[Granville-Hough] 3 Feb 2010 - Army Time (Version II)

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:14:29 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Army Time  (Version II) - 3 Feb 2010

SULLIVANÆS HOLLOW TO WEST POINT.

I did not start out with great ambitions to be a Regular Army Officer. I 
did not often think about it nor did I particularly prepare for it. Two 
of my uncles, Tom and Jim Richardson, who were WW I veterans and who 
observed that I did well in school, suggested that I think about it and 
seek an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. 
My first efforts indicated two problem areas. I had never had 
trigonomety (not offered in my high school); and I had no birth 
certificate. In my first semester at Mississippi State University, I 
took a course called Solid Mensuration, which substituted for 
trigonometry, which could not be taught there as it was a high school 
subject. I also was able to file for a delayed birth certificate which I 
obtained. So I completed the basic requirements during my first year in 
college.

I kept in contact with Senator Theo G. Bilbo, and with the help of 
another uncle, Luke Richardson, was able to get a second alternate 
appointment, which required I take the physical examination at an Army 
Hospital on Lake Ponchartrain in New Orleans. I took this examination in 
January 1943 and failed it because I was diagnosed as having ôarterial 
schlerosis.ö I was somewhat relieved as I had already worked out another 
arrangement for focusing my college education toward a career in 
forestry. I had been the second student at Mississippi State to enroll 
in that program, and I was very much interested in it.

My introduction to military thinking came in September, 1941, when I 
enrolled in the required course in R. O. T. C. (Reserve Officer Training 
Corps). I showed up for the first class, not in uniform, and got 
thoroughly disciplined by the PMS&T (Professor of Military Science and 
Tactics). But I persevered and did well in the two years of that 
training. In December, 1941, we learned of the attack at Pearl Harbor, 
and we all had to adjust our thinking. I wanted to complete my two years 
in pre-forestry, and sought ways to do that. In November 1942, just 
before I was of draft age, I joined the Enlisted Reserve, which meant I 
would stay in college until there were vacancies in the training camps. 
There were vacancies in April, 1943, and we were called to active duty. 
We were processed through Camp Shelby, near Hattiesburg, MS, and sent to 
a Replacement Training Center at Fort McClellan, near Anniston, AL. I 
was assigned to a Heavy Weapons Company and was promoted to platoon 
guide. About the time we completed our training, I was called by Uncle 
Ehrman McAlpin in Magee, who told me that the Army wanted me to retake 
the physical exam for West Point at the nearest Army Hospital. There was 
such a hospital at Fort McClellan, so I checked in there for 
re-examination. They found nothing wrong with me or my arteries, so I 
was actually discharged from the Army and given a ticket to West Point. 
I arrived there on 3 Jul 1943 and reported in as soon as it was daylight.

So far as I know, the first West Point graduate I ever talked to was the 
officer who enlisted me back into the Army as a Cadet. At that point I 
changed my name from Granvil to Granville, and so it remained. As best I 
could, I tried to change my career from forestry to military. I worked 
hard at that task for three years. I did not care for the West Point 
competitive approach to academic work, and did not do as well as I had 
done previously. When the opportunity came for flight training, I joined 
that group and learned to fly. I did not like flying, and managed to get 
eliminated so I could join my ground buddies at Fort Benning for 1945 
summer training. We all expected to be platoon leaders in the invasion 
of Japan and focused on that mission. Then the war came to an end, and I 
decided in my last year, to join the Artillery, rather than the 
Infantry. So I graduated in June, 1946 as a Second Lieutenant in 
Artillery. My Mississippi State friends who were with me at Fort 
McClellan had mostly become 1st Lieutenants and Captains in Infantry by 
that time.

We were sent to Fort Sill, OK, for Artillery Branch training and 
completed a 10 month course, the final part at Fort Bliss, TX. The main 
event of this course was that I met Carol Louise Steckelberg at Oklahoma 
State College for Women at Chickasha, OK, and we were married in Jan 
1947. Then I went overseas to Korea in June, 1947, where I was assigned 
to the 48th Field Artillery, 7th Division, 24th Corps. It did not take 
me long to realize that all was not well with the army. We were in the 
midst of demobilization, and soon we were down to 5 enlisted men and 1 
officer, me. Even so, we had duties assigned which must have assumed we 
had a normal complement of 5 officers and 136 enlisted men. This went on 
until we got some replacements, the last of those ever drafted for WW 
II. My wife became ill and I was able to return to the United States on 
compassionate leave in Spring 1948. I can understand why the North 
Koreans thought they could walk over all of South Korea and take it. 
They could and almost did. While there, I never had a conscious thought 
that General Douglas MacArthur was overall Commander of the Far East. 
(His biographers have insisted that he turned Korea over to the State 
Department, which ran it like a satrapy, independent of anything 
MacArthur wanted.) It certainly seemed that way.

Back in the States, I was assigned to Fort Sill School Troops and to the 
969th FA Bn. This battalion of black soldiers were not doing field 
artillery work when I joined them. The post transportation unit had been 
given temporary duty to support maneuvers and training in Louisiana, so 
the 969th had been selected to be the temporary transportation unit for 
Fort Sill. So we drove trucks and did all the things transportation 
units in the Quartermaster Corps were accustomed to doing. (Someone at a 
planning staff level had probably heard of the Red Ball Express in 
Europe, which was a black unit, and assumed that any black soldier could 
drive trucks and deliver goods.) We made do with what we had and 
actually functioned for about six months in 1948 without a ôreportedö 
accident. Then we converted back to field artillery and provided the 
batteries firing for students in the Field Artillery School. There was a 
shortage of officers at Fort Sill, and someone had to be Safety Officer 
for any firing of artillery. I believe I performed that function 32 
times during my 18 months in School Troops. We also took part in 
developing a new method for adjusting fire and massing fire from 
multiple batteries. Toward the end of my time at Fort Sill, I became a 
Communications Officer and served briefly with the 1st Field Artillery 
Observation Battalion.

In the summer of 1949, I asked for duty in Puerto Rico with the 504th 
Field Artillery Bn. It was one place I could go and take my family (wife 
and son). We were stationed at Fort Bundy, at the eastern end of Puerto 
Rico, actually a WW II Coast Artillery Defense of Roosevelt Roads. 
(Roosevelt Roads was the WW II designated refuge for the British Fleet 
in case Britain fell into German hands.) We spent about three months on 
Vieques Island, preparing for and taking part in the maneuvers known as 
ôOperation Portrex.ö We of the Antilles Command were the enemy and 
actually wore Russian style uniforms during the maneuvers. As most of 
our units were Puerto Rican and Spanish-speaking, we were able to give 
an effective performance. I was a Major Liason Officer with the 65th 
Infantry, which had some other name for the maneuvers.

As soon as we finished the maneuvers, our Battalion was told we were 
needed in Panama Canal Zone as the direct support for the infantry 
regiment stationed there. We were to go to Fort Kobbe on the Pacific 
side of the isthmus. We were told to pack everything, guns, trucks, 
household goods, soldiers, men, women, and children. This we did, and 
departed on transport ships Easter week from San Juan.
We landed on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone, then crossed the 
isthmus by train. We had a bad trip by train, as all the children came 
down with diaarhea at the same time. We ran out of diapers, paper 
towels, toilet paper, handkerchiefs, and anything else we could use. We 
thought we would lose some of the children, but they all came through. 
We arrived at Fort Kobbe, got our quarters assignment, and began to 
settle in.

Shortly afterwards in 1950, the Korean War began, and the 65th Infantry 
was immediately sent from Puerto Rico. We in the 504th went on alert to 
guard the Panama Canal, taking turns doing sentry duty on the locks, and 
training in between. Actually, the training was one of the high points 
of my Army Career. The Puerto Rican soldiers were intelligent and highly 
motivated. They were all high school graduates, fluent in English and 
Spanish. We were ready to go to Korea, but we stayed on the Canal. I was 
promoted to Captain, served as Battery Commander, and Carol and I had 
our second child. Then we went back to Fort Sill to attend the Advanced 
Artillery Course in the summer of 1952.

When the Advanced Course ended in 1953, I took stock of my seven years 
of commissioned service and opted for graduate school rather than combat 
service in Korea. After all, I had already been to Korea and had seen 
firsthand how expendable one could be so remote from Washington. We now 
had another son. I was fully aware that graduate school might well limit 
my chances for advancement. I wanted to study journalism at the 
University of Missouri, English being my best subject at West Point, but 
put in an alternate choice for Mechanical Engineering at USC, though 
engineering was my worst subject. Of course, I got USC and Mechanical 
Engineering, which pleased Carol my wife as she had a favorite aunt in 
Los Angeles. So we spent two years in Southern California and had 
another child, to give us four in all. And I did get a Masters Degree in 
Mechanical Engineering, which slated me for assignment to Fort Bliss, 
TX, to the faculty of the Air Defense School. There I was a teacher and 
researcher for three years, working on problems of the Nike Ajax Air 
Defense Missile System. El Paso was not a healthy climate for my family, 
and Carol became slightly anemic. She was routinely given two blood 
transfusions, one in the William Beaumont Army Hospital, and one in the 
El Paso General Hospital. From one of these transfusions, she developed 
Hepatitus C, which would severely impact our lives as family members.

 >From Fort Bliss we went to Fort Leavenworth, KS, where I completed the 
Command and General Staff School in 1958-59. At the end of that year, I 
took a special course which qualified me as a Nuclear Effects Officer. 
So I became well aware of the ranges of different levels of physical 
damage from weapons of different explosive power, but less well aware of 
the types of illnesses and physical ailments one could suffer at much 
greater ranges. It is quite probable that the Army tables and distances 
I used were much modified after the Russian disaster at Chernobyl. Even 
without that I was highly aware of what could happen while I was Deputy 
Air Defense Commander of the Boston/Providence Sector with nuclear 
weapons under my command.

 >From Fort Leavenworth, we went in 1959 to Arlington, VA, and I got to 
see and walk into the Pentagon for the first time in my career. I became 
the Army Intelligence analyst for Soviet Air Defense Missiles, studying 
photographic and communications intelligence on their activities. In 
this work, I was able to identify Soviet air defenses in various parts 
of the Soviet Union and to locate suspected developments. My most 
successful effort was to give the coordinates of what turned out to be a 
major development area for defenses against ballistic missiles and 
orbiting space objects. For this work in Spring, 1960, I received my 
highest decoration, the Legion of Merit, one of seven awarded in the 
Army that year.

When I finished my Pentagon tour in 1962, I was assigned to Thule, 
Greenland, rather than Vietnam. Because of my work in aerial and 
satellite reconaissance of the Soviet Union, I was considered too great 
a risk for possible capture in Vietnam. That was fine with me, as I had 
attended many high level briefings on Vietnam and believed we had 
drifted into that fracas for the wrong reasons. My family went back to 
El Paso, where we still had a house.

So I spent my 40th birthday in 1962 in Thule, where the North Star was 
straight up. For those not familiar with Cold War activities, we were in 
Thule to protect the BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System) 
radar system. It was a huge structure facing toward the Soviet Union. It 
kept track of all space objects. As the Logistics Officer for our 
Artillery Group, I was able to close out the WW II Army accounts for 
Iceland, then for Newfoundland. It was not anything significant, but I 
thought 17 years after the war ended was time enough. One of my duties 
was that of Fire Marshall, and I was the first one on record not to lose 
a building to fire. Another interesting thing I did was dispose of 
unwanted Nike Ajax equipment. (The shipping season for Thule is very 
short, a few weeks, and for three summers Nike Ajax equipment had been 
shipped to Thule. Then the decision was made to deploy Nike Hercules 
equipment, instead. So we had warehouses of the obsolete Nike Ajax 
equipment.) When I inquired through channels on what to do with it, I 
got back the reply: ôDestroy it!ö That is a message I confirmed, then 
decided what to do. When the ocean froze over, we loaded dump trucks 
with the Nike Ajax equipment, then drove out in the ocean and dumped the 
loads on the frozen surface. When the ocean thawed, down went the Nike 
Ajax equipment.

 >From this tour in Greenland I returned in 1963 and moved my family to 
Cohasset, MA, where I became commander of the Nike Hercules Air Defense 
Battalion, and Deputy Defense Commander for that Boston/Providence 
sector of the United States. We also had National Guard Nike Ajax 
(units) under our command. When I completed this one-year tour of duty, 
I was sent to the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) in 
Washington, D. C. While at ICAF, I was also able to complete a MasterÆs 
Degree in Business from George Washington University. I wanted this 
degree because I had decided in Thule that I would seek another career. 
My wife Carol was getting sicker each year, and doctors could not 
determine why. (Hepatitus C was not diagnosed and distinguished from 
Hepatitus A and B until about 1975. By that time, CarolÆs liver was 
malfunctioning so badly that anyone who knew her would have said she had 
ôYellow Jaundice,ö the old name for hepatitus.)

After ICAF, I was assigned in 1965 to the Defense Intelligence Agency, 
where I served until I retired 1 Jan 1968. I was Project Manager for the 
Air Defense intelligence work, chaired intelligence committees, and 
worked on National Intelligence Estimates. During the time, I completed 
the academic work for a PhD in Public Administration at American 
University in Washington, D. C. On retirement, I worked on my 
dissertation and investigated possible teaching positions. I started 
teaching Project Management at California State University in Sep 1968. 
I completed and defended my dissertation in 1969 and received my PhD. I 
taught business management until June 1992. I was subject to recall into 
active army service until I was 62 years of age, but there were plenty 
of younger men available.

I was not the first SullivanÆs Hollow lad to go to West Point. à