AG Corps Reflections - "Those were the Days, 1961 - 1965"

By Bill and Elin Walker

Personnel Records Reorganization
June 1963

At the 4th Armored Division headquarters, I had a new job as a result of a major Army-wide reorganization of the management of Army personnel records management. Heretofore each battalion managed its own personnel paper files. The Army plan was to introduce data processing equipment at the Division level, and convert the paper records to punch cards.

The Division established a date when each battalion would transport the paper records to the headquarters, along with the personnel presently responsible for them, for a massive consolidation. The records, in footlockers, were stacked in a warehouse building. My new job was to organize the records for punch card conversion. Concurrently, data processing equipment was arriving on the post, along with trained personnel to set it up and operate it.

The stacks of footlockers visually presented a daunting task to over 100 personnel clerks gathered in the warehouse for an initial orientation. Many years later, Larry Olsen, one of the clerks who had come in from a battalion, recalled the moment:

In June 1963, I, along with a dozen other Personnel Specialists, arrived at the 504th Admin Company. We found ourselves in an old and curiously looking building. The spacious, long hallways were impressive, but the bags, boxes, crates, and just plain piles of officer and enlisted personnel and pay records that lined the hallway sent an intimidating message. Intimidating enough that some of us soon hoped that this would not be our final station. Those hopes were of short duration.

We were seated in an indescribable room just off from the overflowing hallway, waiting for a succession of NCOs and several officers to greet and brief us. Yes, we learned, this was to be our new home, and yes, the stacks of personnel records would be ours to deal with. While we waited - as much as twenty minutes between greetings - the group became increasingly impatient, and following a short address by a rather stuffy, pompous Major we were back in a wait mode. At this time, I felt we needed some diversion. I stepped up to the lectern that the "pompous Major" had used and commenced to address the group in an exaggerated imitation of his speech and mannerisms. The captive audience was quite receptive to the show, and the room was filled with chuckles and laughter. However, somewhere along the line, I realized that the laughs were dying, and I followed the glances of several of my colleagues to the open door directly across from the lectern. Oops!

There stood a smartly attired 1st Lieutenant with his arms across his chest, wearing an expression that I didn't take time to evaluate. It may have been a bemused expression, but it might just as easily have been a look of "repercussions to come." I mumbled, "As you were gentlemen," and slunk back to my chair. The Lieutenant didn't come into the room, and he disappeared from the doorway. Is this good, I thought, or is the Lieutenant reporting the story of the disrespectful SP4 to the pompous Major, in which case my worries might be best concerned with permanent KP rather than personnel records in the hallways. The rest of the day passed with no mention being made of my impromptu performance. Talk about relieved. I learned that the Lieutenant's name was Walker and that he was an "OK Officer."

In short time, I became intimately involved with the piles of records in the hallways. My fate was sealed. I was to spend my days in Germany sharing a cramped room overflowing with records, documents, IBM cards, and GIs exhaling last night's beer breath.

Within a few weeks, I started a part-time night job as a bar waiter at the NCO Club. I was fired on the second night following an incident with a very drunk and obnoxious Sergeant First Class. Somehow while delivering a tray of drinks to his table, my patience and his attitude clashed, resulting in glasses, drinks, cherries, straws, and ice cubes covering him from head to toe.

Within a day or two, I had the occasion to share my sad/not-so-sad tale with Lieutenant Walker. His response was, "Why don't you go up to the Officers Club, I understand they need a bartender there." I was sure that he had to be kidding, and did nothing. The next day the Lieutenant asked me if I had gone, and when I said no, he urged me to go and see the club manager.

It turned out, that following a brief trial period, I was relieved of all extra duties, and moved into the club on a permanent basis, and my next year and a half could not have been more pleasurable!