Fort Leonardwood, Mo.,- Echo Company Drill Sgt.-Ceder Walking Stick

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End of Cycle Photo-- I'm behind the sign that identifies our unit.
Sgt. Bryant is on my right

FORT LEANORDWOOD MISSOURI &  ECHO COMPANY---I reported to Drill Sgt School at Fort Leonardwood, Mo.  up I-44 from Joplin, Mo.  They had extremely high expectations.  D.I. School was even worse than Basic Training.  Mostly because I think they knew how most Drill Sergeants would be treating trainees after they became Drill Sgts. 

    I passed Drill Sgt School & was first sent to Co. B of the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Training Brigade.  Things looked good until the  C.O., Company Commander, saw I had applied for a hardship discharge.  The Capt. asked a bunch of questions but wasn’t interested in me & he sent me down to E-3-3.  Another place where I think God directed my path.  Captain Joe Boyd talked to me & ask  about my application for a hardship discharge.  I explained I’d tried, it had failed & I was here to do my job and be the best Drill Sgt I could, the same thing I told B Co.  He apparently liked what I said as he excepted me as part of E--3-3 Cadre and I was assigned to the 2nd Platoon as Platoon Sgt. I talked to him on a Friday & we started a new cycle on Monday.

End of cycle weapons inspection of all 49-50 trainees weapons by me personally.  None ever passed the first time, some took 4-5.  Some would try to sneak their buddies by whose had already been inspected.  I alway held a final formation & took them in one and a time.  That always caught the cheaters.

Of the 5 cycles I was at E-3-3 I was selected Outstanding Cadreman of the cycle 4 times, My service time was up before the 5^th cycle was completed. Once in a while I wondered if B. Co. ever regretted not taking me.    The dedication I put into my job carried over to the trainee’s attitude in their training.  The Outstanding Cadreman Award went to the Drill Sgt whose Platoon scored highest in all phases of training tests and training activities.  I took over the 2nd platoon from PSG Walters who had just become Senior Drill Sgt.   Sgt. Walters and I got along pretty good as he had a more relaxed attitude than most 'Senior 'Drill Sgts.. 
       PSG-Platoon Sergeant- indicate a pay grade & the number of rockers on your strips, but usually the were just called Sergeant.   To be assigned as a Company Platoon Sgt. you either had to be an E-7 PSG, 2 rockers or an E-6 SSG. ,one rocker.  I was an E-6- SSG---Staff Sergeant.    A Platoon would consist of 45-50 trainees.
      I did not have my Trainees call me 'Drill Sergeant’ only  'Sergeant Paxson'.  I always thought the ‘‘Drill Sgt’’ was just a harassment thing, there is no such rank of ''Drill Sgt.’’ I did not go in of a morning screaming an yelling at them to get out of bed.  I did have some high expectations & I made them known in the Platoon Orientation the first day each new cycle began.  I left getting them up  to the Trainee Leaders.   I would inspect the barracks while they were gone to breakfast, they would know what was wrong when they got back from chow &  they had a hour to get it right.  That meant coming back and finding the bedding removed from the bed if I didn't think they had made the bed good enough or finding all their clothes on the floor because they had forgot to lock their locker, or their footlocker items dumped in the middle of the bed beoause they had left it unlocked.  Of course there was a certain military regulation on how everything would have to go back.  I never harassed them about cleaning the barracks. Like scraping wax with razor blades & the likes.  All I expected was swept,  & buffed, sometimes they rebuffed the floors once in awhile they'd have to mop and put on new coat of wax.  There was an hour & half for them to make corrections & to re-inspect before training started.   
         Two things evolved as my days progressed. First, I developed a reputation for always being with my trainees if they were out for training.  Most Platoon Sgts. had two assistants and they had them do a lot of  the work while they stood around taking it easy, talking and drinking coffee.  I only had one, Sgt. Bruce Bryant & I let him teach marching drills at his request, although I thought I would  do a better job.  I would have done that too but I figured he needed to do something, otherwise I did it all.  I'm one of those who puts 110% into your job.   I conducted lots of practice after the moves were initially taught.  I did all the rest and did marching to and from training sites & leading Jody Songs.  Once in awhile I wold break down and let Sgt. Bryant call cadence and lead Jodi Song.  He did have a pretty fair voice.  It didn't carry like mine but he did OK.  At times Sgt. Walters would single out one Drill Sgt.  To call cadence for the whole company, 200 men, instead of having  each Platoon call out their own platoon.  That' when you really got to air out your lungs.  

       Sgt. Bryant had the nickname ' Wimpy' after the comic character in "Popeye". He’d rather go to the PX for a hamburger & fries than eat in the Mess Hall.   I thought he had the looks to fit the nickname too. Sgt. Bryant wasn't all that work brittle so we had a mutual understand of what each others role was and we became friends.   Since we had a day to day working relation we usually called each other Sgt. Paxson & Sgt Bryant.  Once in a while off duty we would call each by first names, Bruce and Larry.
        The 2nd  thing that happened was that I took all the Olive Green Army stuff , wall locker & footlocker & hid them in my closet.  I  brought a light blue bedspread & curtains from home, hung up my guitar and longhorn steer horns   and a  big 'mountain scenery' picture for decorations that  on off white walls.  I kinda became the 'Hawkeye Pierce' , of MASH TV, of Drill Sgts. but I wasn't the ladies man that he was.  The first to notice my room were the trainees. They’d get a glimpse when I opened my door whenever we were in the barracks off duty.  It looked more like a college dorm that a Cadremans  room.  

       One particular cycle I had a lot of trainees coming to me wanting to talk about problems. Sgt Bryant commented one day,  "You know Sgt. Paxson,  they are making up all their problems, they just want to come to your room to get away from all the Army stuff in their bays.” I said that's OK with me, I don’t mind. 

         Captain Boyd put a lot of faith and dependence in  Sgt McDaniel ,"Mac",   of the first platoon & myself.  At any Company inspection he would either inspect my Platoon of Mac's Platoon, because he knew we'd have our platoons in top shape, never the 3rd or 4th Platoon.  He always sent the 2nd Lt. there.  He had also heard about my room apparently, one day  the Brigade Commander, a Light Colonel, came to conduct a Company Inspection on a Saturday morning.  After the inspection and the Company had been dismissed, Cpt. Boyd approached with the Col. and ask for my room key.  It really caught me off guard.  But I said sure and handed him my room key, he and the Col. walked off.  I began to think, ''Boy! here goes the blue curtains & bedspread, down will come the guitar, steer horns, & pictures.  Out  of the wall closet will come all the  Green Army stuff''.   Later in the day Captain Boyd saw me, called my name,  tossed me my keys back & said not a word.  I think he must have told the Col. ''You have been in the Army for 20 years, or more but you have never seen anything like this'', I think my reputation for being an unorthodox Drill Sgt. but accomplishing all the things a Drill Sgt should accomplish had spread across the Battalion at least & perhaps the Brigade.   

      One cycle on the rifle range a trainee was really having trouble "zeroing his weapon'' [rifle], ''zeroing'' meant getting 3 shot close enough a quarter would cover all holes. After 2-3 days of failure, in desperation, I lay down on the ground beside him, usually I just stood close behind & watched where the rounds were hitting,   laying down I saw he was shooting  right handed but closing his eye like he was left handed, he was leaning over the rifle, to sight, something that I hadn’t noticed.  I ask if he’d ever done anything left handed, many trainees had never fired a gun not even a BB gun. He said ''Sgt. Paxson, I have never done anything left-handed in my life.’’  I said , ‘’ I want you to switch over & shoot left-handed’’.  He said. ‘’ OK, Sgt Paxson’’, he switched over & he & I could not believe what happened.  His next 3 shots could be covered with a dime.   I said, '' From now on I want you to shoot left handed’’. He qualified ‘Expert'’.

     Somewhere along the line Sgt Walters nicked named me ''The Rat'', sometimes it was ‘’Pax the Rat’’.  As we went out for training I would watch for  dropped items.  If a trainee lost anything the cost would be taken from his pay, which wasn't all that much, anything I found I would keep in a storage room in 2nd platoon barracks & if my trainees lost something I could replace it so he would not have to pay for it.  This worked fine  until Sgt. Walters caught on & started sending anyone from the company to me to replace lost items.   I tried to tell him I was saving them for my platoon but he kept sending them.  On some rare occasions, if it was  expensive & I only had one I pretended not to have any.  The trainees & Sgt. Walters always believed me.  But I did give away a lot of stuff I would have rather kept.   One day I was following a group of my trainees thought an assault course that required them to shoot pop up targets & maneuver over, under, through or around obstacles.  I found a trigger housing and picked it up.  After evening chow one of my trainees came to me deeply concerned.  He said,  ''Sgt Paxson', I lost the trigger housing of my weapon on the course today.'' I almost admitted  it was probably the one I found but a selfish impulse hit me.  Why not embellish my reputation a little here.  So I said,  " Let's go up to our Platoon Storage Room & see what I have’’, I dug around like I was hunting for one when I  knew exactly where I had just put it an hour earlier, after a little bit I pulled it out.  He was over-whelmingly grateful,  " Thank you Sgt. Paxson'' he said, "I thought for sure I was going to have to pay for one.''

      Sgt. Walters also liked to tease me about being a   @*# =  , as my sons would say, one of those concrete things that hold back water, ole farmer.   I really think he either grew up on a farm or had a few acres off post as he lived off post & drove a pickup.  Since I had taken over his old platoon and had become such an outstanding DI he and I became pretty good friends.  Like Capt. Boyd he  put a lot of faith and trust in SSG. McDaniel and I, [ Mac & Pax ]  Both our first name started with L.--- Lewis & Larry.   Of the 5 cycles I spent at E-3-3, there were usually 11-12 D.I.'s assigned to E-3-3
        Two stories stand out. One I had started calling my 2^nd platoon trainees 'boys' regardless of their ancestral background.  Another nickname.  Sgt. Walter had tagged me with another nickname besides ''The Rat'', it was ''Pax'', a nickname I was kinda proud of, a lot of my uncles and Dad had been dubbed ''Pax'.  One day Sgt Walters said, ''Pax, we gotta have a talk'', come into my office.  I said ''OK, Top.''   Top was a nickname usually reserved for the Company First Sgt.  All the D.I.'s in E company had such respect for Sgt. Walters  we called him ‘Top’. We also called him “Walters” or  "Walt" when in a group of D.I.'s only.  The Company First Sgt. we called ‘’First Sgt’’ which always sounded strange. 

     One day Sgt. Walters said, ''Pax we need to have a talk.'' In his office he seemed kind of informal  so I said.  "What’s up Walt.'' What he said next kinda floored me.  He said you gotta stop calling trainees ''Boy.''  I said that has no racial connotations.  ‘’They are all just kids out of High School or just starting college, most of them, are just boys’’.  I said,  My trainees know it means nothing derogatory .  He said, ‘’ I know, but not all trainees from all platoons realize that’’.   So I was stumped for days as what to call them.  Then I came up the term “Son”, I may have been the only Army Drill Sgt. that every called trainees “Son”, but that was the only thing I could come up with.  From that time on I called any trainee “Son” whether he was from my platoon or another.  For some reason I became very observant & concerned about not only the trainees in my Platoon but those of other Platoons.  I was always watching them.  If one looked despondent or troubled I was always checking it out to see if I could do something to help.  Drill Sgts. would often stand in front of formations and scream,  ''You better not go AWOL'' [absent without leave]  I never uttered the word AWOL,  I figured the best way to 'Send them over the Hill' was to keep bringing it up. 

      The other story I kinda get a kick out of was one day  'Walters' called me again.  "Pax,  we got to have another talk."  I said OK.  And he started out, "Pax, you gotta be careful how you talk to trainees."  This was about the time the Army started talking about 'Trainee Rights'.  This puzzled me, again, as I thought I was pretty sensitive to how I treated trainees & told him so.  So he says, ''Do you remember what you said out in formation about 5 minutes ago?’’  It had been a Sat. morning.  I said,  ''No, not really.''  He said,’’ Well you said.’’…  ''Any Jews that want to go to church, fall out” I said, "well what was I suppose to say."  He said well maybe you should had said,  ''Any Jewish personnel wanting to attend religious services are dismissed''.   I knew he was right but the devil must have got hold of me, I shot back just to kinda tease him.  ''Top, I'm just an ole country boy, where I come from we call a Methodist, a Methodist, a Baptist a Baptist so I just figured you called a Jew a Jew.'' To which he fired back,  ‘‘”That sounds just like a @#%* ole farmer''.   

            The First Sgt., Sgt. Vega, and I didn't  see eye to eye & I called him out a few times, but he couldn't argue with my success and he knew if he went to Capt. Boyd or Sgt Walters his argument was going to be falling on deaf ears!  Along about the 3rd cycle I came back to the barracks after chow one morning  to re-inspect the barracks on somethings I'd wanted touched up.  I  noticed all the trainees seemed dejected and in a terrible mood.  I ask the trainee leaders what had gone wrong.  At first they wouldn't answer, then I got it out of them that the First Sgt. had been in the barracks ranting  & raving about the condition of the barracks.  I immediately went to Capt. Boyd's office and told him I didn't  ever want  the First. Sgt.,  in my barracks again, that it had taken weeks to build up the moral of my trainees and  in 15 minutes everything  was going to 'hell in a hand basket'.,  Capt. Boyd said O.K.[ The 1st. Sgt never was back]   I went back  to the barracks and told the trainees what had happened in the meeting with the Company Commander, Capt. Boyd, and  they were back on top of the world.  It isn't often you buck someone in the Army that outranks you two rockers and a diamond and  win!
     From day one as a Drill Sgt. I never went into the barracks screamin & yellin to get them out of bed and to get the barracks clean.  I told the Trainee Leaders that was their responsibility, the way they were going to learn to be good leaders.  I said they'd never be scarping the floor with a razor blade looking for wax build up, many times in my basic training we had to remove wax scrub the floor and put on new wax which was a real pain in the b..... behind & they'd never be scrubbing the floor with  a toothbrush, something I did several times going through basic.  If the floor was swept & had a nice buff job that was all I expected.
     In the 3rd-4th cycle, when we were having chow in the field, a trainee from the 3rd Platoon was sitting under a tree alone looking despondent & dejected, a  prime target  for going AWOL.  So I went over & talked to him  and learned his grandfather had passed away, he had gone to the Red Cross to see about emergency leave and they had turned him down.  I informed him his folks needed to go to the Red Cross and make the request.  This was a Friday afternoon & the funeral was Saturday afternoon.  At first I told him to call  his parents when he got in from training at 5 p.m.,  Then I said first ask permission of Sgt. Williams, the 3rd. Platoon D.I., then if he doesn't OK it, come back to me & I'd see that he'd get to make the call.  I checked with him about 5:30.  Sgt. Williams had OK'd the call, he was was in  his dress green and had a bus or plane ticket for 10 p.m.  He could make his grandfathers funeral and be back Sunday ready to  go out for training on Monday.  The First Sgt. apparently  got wind that I had been the primary instigator and wasn't thrilled.
    Not long after we had a Company  Cadre meeting and the First Sgt. was gunching and carrying on about some D.I.'s being ''sympathetic to trainees'',  I knew he was referring to me so I called him out to name names several times but he always back peddled.  So I said, ''You take care of the trainees, treat them right & they'll give you 100% in training,  Jerk them around, mess with their mind & they ain't going to care & could care less how they do in training.''  That was the end of the discussion and we moved on to other things.
        One D.I., SSG. Walter Spriggs, 3^rd Platoon Sgt., who I called 'Walt' a lot and  who  had become a close friend, confided in me as I was ETS'ing, getting out of the Army,  that he had always carried a very negative attitude toward the National Guard & I had really changed that.  He had married a girl when stationed in  Germany & at Ft. Leonardwood had invited me over for several meals.  She was a terrific cook and I  really enjoyed the meals and we'd visit.  Later I wondered if he had confided in her his ideas about National Guardsmen & how he felt about me & perhaps she had suggested having me over to get to know me.  He had an activated NG as an assistant,  Sgt. Tim Walls from Illinois,  also a good solider, between Tim and I, Spriggs had really changed his attitude towards Guardsmen. There was another NG from Ohio, Mac's Assistant, Alex Layton,  but he could be a goof off at times.   Walter [Spriggs] had always seen NG's as someone just trying to dodge a commitment of serving in the real Army. He’d ask a lot of question about what it had been like farming & the situation it had put dad & I in when I had been activated.  He was surprised at what I had been through personally and the decisions I had struggled with.
      Capt. Boyd & Sgt Walters put a lot of faith and trust in myself & SSG. McDaniel of the 1st platoon.  Among the Company Cadre we were pretty much  known as, 'Pax' & 'Mac'.  I didn't think about this till I started this story, but both out first names started with the letter L,  Larry & Lewis.  So my days as a Drill Sgt were pretty good. I had earned the respect of my Officers, my fellow Drill Sgts,  & all the trainees that came through E company.  

        CEDAR WALKING STICK-- I picked up a Cedar Walking Stick at the Lake of the Ozarks either on a trip I made or when Jonnie, Jerry and Alan came down to go to the Lake with me.  I used it as an aid when we marched to help propel my bad leg along.  On the rifle range I would stand right behind the trainee shooting in the foxhole or other positions, stick my bad leg out to the side, lean on the cane so I had a real good view and watch where rounds were hitting the target or around the target.  At the end of a shooting round we Drill Instructors, official name for Drill Sgts, would go along the line and make sure all weapons were empty.  I would give the loud verbal command ''Clear'' but also tap the stock with my walking stick as not always was the word clearly heard, a lot of other ‘D.I.’s. used cleaning rods used in cleaning rifles.  The tap  caused the weapon to move a little, giving them another indication they had been 'cleared'.  Sometimes I would leave the cane somewhere and after awhile I would notice another Drill Sgt had it.  They never gave it back. I would get it later when they put it down for a few minutes.  I never figured out why they carried it around:  because it was nice cedar wood, because of my reputation, so I wouldn’t loose it, I don’t know,  but I thought it odd that they never brought it to me and say something like, "Hey Pax, you left this over by the drinking water wagon…… Out by the rifle racks.”  They never gave it back, they might even walk around it for  hours.  I don't know if it had become kind of a trophy, good luck charm or what.  I always had to wait for an opportunity to retrieve it when they put it down.   I never questioned why they didn’t give it back or they never made a comment when I took it back.  I think all ten D.I.’s in E company at one time or another carried it around.  It was just a little ritual that went around and around. I got out of the Army just before Christmas, 1969 and went home to Argonia.