The train pulled into Camp Kilmer at 0725, Nov 1. It was foggy and cold. We were tired and miserable having been pulled out of bed four hours early (S. O. P. in the Army) and deprived of the usual pint of streaming, syrupy "shellac de elixir" miscalled coffee.

It was an arduous task trying to get off that train with all of our equipment after having scattered same the length and breadth of the cars for three days. Once off, we lined up and started for our barracks as though the Russians were after us. Our ranks resembled the retreat of the French from Moscow in the Winter of 1812, what with accoutrements hanging and banging from arms, belts and necks. It began to look as though we were going someplace.

Arriving at our barracks, we found them to be weird, barn-like contraptions, supposedly camouflaged, but actually resembling nothing more than the surrealistic paintings of a maniac-depressive. We immediately set to work cleaning, for the mud and filth inside indicated that the last outfit had been routed out in a big hurry.

The first forty-eight hours at Camp Kilmer were devoted to our being processed. We were shuttled about like items on an assembly line. We sweated through last minute lectures on overseas behavior. We attended propaganda movies designed to raise our ire against the enemy to an irresistible fighting pitch. We listened to heart rending sales talks purposed to sell us the whole alphabet of allotments (no doubt dissected from the defunct carcass of the N.R.A.). We heard the "Articles of War" read for the 'steenth time. We were drilled by hosts of security bugs. We were shot in the arms for varieties of sinister diseases. We were subjected to hush-hush seriocomic talks on the evils of V.D. and how to prevent it (continence the only safe method - so they said).

Then there were dry runs in evacuating a sinking ship. A whole afternoon was spent in boarding and de-boarding long wooden boxes built to resemble train coaches. Actually we were aboard the real train a little over an hour.

But the climax of the processing was the overseas physical examination. Nearly everyone was nervous about it; seventy-five per cent were afraid they would flunk it and the other quarter afraid they would not. So with fast beating hearts we entered a huge edifice bearing the title, Medical Center. We stripped to our dog tags and goose pimples and filed through what appeared to be a rat maze with a, doctor crouched at each end and one in the middle. Everyone that could walk the distance, 25 feet, passed the physical. It was rumored that the doctors were there to administer hypos to any faltering men.

November 3rd was a memorable day. We did not embark nor did pretty girls come into the barracks and tidy up for 'us. . Instead, we got twelve hour passes to New York City or, the immediate vicinity, which some interpreted quite liberally. We marched to the bus station 170 strong, as thrilled as a girl with her first date.

A history of the adventures of that night would fill a volume. Suffice it to say that the status quo of alcoholic beverages and thick steaks in New York City was appreciably altered that night. Half of the company got lost in the subways. No one found the Tree in Brooklyn. Only one third of the company returned late with Frank Zelichowski the latest, being six hours AWOL.

Some misguided zealot with a lot of rank came up with the brain storm that the ETO was extremely lousy in the creeping, crawling, biting sense of the word, louse. So orders came out that crew haircuts were mandatory. Thus it was that officers up to and including chicken colonels carried with them at all times as standard equipment, rulers. It was nothing to see a high ranking officer going about stopping enlisted men, ordering them to remove their helmets and carefully measuring the length of their hair. Piqued by this obviously banal nonsense, several members of the first platoon, Fred Cohen Pete Blaylock, Carl Anderson, John Tedlock and Edmund Dick among others had their hair clipped to the skull leaving only and Indian warlock on the top of their heads. Our company commander's sense of humor failed on this test.

When it had become evident in Camp Polk that the outfit was destined for overseas, anyone that went on sick-call or snafued in any way was accused of manifesting symptoms of the peculiar malady, "Gang Plank Fever." This fever if charted would have shown peaks, curves and depressions in direct ratio to rumors and the morale of the company.

November 6th was a day charged with electricity. The aforesaid fever raged high in the company, but the will to accomplish the job, the innate roving, adventurous, spirit of the young male animal counteracted the sickness. The hours melted away; the day swam into eternity. And off we went into the wild green yonder and brother -- it was wild!