The Army Secret Economy Story

1961

A True Story

Written 01/2010* 1156 Words *

By Howard Yasgar

In March of 1960 I was in the Army Reserves.

I was serving my active-duty time as a motor pool truck driver at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

At the time my home was in Westville Connecticut.

The reserve unit I was attached to be was a heavy fuel tanker unit, which was a scary thing because who the hell wanted to drive an explosive fuel tanker during wartime.

However, since I had a heavy-duty military truck driver’s license, I was authorized to drive pretty much every type of military vehicle.

At first, I was a little disappointed at being a truck driver, I thought perhaps I might have done something in the Army that was a little more interesting than just driving a truck, but boy was I wrong.

I found out that driving a truck in the Army was the most interesting experience I could ever have had.

Being at an Army base like Fort Dix, it was just like working in a big city.

So, every day I was dispatched to different places and that’s how I got to see what was going on everywhere, and boy I was surprised.

One morning, I was driving a 2-1/2 ton, M35 truck and I was dispatched to a small Army warehouse called “Condiments”.

The Condiments warehouse distributed various items, like different seasonings, as well as minced meat for pies and things like that. The condiments warehouse, like most Army warehouses, was run by a Staff Sergeant.

Another thing the condiments warehouse did was go to the base butcher every morning and pick up bacon, steaks, liver or whatever meat was being cooked in the mess halls that day.

So, every day the Staff Sargent in charge of the warehouse would requisition a truck and driver to pick up enough meat to distribute to three army Companies.

How the government ever calculated how much meat was allocated to each Company, I will never know.

But what I did know was that every morning when we loaded up, the Staff Sergeant always got inside the back of the truck for the ride back to the mess halls at Fort Dix.

One morning we had loaded up with calves’ liver, and I had slightly rolled up the truck’s canvass window, so I could peek in the back and see what the Sergeant was doing.

I saw that he was taking some liver from each Companies allotments and making a large package for himself.

Just as I was watching him, the Staff Sergeant looked up and saw me looking at him.

Later that afternoon I was in my barracks taking a nap when I suddenly woke up to see someone looking down on me.

It scared the hell out of me, but I recognized him as one of the other soldiers working at the condiments warehouse.

He had, with him sitting on the floor, a can full of candied fruit. (Minced Meat).

The soldier said, “Sarge wants you to have this, he also says if you want some steaks or liver, to let him know”.

What was I going to do with candied fruit, I didn’t even have a can opener, and what would I ever do with liver or steaks, I was living in the barracks and I ate every day at the Army mess hall, and they had all the steak you wanted.

So, I asked the soldier what the hell was going on.

“He said, every morning the Sergeant got in the back of the truck and packed up a package of meat for his wife to sell, and he has been doing it for years, he said everyone running any of the base warehouses were all doing the same thing.

The Next day, I was told the driver who did the Fort Dix bread run was on leave, so I had to deliver some of the bread myself.

It was five in the morning when I got to the base bakery. There were other truck drivers already there.

A baker came over with our breakfast; it was loaves of hot unsliced bread. It was so hot I had to juggle my loaf just to hold it.

One of the drivers said, “Open the fridge”, I did, it was full of cartons of milk and all kinds of breakfast stuff including quarter lb. sticks of butter.

All the drivers showed me how they put the sticks of butter into the hot loaves of bread; it was just like eating hot soft cement, but it was delicious.

I asked them, “Where does all this food come from, and they all looked at me like I was stupid.

They said, the butter came from the truck driver on the butter run, the milk came the same way, it came from a truck driver also.

They needn’t say any more, I got the picture, everyone in the Army was trading or stealing something.

When they loaded up my truck, all the bread was in sliced loaves and wrapped in white paper, there were 12 loaves on each fiberglass tray.

I took several of the trays with bread from each Company that I delivered to, I knew they would never miss them.

I drove over to the mess hall that I ate at.

Now, in the Army all the Cooks think they are special, and most of the time whenever we happen to cross paths, they wouldn’t even say hello.

So, when I backed my truck up, I told the head cook I had something for him.

He ordered all the extra bread unloaded and never said a word to me.

It was about a week later when I bumped into the head cook, he recognized me and said, “When are you going home on leave?

I said I was going home on leave the very next day.

He said come to the back of the kitchen with me; I want to show you something.

He took me to a back storage room, it was filled with every kind of canned food I had ever seen, all of it in big # 10 Army size cans.

He said take whatever you want, it’s free, and he left me.

I looked all the stuff over, and I thought, what the hell would I do with a giant gallon can of strawberries or grape jam, or what would I do with big cans of apple butter.

I saw there were lots of big cans of coffee, string beans and even more of the candied fruit used for pies.

I couldn’t just leave taking nothing, so I took two of the big #10 size cans of Army coffee.

I brought them to my barracks and tried to find a way to hide them in my duffle bag, so no one could tell what I was carrying.

I don’t know how I did it but I did it, and I carried the two giant cans of coffee in my duffle bag all the way to my home in Westville Connecticut.

My mother had never seen coffee in such big Army cans before, so she thanked me and put them in the rear hall closet.

That was in 1961, and I don’t know who owns our house now, but I bet if you look in the rear hall closet, there are still 2 #10 cans of U.S. Army coffee sitting there.