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| Lieutenant Colonel William Warnock in Korea, 1975 |
War Story #3. First Sergeant Allen.
It is said that sergeants are the backbone of the Army. This we have on authority of most generals who aver that they would not have succeeded were it not for the sergeants who trained them. Sergeants are the ones who know how to get things done on the battlefield, where it gets up close and personal and where the actual battles are fought. They are the ones with the experience and wisdom. They order privates about and keep lieutenants from doing dumb things.
I served as a lieutenant and later as a battery commander in an Honest John rocket battalion in Kitzingen, Germany, in the early 1960s. Our First Sergeant Allen was the backbone of our outfit, and the main reason why we won the Peden Trophy as the best firing battery in the 3d Infantry Division Artillery during our annual field training exercises at Grafenwoehr in 1965. As the best sergeants are, he had the absolute respect of officers and men alike. Here are some of my favorite memories of him:
His orderly room was a place of serious business. He was an expert in filling out the daily morning report, and his duty rosters were exact, with no errors or favoritism. Lieutenants hung out there at their peril: should one of them leave his hat lying about, out the window it went. Once, a lieutenant told him that he wanted a certain desk in the training room across the hall from the orderly room. First Sergeant Allen told him that lieutenants did not have desks—they have clipboards.
He used the battery clerk to great efficiency. He once told me that the other first sergeants would look for a soldier with a year or two of college to be their battery clerk. He said he preferred a farmer, reasoning that farmers had no problem getting up early and besides, they worked harder than college students. Our battery had a barber and tailor kit for field use in combat. Once he announced at morning formation that the battery clerk would be giving haircuts using our barber kit should anyone appear in the next day’s formation in need of one.
He worked with his NCOs to find the best ways to get the job done. He helped them resolve issues with their men before they became serious enough to warrant command attention. He knew exactly where to place a new man where he could do the most good. Once, when we were out convoying on a field exercise, he found a hungry, abandoned road guard that an Infantry unit had left behind hours earlier. First Sergeant Allen took him aboard, fed him, and brought him back to our garrison for two weeks before returning him to his unit. He said if the Infantry did not miss him, he could get some good work out of him.
If he thought the battery was shirking, he would hold his own inspection on Saturday morning—no officers involved. If things were not up to his standards, everyone worked that afternoon. He also conducted his own daily barracks inspections, and so the battalion XO never found fault with us.
In the field, the tactics were up to the officers, but he had his own methods for making sure that things ran smoothly. We were lucky enough to have a mess sergeant who had crossed Europe with Patton’s 3d Army in WWII. He had him make soup out of left-overs so we had hot soup and coffee 24/7 when we were out on field exercises. He made sure that our positions were set up correctly and that the perimeter was secure by organizing our sentinels. Once he thought one of our NCOs was not observing light discipline by shining his flashlight too much. He said, “Let me see that flashlight.” He took one of those old blue stencil sheets and screwed it in over the lens—which blocked out all the light.
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