Handy With a Hammer
Great moments in building history: I'm a carpenter, sir!
At 13, I was working on construction jobs, starting my way down the path to becoming a carpenter. By the time I joined the Army at age 20, I was pretty skilled in woodworking.
About six months into my military career, I arranged a transfer to Germany. In the 1960s, troops were sent overseas on World War II Navy ships. Although enthusiastic about my station in Germany, I had heard that the voyage to Europe was eight days of bouncing, swaying, seasick boredom, broken up occasionally by lousy food and saltwater showers. With this gloomy means to an end in mind, I took the train to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where I spent a week with 1,000 other men being processed through the transportation center.
Every morning, we stood in formation and waited to be assigned work for the day, most of it unpleasant activities such as guard duty, kitchen-policing (washing dishes for 1,000 guys), mowing grass, breaking concrete or painting. I was about to be pulled for guard duty when the sergeant on the podium announced that the company commander needed a carpenter. At last, a task I would enjoy. Over the din, I yelled, “I’m a carpenter, sir!”
I was told that older buildings on the fort were being demolished and that beautiful knotty-pine paneling was being removed and subsequently was to be installed in the commander’s office. The knotty-pine paneling was old but still in good shape. These rooms had been built and paneled long before plywood panels had been developed. Because the wood was so old, I knew it would be dry and brittle. Pulling the trim boards and then carefully pulling the nails without splitting the lumber would be slow going and labor intensive. After sweating through the morning without making much progress, I figured there had to be a better way.
I told the sergeant that with additional labor, we would be able to remove not only the paneling for the commander’s office but that we also would be able to do his office. And because this wood was virtually irreplaceable, there wouldn’t be many units with such nice offices. With extra men, I would have the ability to work fast and take the care necessary to do the job well.
“No problem,” the sergeant replied; after all, there were a lot of men just sitting around. He told me to go down to the first barracks and tell the sergeant in charge to give me as many men as I needed. I paused to reflect that we could not only do a great job but also save some other soldiers from otherwise mundane tasks. Furthermore, I had just been promoted from day laborer to supervisor.
As men were shipped out each week, my name was pulled from the transport list, postponing the impending, unpleasant journey to Germany. I spent over three weeks paneling first the commander’s office, then the first sergeant’s office, the clerk’s office, the lobby and the hallways. The crew worked, I supervised, and together we avoided tedious tasks like KP and guard duty.
As we were finishing our work, the motor fell off a floor-buffing machine while it was being loaded onto a truck and landed on my foot. Although I was not seriously injured, I limped around on a crutch with my taped-up foot in an oversize plastic shower slipper. This incident afforded me freedom from duty for the remainder of my stay. But as Saturday drew near, I contemplated the inevitable—the next eight days in an old Navy tub, bobbing over the ocean.
With a Saturday-morning stroll up the gangplank just hours away, I received orders to be dressed in Class A uniform and waiting on the corner for a bus. As the bus pulled up, I saw that it was an Air Force bus. Having assumed that I knew the routine by now, I hadn’t bothered to read my orders. When the bus driver asked if I was Alex, I figured something unusual was going on. Inside the folder weren’t the military papers I was accustomed to seeing but an airline ticket. The company commander had been pleased with my work and had somehow gotten me a seat on an Air Force plane.
Instead of eight days on the water, I spent eight hours in the comfort of a plane. I guess sometimes it’s good to be handy with a hammer.
—Rik Alex, Wayne, Illinois
Drawing by: Jackie Rogers
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