One lasting memory of the Railroad and me is and was the trip to the induction center in Chicago to join the Army. Most of the year 1957 was a loss. I remember very little of it. Except for a multitude of jobs that lasted but for a few weeks. I was still trying to understand the idea of “work” and not making a very good show of it. So in July in an idle moment while at the Rock Island County Fair I stopped to talk to the Army Recuiter just to find out what was available and what sort of obligation would be required of me. I was aware that since I was not in school or had a “real” job that the draft was breathing down my neck and I was eventually would be drafted. So in December I notified the recruiter that I would join up. He came by and had me sign the papers and take a typing test, which I barely passed. He told me that I would be called up in January so I could make my chosen school after basic training. In the first week of the new year he delivered my orders and on the 26th of Janunary I was at the Moline depot for the 6:30 Rocket to Chicago. I was the only one on the platform , except for my father who had taken me down to the depot. We shook hands and I got on. As I remember now, the train was fairly empty and when we got to Chicago I walked from LaSalle street station over to Canal street. The streets were slushy from one more winter snow. The induction center was a large windowless building where I spent all day being examined, tested and made sure I was fit for the Army.
We were fed lunch and dinner at the center. Then about 7:00pm, after the swearing in ceremony, we were all rounded up and marched to Union Station. There we were told to go to the USO and wait for our train to St. Louis. The group of guys I was with were mostly from Cicero and lower Cook County.( By that time, two of our companions had gone AWOL and the MPs were looking for them- it turned out that they had just made a stop at a bar!) Once we got on the train which was made up of old sleeping cars from the Illinois Central Railroad, card games broke out. It was obvious that the seats would not be made up into berths so we were going to be on our own as far as sleeping. Coats were rolled into makeshift pillows and we bumped our way down state.
When we got to St. Louis we were taken off the train and into the depot restaurant for breakfast, as I remember was scrambled powered eggs , toast and coffee. We were then loaded back on to another train and we backed into Ft. Leonard Wood. But this time there was an abnormal amount of men in dress uniforms. We arrived on a siding well inside the fort. As we were taken off the train the whole platform was surrounded by MPs ( Military Police) The train had been transporting the payroll for the entire base! We, the recruits, were marched to buses where we moved to the”reception center” for processing. That is where I learned one lesson about “volunteering” but that is a story for another place and time.
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