Chapman, Robert
Stories
1
Chapters
15
Words
46.9 K
Comments
0
Reading
3 h, 54 m
After I had been at Oliver General Hospital for one month, the time came for me to appear before the Army Retirement Board. This was the board of officers who were to determine whether I was to be released from the Army or discharged from the hospital and sent back to active duty. For the past six months I had been going through the regular channels to get before this board. Ever since I had been declared a Zone of Interior patient back in Soissons, France, I had been making my way slowly to this decisive…- 46.9 K • Completed
- After about forty days of my leave had passed, I was ready to wire the War Department and request that they cancel the rest of my leave and order me back to the hospital. Forty days of cooking, washing diapers, feeding babies, keeping house, and doing the family shopping had just about done me in. I was needing some rest, so I began looking forward to my return to the hospital as though it were going to be a vacation. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not insinuating that my stay at home was not pleasant. It…
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- As you can see, it took me quite a while to get things arranged at the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, before I could start on my long-desired and eagerly awaited trip home. But at last the ordeal was over and I went to the local bus station to catch the first bus they had for Alabama. I arrived at the bus station at one-thirty in the morning. I was very fortunate, I thought, in that the next bus for Alabama was scheduled to leave at two o’clock. It left at four and I was on it. We got to Montgomery…
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- Coming back to Paris was almost like coming back home. I had been there so many times, and had been free to wander over the city so much of the time I was there, that I had become rather familiar with the city and had made some friends among the natives. The people at the Red Cross Clubs had gotten to the point where they could set their clocks by my coming and going. But I have an idea that they were beginning to think I was A.W.O.L. because I was free so much of my time. On this particular trip to…
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- As soon as I reached the hospital at Soissons, I was taken to the admitting office. I sat in this office for two hours, waiting for my turn to be examined. I surely was thankful there wasn’t anything seriously wrong with me. I think a person could go on and die while waiting to see the doctor in one of these offices. When I finally got inside for my interview with the admitting officer, I discovered that he was a captain whose duty it was to question all the patients as to the nature of their illness and…
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- I packed my bags once more, had my money changed from German marks back to French francs, picked up my orders, signed out, bade farewell to Germany, and went out to the airfield and boarded the plane. I went through these motions automatically. I had made so many moves since coming to Europe that moving had become a habit. And I was beginning to think that the Romans had had it all wrong. All roads didn’t lead to Rome. They all led to Paris. No matter where I went, it seemed that sooner or later I would…
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- It happened to be my luck to get assigned to the Ninth Service Command, whose headquarters were located in Luxemburg. Four other chaplains drew the same assignment. So early one morning we were taken out to the airfield, where we loaded all our gear on a C-47 for our flight to this new job. Of course, we knew that this would be just another stopover for us, as this was another headquarters and we knew that we would not be assigned permanently to any headquarters outfit. Headquarters assignments were too…
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- What would you say if someone were to come up to you and ask you if you would like to have a two-weeks’ trip to Paris with all expenses paid? You needn’t answer; I know what you would say. Well, that is about what happened to me. I tried for two years to get overseas. At long last my chance came, and when it did come it came with a bang. As I have told you, I was sent off in such a rush that I hardly had time to get my family home. Things happened in such a hurry that I was sure that I was being sent…
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- After much delay, during which time we stood in the hot sun with heavy packs and winter uniforms, the Transportation Corps in Greenock finally secured our rail transportation to Camp Stone, England. As commanding officer of our group, I was given the transportation-request sheet, which was the only ticket our group had. When I got my first sight of one of those English trains, I knew my troubles were just beginning. Each train car is divided into several separate compartments, each accommodating about…
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- About the time I was getting ready to go overseas, a certain cigarette was using as an advertising slogan the initials “L.S. . . . M.F.T.” For those of us who sat waiting in the port of embarkation (“P.O.E.”) this slogan, with a little change in the initials, expressed our feelings. We went around cheering each other with the singsong phrase “T.S. . . . P.O.E.” Regardless of how much I had wanted to go overseas, when I came to the point where I was actually to board a ship, my knees felt…
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