeks.”
Remember those fine Italian leather gloves we found stashed among Abe’s letters and discharge papers?
“While downtown this AM, I stopped into this glove manufacturer. I had a proposition for him. It was to put a case of his merchandise in at the PX. He starts business in the next few days. In addition to the post exchange goods there is jewelry, perfumes and gloves here. Just one more good item and I’ll be able to brag of seven figures annually. I’m custodian of this dough.”
Then on June 6,1944 he had something else to write home about:
“Today is a day that will live forever with us in Italy. You talk to anyone after the Invasion Announcement was made over the Public Address System this AM. Everyone here took a sigh of relief. It seems as if the boys hang around the radio continuously.
“In Rome, there were parties and people were half crazy. God only knows what the outcome will be. We here all prayed for and early victory.”
But victory in Europe was almost a year away, and the war went on. The Motor Maintenance Specialist turned PX shopkeeper passed the auditor’s scrutiny. To be fair, Abe knew the principals of the retail business before he enlisted:
"Sell quality merchandise and treat your customers right."
But what of all the studying and training that went into becoming an officer, even if it only took ninety days?
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"This is the first V-Mail to be written. It is the first letter since I left the States. Am at a loss. There’s so much I can write about, but must not. By the time this is recv’d, you’ll have been notified as to my whereabouts.
“Life aboard is not bad for an officer. We are in small rooms. There are 12 in mine, with triple berths. I occupy the one on top. We eat twice a day, it is better that way. There are showers across the hall from us. This is a new type of boat and is okay. The officers are allowed on the upper decks. The enlisted man is not so fortunate as the officers.”
Twenty-five days later, on Feb. 27, a surprised Lt. Abe, proudly wrote home:
“Here we are in Italy. Arrived here after an air trip.”
(Their troop ship had first landed in North Africa.)
“You don’t have to be told what this place is, or what we are here for. We might be here for a day, week or month and then right into the fireworks.”
Three months later, the first lieutenant, the army designated as a Motor Maintenance Specialist, was now running the PX, the Army Post Exchange store. Somebody must have discovered he had “been in retail” before enlisting.
May 26, 1944 – twelve days before D-Day:
“Our place was closed, no merchandise to sell. We stock up tomorrow for the next 2 weeks.”
Remember those fine Italian leather gloves we found stashed among Abe’s letters and discharge papers?
“While downtown this AM, I stopped into this glove manufacturer. I had a proposition for him. It was to put a case of his merchandise in at the PX. He starts business in the next few days. In addition to the post exchange goods there is jewelry, perfumes and gloves here. Just one more good item and I’ll be able to brag of seven figures annually. I’m custodian of this dough.”
Then on June 6,1944 he had something else to write home about:
“Today is a day that will live forever with us in Italy. You talk to anyone after the Invasion Announcement was made over the Public Address System this AM. Everyone here took a sigh of relief. It seems as if the boys hang around the radio continuously.
“In Rome, there were parties and people were half crazy. God only knows what the outcome will be. We here all prayed for and early victory.”
But victory in Europe was almost a year away, and the war went on. The Motor Maintenance Specialist turned PX shopkeeper passed the auditor’s scrutiny. To be fair, Abe knew the principals of the retail business before he enlisted:
"Sell quality merchandise and treat your customers right."
But what of all the studying and training that went into becoming an officer, even if it only took ninety days?