Captain America Bike Jersey
To combat Hitler
Grandma Annie, who often took me shopping in preschool and grammar school days, twice led me to walk adjacent to the synagogue for Friday evening services, called shool in Yiddish. My impression was that she attended frequently and was the only one my family, that could be considered religious. I remember only a few services were present and seemed to all grandparents, no doubt the other kids. I was very taken by the service, and comforted by their prayers, singing by the singer, the response of participants, and perhaps a sermon and organ music. I never attended a synagogue again, until, acceding to the wishes of some fellow Jews, I was on holidays, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, one or two times during my years graduate of MIT.
When I was a preschooler a buddy asked me if I was Jewish. Nobody ever asked me that. My mother heard me say: "I I do not know. "She did it in a familiar joke, repeated a few times to the great pleasure of relatives. A few years later I studied a little Hebrew, in anticipation of an alleged bar mitzvah, including some private lessons for me and a cousin my age. When I was not thrilled with the tuition teacher, my mother stopped the process and have never been a bar mitzvah. I certainly was not converted to the religion of any such experiences.
What I have been deeply involved discussions during dinner between mother, father, Annie, Uncle Eddie, Grandpa Max, and sometimes other people about what was happening to the Jews in Germany. Mostly I listened. About dining table, Hitler and his gang were discussed as archvillains, the greater evil in the world. Each piece of national and international news was analyzed as to whether it was good for the Jews or bad for the Jews. Much of the news available in the U.S. was drafted. I was ten years before he came to me I'd have to fight the Germans someday. When I came home from school in fourth grade, the first time with two colleagues, David Haggerty and Heinz Moes, the war was still years away. Heinz had an accent German and was smaller than me. I started pushing him around. David did nothing. I soon realized I was bullying Heinz, not Adolf Hitler, and I gave up. I got along Heinz fine with later.
My grandparents on my mother's side, Max and Annie, had emigrated separately from the Austro-Hungarian empire, Annie not far from Vienna Max over Hungary today. They came through Ellis Island in the early1890s, he worked his way out of the Lower East Side of New York City, he loved America and were very patriotic, especially Max, who had unsuccessfully tried to enlist in the Spanish-American war. I remember him taking me to see a Memorial Day parade in the year 1930 or close. In a moment he was very excited when he spotted a small contingent of old soldiers, rather than ambling marching. "I do not know any of these guys were still alive." They were Civil War veterans. Much later I discovered that I had to be at least eighty years old, roughly the same age I am now.
My father father, Kay Wolf, came at the same time from Russia to London, where he worked for some years, learning the business of tailoring. All my grandparents left the country of age to prevent massacres and military projects. A word on names: My parents and grandparents were Yiddish given names by their parents before they embraced American (English, for example) names when needed in the U.S. Not true in my generation. Americans were 100 percent. I never even learned Yiddish, partly because my family the language used to talk over the heads of children. Well, let them do that, it was my reaction. I'll never learn their language changes. So there!
When I was nine or ten years, Max decided to return to his relatives and to assess the situation in Eastern Europe. I was excited by the prospect. There was some discussion your taking me with him. He decided against it. When he returned from Europe, in my ear, said little about what he witnessed. He had traveled around a bit, including going to risk Germany, the belly of the beast. I heard him say with great sadness in his voice that the situation was "much worse" than he expected.
When I entered MIT in autumn 1942, the warming effect of the Second World War was emerging in many different ways. First, the MIT was on a schedule throughout the year, three semesters per year instead of two. Then ROTC became mandatory for most students. Colleagues were beginning to volunteer for military service, with a greater chance of achieve a better allocation of waiting to be called in the project. At sixteen, I could not appeal unless I lied about my age, I would not do.
More life-changing developments followed. In one issue of The Tech, MIT a free weekly newspaper, said a title that was not true the rumor the military was going to take over the campus. In next week's edition, the headline is very clear: No ifs, ands, or buts, all the dorms on campus and the diner had to be vacated within a week to let the army move in on campus student rooming We immediately began looking for space rented. We divided into groups that took half a day off and go in different directions, working all the possibilities. Me and about five others decided to move to a pension Massachusetts Avenue, one mile north of MIT. Hyman Fisher and I doubled in quarter.
So, we both found a place further north. Distance does not was so important. We were cycling until then and, later, my father, knowing I was going to be drafted in a year or so, gave me a used Plymouth coupe. With gasoline severely rationed, I used only occasionally. The place we found was near a couple of cheap restaurants and more near Radcliffe.
With all this, we maintain contact with our studies. In addition, each night, second or third for a year or so, I ambled over to Eliot Hall at Radcliffe where my work was not so pressing. Did not have sisters and do not understand a lot of women, I learned a lot, made friends, had a few dates, and sometimes got into a game of bridge. Occasionally, they were invited illustrious and brilliant, even eloquent, talking about almost all topics of interest. I loved the nights.
I received three postponements of six months which allowed me to complete the first semester of my junior year and a few weeks in the second half, when I had to report to my draft board house in Maplewood, New Jersey, which needed meet their quota of recruits each month.
There was introduced in early August 1944. Sick at home, I have an extension of a month. I was obliged to show up an arsenal in Newark a month later. The scheme was a little confusion when I arrived at the armory, and after some kind of guidance about what would happen in the coming days, we were told to go home and come back early the next day. I was called aside by someone who knew my father (who was then a captain the New Jersey State Guard), who told me that I could do me a favor and in the Navy. Most guys would have preferred the Navy on the theory that you would not spend days and nights in muddy trenches. I do not, because I had a greater fear of drowning than spending days in a trench. Also, I had to say goodbye so much I do not want to go home at night. I told them I was staying there. They gave me a meal. I'm an eater very flexible, but that was ridiculous slop.
After I finished some way that I said I was leaving for a while. That was no problem. What I really did was take a walk twenty minutes to Max and Annie's house, place in East Orange, where I lived for eight years of age 4-11 years. I look surprised. I figured that was the only time I've spent with the two without other relatives, especially my mother's present. I do not remember a thing he said, which no longer felt like an adult, then I've done with the family around. It was a very nice way to say goodbye. I returned to the arsenal. Both lived a decade or two more, but I never saw them together at home without others around. It had been a unique and precious moment in my life.
The next morning, the recruits were sworn in and sent by train to Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for basic infantry training. The orientation of the first day included a difficult conversation. "You're all young and full of piss and vinegar," and advice: If you get a erection very disturbing to deal with "Put it on the window ledge and knocks down." Clearly military life was going to be blunt and hard.
There some things that all soldiers of World War II seemed to learn in their first days of training and kept forever, unless they become commissioned officers. Here is the the wisdom of years of militarism: (1) If the sergeant was about to explain something, he began with: "There are two ways of doing things: the right way and Army Way. "Lesson: It was supposed to be a joke, but it was not. (2) If the sergeant who had asked for some special skills, like mathematics … Joke: "Well, nobody is good at math?" No answer. He looked around in disgust. He was not fooled anyone. He countered: "The police on the ground. Each soldier gets thirty pieces of paper, cigarette butts, or any other junk … if you can tell. Map to the hilt. "When you hit the body with his thirty pieces, he does not even look at your collection, just pointed to the garbage barrel. You're so stupid to think the cable wanted the trash? The lesson that follow: "Never volunteer." (3) come in line to be ready to march for training can be done at a speed twice. So we stayed there, waiting for something, maybe the next time show or something. Sometimes it took a long time waiting. Lesson? The army makes it all the time: "Hurry up and wait."
(This is an excerpt from MILITARIST MILLIONAIRE pacifist: Memory of a serial entrepreneur by Alan F. Kay and reprinted with permission)
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