Letters To Home - March 1, 1951

Fort Benning, Georgia
March 1, 1951

We have been on maneuvers five days now. No major problems. We're sleeping twelve to a tent; nights are warm, and daytime temperatures are in the low 90s. I wouldn't care if we stayed out here for a month or so.

Now the story is that we will get just 7 days leave. The famous service scuttle-butt
is now working full-time.

Another story. The 4th Division (this outfit, included) will be going overseas, either to France or Germany after we finish artillery training. We'll be augmenting "The Big Red One," the 1st. Infantry Division there, which seems to make sense since all our cadre is former 1st. Division. Some have families back in Germany, too. That sounds much better than Korea.

Have fired quite a bit so far; tomorrow, our first experience in night firing. We put on a demonstration Tuesday for a colored infantry outfit. They didn't seem to be afraid of the gun, as many others are, especially our own Headquarters Battery when they happen to be around while we are firing. However, a few made the mistake of standing off to the side of the muzzle when we fired. They were warned to move back, found out that is a very bad place to stand, since most of the muzzle-blast goes to the sides and front of the gun; very little to the rear. Some left with ringing ears and headaches. Muzzle blast from a 105 can be rough. I found that out for myself early in the game.

"A" Battery shot over us Tuesday. We were allowed to go to within about 200 yards from the impact area. Quite impressive. War movies do not do justice to the actual.