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January 2012

MISSION STATEMENT

Our Association is a not-for-profit fraternal organization. It's purpose is a) to foster camaraderie among the graduates of Signal Corps Officer Candidate School classes of the World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War eras, b) to organize and offer scholarships and other assistance for the families of Officer and Enlisted OCS cadre who are in need, and c) to archive for posterity the stories and history of all of the Signal Corps OCS Officers who served this great country. We are open to ALL former Army Signal Corps OCS graduates, their families and friends, as well as other officers, enlisted men, those interested in military history, and the general public. Please, come join us. For more information about our Association, to see a list of our Officers and Directors, or for contact details, click on the OCS Association link at left.

Please note: The views and opinions expressed on this website are offered in order to stimulate interest in those who visit it. They are solely the views and expressions of the authors and/or contributors to this website and do not necessarily represent the views of the Army Signal Corps Officer Candidate School Association, its Officers, Directors, members, volunteers, staff, or any other party associated with the Association. If you have any suggestions for improvements to this site, please send them to WebMaster@ArmySignalOCS.com. We are here to serve you.                       

Happy New Year Happy New Year


You Can't Connect The Dots Looking Forward, You Can Only Connect Them Looking Backwards

"Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way."

Edna Ferber

Now that the war in Iraq is officially over, it might be interesting to pause and reflect on the views U.S. leaders held on Iraq when it was just getting underway, and compare them to the views U.S. leaders had on Vietnam during the same period. Perhaps there are some parallels that we can learn from.

 “The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort,” Bush said of Iraq back then. “Our coalition will stay until our work is done.”

It seems to me I heard the same said when I was in Vietnam.

"We'll stay for as long as it takes. We shall provide whatever help is required to win the battle against the communist insurgents." Robert F. McNamara, 1963.

Shortly after making this statement, McNamara returned to Washington where he promptly told President Johnson that the South Vietnamese army was collapsing, that the U.S. advisors in Vietnam couldn’t help them anymore, and that the President must immediately send more U.S. troops to Vietnam. Skeptical of how he was going to extract himself from Vietnam once he got in, Johnson asked an old friend and mentor, Senate Armed Services Chairman, Richard Russell of Georgia, what his views were. This is the conversation that ensued:

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? What, what, I'd like to hear you talk a little bit.

RICHARD RUSSELL: Frankly, Mr. President, if you were to tell me that I was authorized to settle it as I saw fit, I would respectfully decline and not take it.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: [chuckles]

RICHARD RUSSELL: It's a, it's a, it's the damn worst mess I ever saw, and I don't like to brag. I never have been right many times in my life. But I knew we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don't see how we're going ever to get out without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles [...] I just don't know what to do.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Well, that's the way that I've been feeling for six months.

RICHARD RUSSELL: It appears our position is deteriorating. And it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less that they're willing to do for themselves [...] It's a hell, a hell of a situation. It's a mess. And it's going to get worse. And I don't know what to do. I don't think that the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. And if it came down to an option of just sending the Americans in there to do the fighting, which will, of course, eventually lead into a ground war and a conventional war with China [...] If it got down to that or just pulling out, I'd get out. But then I don't know. There's undoubtedly some middle ground somewhere [...]

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: How important is it to us?

RICHARD RUSSELL: It isn't important a damn bit, with all these new missile systems.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Well, I guess it's important to us-

RICHARD RUSSELL: From a psychological standpoint.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I mean, yes, and from the standpoint that we are party to a treaty. And if we don't pay any attention to this treaty, why, I don't guess they think we pay attention to any of them.

RICHARD RUSSELL: Yeah, but we're the only ones paying any attention to it.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Yeah, I think that's right [...] I don't think the people of the country know much about Vietnam and I think they care a hell of a lot less.

RICHARD RUSSELL: I know, but you go send a whole lot of our boys out there-

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. That's what I'm talking about. You get a few. We had 35 killed-and we got enough hell over 35-this year [...] The Republicans are going to make a political issue out of it, every one of them, even Dirksen.

RICHARD RUSSELL: It's the only issue they got [...] It's a tragic situation. It's just one of those places where you can't win. Anything you do is wrong [...]

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Now, the whole question, as I see it, do we, is it more dangerous for us to let things go as they're going now, deteriorating every day-

RICHARD RUSSELL: I don't think we can let it go, Mr. President, indefinitely.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Then it would be for us to move in?

RICHARD RUSSELL: We either got to move in or move out. I -

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: That's about what it is.

RICHARD RUSSELL: You can make a tremendous case for moving out [...]

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Well, they'd impeach a President though that would run out, wouldn't they? I just don't believe that-outside Morse, everybody I talk to says you got to go in, including Hickenlooper, including all the Republicans none of them disagreed with him yesterday when he made the statement "we have to stand." And I don't know how in the hell you're gonna get out unless they tell you to get out.Deja Vu All Over Again

- - - - -

Reread the last sentence folks… it seems to me that’s exactly what the Iraqis did a few weeks back… tell us to get out.

Hell, they didn’t even show up for the hand-over ceremony, that’s how little they thought of our effort to help them make a “transition from dictatorship to democracy”.

Say, is that Yogi Berra I hear laughing in the background? Déjà vu all over again...

       


 

Happy New Year 2012

 


 

Signal Corps During The Korean War

It’s a strange thing about us humans… we can remember that we once felt pain, even though we cannot remember what it felt like. Think of the last time you went to the dentist, and how even today you can remember that it was painful, yet try as you might, you cannot now recreate that pain in either your flesh or your soul, in sufficiency to feel it again. Clearly, unlike our brain cells, that supply us with painful memories long after the event and far into the future, our nerve endings are not able to recreate feelings they once gave to us, absence the presence of the stimulus itself. If they did, perhaps we would not only be able to remember something as being painful, but also feel that pain again, deep within us… and through this corporeal memory avoid its cause a bit more assiduously than we are prone to do.

Essen, Germany - Refugees 1945That seems to be the case with the pain the world felt at the end of World War II. While the war dragged on, the world suffered immensely, full of the unique physical and mental pain that only war can bring. People with both a means and need were unable to find food, dying of starvation even while others around them lived on in ease. Across Europe and Asia homeless wandered the streets of one war torn city after another, walking from Warsaw, Poland - 1945 Refugeesbombed out building to bombed out building, clad in torn clothing that only a few years earlier would have been thought of as dirty rags. Displace persons, many from the concentration camps of the Reich, walked the railroad lines of Europe, trying at the end of World War II to get back to what was once home, in a vain hope that somehow by going home again life would revert back to the sunnier Belsen Concentration Camp - 1945days of the pre-war period.

But it wouldn’t. Family members were dead. Cities destroyed. Governments decimated. And the very air people breathed filled with all forms of noxious content from radioactive particles to the stench of dead bodies. It didn’t matter if you lived in the jungles of Borneo, the nuclear bombed cities of Japan, or the suburbs of London or Berlin, for many the end of World War II was the beginning of a decade or more of misery.

And yet… within a few short years of the end of the war, like the pain of dentistry, while the remembrance continued, the pain that was felt and lived only a few years before receded from people’s minds, as humanity began its march back again to the selfish mindset that makes one people want to dominate another.

H-Bomb at Bikini AtolBy 1947 it was already becoming obvious; the calm peace that all had hoped would carry on for hundreds of years after World War II was showing signs of stress. International tensions were on the rise. Something called an Iron Curtain was said to be descending, creating an imaginary line that would separate Eastern from Western Europe for the next 43 years.

In panic over perceived threats, the countries of Western Europe began to band together to protect themselves from the emerging Soviet driven Warsaw Pact. In short time NATO was formed, with the United States being drafted into it like the only kid in the neighborhood with a baseball bat and ball, when a sandlot game is formed after school.

Muscle flexing and tests of strength between countries broke out everywhere… with the Russians testing the commitment of the west to Germany via the Berlin blockade (1948-1949), the Indo-Pakistan War exploding across central Asia (1947), Mao Zedong chasing Chang Kai-shek off the Chinese mainland to the island of Taiwan (1949), Indonesia seizing Yogyakarta from the Dutch, Éire leaving the British Commonwealth and declaring itself the Republic of Ireland, insurrection in the Philippines taking center stage, with the former Philippine First Lady Aurora Quezon being assassinated on her way to dedicate a hospital, Italy taking control over Somaliland, Senator Joe McCarthy accusing the State Department of being staffed with 205 Communists, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China signing a mutual defense treaty, Egypt demanding that Britain remove all its troops from the Suez Canal (1950), Puerto Rican Nationalists launching an uprising against the United States (The Jayuya Uprising), China invading Tibet, and to top it all off, Russia detonating its first atomic bomb.

It was almost like World War II never happened… or worse, that people had simply come to accept that war was an acceptable means of settling world affairs… regardless of the pain it caused for them personally, or the death it brought to others. Clausewitz was right. [1] 

Continued at top of page, column at right


Army Truisms    


  This page last updated 6 January 2012. New content is constantly being added. Please check back frequently.


Posted 6 January 2012 - New high resolution picture of WWII OCS Class 12-42. Click here and scroll down page to see. Use your computer tools to zoom in for details. Photo courtesy Richard Marks, Class 09-67. Thanks Rich, you're a great supporter of this website, and we truly appreciate it! Class 12-42

Posted 3 January 2012 - New links to a couple of interesting sites: one on the history of the 8th Army, and the other on the truth behind some old  Vietnam War conspiracy theories. If you're tired of drinking New Year's champagne, you can always take a break and spend some time poking through these sites. Click on the "Other Links" tab above left, and then look for the flashing red "New" icons.

Posted 1 January 2012 - New photo of Class 16-66, submitted by Myron Leski. Worth the look... click here to jump to the Class Page and enjoy. Class 03-68Got any old pics of your time in the Army in your socks draw? Send them along to us and we'll post them too!

Posted 12 December 2011 - New info on the upcoming 2012 Class Reunion. This year it will be in Chattanooga, TN. Click on the Reunion Info link above left to find out more,  and sign up today!

Posted 8 December 2011 - New Class Picture for Class 43-25, submitted to us by Peter McCormick, grandson of Classmate John McCormick. The photo will bring back memories for all of those who went through OCS training or served at Ft. Monmouth, as it shows the class at a graduating dinner celebration in a place just off the Ft. Monmouth base, called Joseph's, in Eatontown, NJ. Thanks Peter, for being so kind as to send in your Dad's class picture. It's a great picture of a great group of America's greatest generation.Class 03-68

Posted 1 December 2011 - New Picture for Class 44-40, mailed to us from Israel by Candidate Gerald Katz back in August, they just caught up with us due to several months of international business travel on our part. Lots of interesting stuff, including copies of WWII travel orders and more. Be sure to check them out. Click here Class 03-68to get to Gerald's Class Page, then scroll down and click on the Class Picture to see a full album of photos. You should also click on Candidate Katz' last name in his class list, to read his own comments about the pictures he sent. Thanks Gerald, keep your pics and memories coming... we may be slow at this, but we appreciate your efforts and we will catch up!

Posted 1 December 2011 - New Class Picture for Class 07-67, and updated listing of the status of all class members. Click here to enjoy them. Class 03-68

Posted 1 December 2011 - Great class picture for the Korean War era OCS Class 09-52 were sent along by Maj. Green. Click here to go to the Class 09-52 class page, then scroll to bottom of page to see and enjoy them.Class 03-68

Vietnam Campaign Ribbons

Curmudgeon 

For those of you had a hard time coming up with a useful list of New Year Resolutions, let us propose the following:

I will...

  1. Start washing my hands after I use the restroom.

  2. Stop drinking orange juice after I just brushed my teeth.

  3. Switch my username to “password” and my password to “username” to make each a lot harder for hackers to figure out.

  4. Only get divorced and remarried once this year.

  5. Stop buying worthless junk on EBay, because QVC has better specials.

  6. Go back to school to avoid paying my student loans from 1964.

  7. Only eat white snow.

  8. Keep it to myself that I have trouble with authority when I'm being interviewed.

  9. Spend less than $1,825 for coffee at Starbucks this year.

  10. Claim all my pets as dependents on my taxes.

 

All together now... Happy New Year !

Continued from left column... 

By the late 40s it could be said with certainty that an arms race had begun, and with it came the knowledge that the threat of nuclear war was real. By the early 50s that knowledge had morphed from a question of whether nuclear war was possible into one of “is nuclear war inevitable?” And during all of this, nary a thought was given to conventional war. After all, why would anyone start a conventional war again… don’t you remember the pain we all felt during World War II?

Apparently not. Memories of pain being short, hubris and jingoism being in great supply (then, and even today), it was only a matter of time until social factors pushed two countries… or in the case of the 1950s, the champions of two political philosophies, into open, direct, and hot conflict with each other.

The Red Scare

Why would the advocates of two different political philosophies end up in hot conflict with each other? The answer is just as simple as it was predestined: in 1950 the factors that most determined how countries on opposite sides of these two political philosophies would react to each other boiled down to just two. The first was that the United States had touted to the world its mindset that it would contain communism at all costs, and the second was that its Army was reduced to little more than 600,000, down from the 8.3 million military men it had in uniform during its peak in WWII. Clearly, i) if you were a supporter of communism, you knew the United States was gunning for you, and ii) if you were ever going to strike in a way that invited a U.S. military response, you had better do so now, while the U.S. was at its weakest.

On the U.S. side, looking out at the world, those countries with designs on expanding communism were targets to be dealt with. How, no one had quite figured out. But by God, the U.S. was not going to let communism expand, even though we had no idea how we were going to go about stopping it. Even so, the U.S. at that time was determined that it would not happen, and even coined a new word to define U.S. policy towards communism: containment.

Strategically, the word had a nice ring to it. Tactically, no one had any idea how to implement such a policy. In the end, this inability to convert a named strategy into a tactical policy would be the undoing of nearly all of America’s post World War II military excursions. [2]

From the communist side, looking out… one could only see the menacing frown of Uncle Sam’s face, scowling at those who espoused communist principles of government.

Uncle Sam & Communism

What was wrong with this whole scenario was that in the early 50s the only place the U.S. was “looking out” towards was Europe. Somehow, it neglected to look back over its shoulder… at the new east, Asia, rather than the old east, Eastern Europe.

The result was that with its eyes firmly fixed on Europe, and diplomatic efforts focused on anticipating and preparing for an outbreak of armed hostilities there, the  U.S. was caught flatfooted and bewildered when war broke out thousands of miles away, in Korea.[3] One of the reasons for the shock of the event and the bafflement that ensued was due to the role the Signal Corps played… or rather, the role the Signal Corps didn’t play.

By orders issued at the end of the second world war, the Signal Corps had begun to dismantle the global military communication network that it managed at that time. By the time of the start of the Korean War, communication to the U.S. from diplomatic outposts (which depended on military communication links almost exclusively) in Korea was reduced to that of a single telephone line that often simply did not work. At that time, the only reliable means of communicating with the U.S. from Korea was to either send sea born documents to an interim location (e.g. Japan), from where they could then be telegraphed back to the U.S., or ship them by boat directly to the U.S., a transit time that could take between 18 and 32 days.

The relevance of this degradation in the physical means of communication was an impact on the objective of communicationto effect a transfer of information that allows the receiver to understand the views of the sender. If one looks philosophically at the purpose and function of communication, one quickly realizes that the purpose of communication is to foster understanding between two communicants. Without a means to effectively communicate, not only were U.S. diplomats in Korea at a disadvantage in terms of explaining the scene on the ground to those back in Washington, but the U.S., China, and the two Koreas were unable to exchange views with each other in a manner that could have precluded the Korean War. The dismantling by the Signal Corps, under orders, of its Asian communication links, effectively guaranteed that anything anyone in Asia was saying was not being well heard in Washington… and vice versa.

As an example, on 30 September 1950, Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai publicly warned “The Chinese people… will not tolerate seeing their neighbors savagely invaded by the imperialists.” As a statement of intent on the part of the Chinese to intervene if a war broke out in Korea, nothing could have been clearer. Yet no one in Washington heard it, let alone tried to figure out what it meant.

These types of incidents are the causes of war. Fortunately, what we now know about how wars are started is more than we knew then. Among other things, today we know:

1) War is costly.

2) Leaders care more about issues than about people.

3) Leaders are unsure of the value other states place on an issue.

Focusing on these three items, one can easily see that the only way to preclude war is i) for leaders to care more about people than issues, and ii) for leaders to focus hard on understanding what an opposing side’s values are on each particular issue that can lead to war. As shown above, without knowledge of what the Chinese were saying about the Korean issue, it was next to impossible to foretell that North Korea was on the brink of invading the south, and that the Chinese were going to stand behind them.

As a refresher of the historic events that led to the Korean War, the reader should recall that for nearly forty years (since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905) Korea had suffered terribly under Japanese rule. After World War II instead of simply letting the Korean people have their country back and fend for themselves, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to jointly occupy Korea, setting the 38th Parallel as the dividing line between their areas of responsibility. With the involvement of the Allies, it was agreed that a unified, fully independent Korea would come into existence only after elections took place. Unfortunately, as we all know, as in the case of Germany, the provisional boundary that was set in place toughened over time into a lasting boundary that still exists today. As in Germany, on one side of the boundary the Soviets installed a Communist government, on the other the U.S. attempted to foster a republic with an elected president. By 1948 this task was completed on both sides, with the U.S. and Russia beginning at that time to remove their occupation forces. The U.S. was the first to complete its withdrawal, taking all of its troops out by mid-1949, leaving behind only an advisory group to help train a South Korean military force. 

Continue reading...

 


Not yet ready to retire 


History of Ft. Monmouth Signal OCS 

In the article at left we talked about the Signal Corps during the Korean War. The piece is part of a three part series that began last month with an overview of the Signal Corps and its role during the Cold War, continues this month by looking at the Signal Corps during the Korean War, and will finish next month by looking at the Signal Corps during the Vietnam War. Each of these stories has taken a historical perspective, looking at the Signal Corps from 50,000 feet, rather than at sea level. They are long on concept, philosophy and purpose, and short on details. Much of what is written is derived from analysis of the facts at hand, drawing conclusions about how the Signal Corps got to where it is today by examination of its evolution from the Cold War period, through the Korean War, and into the Vietnam War. At some future time we hope to carry this analysis forward to the Signal Corps of today: post-Iraq and Afghanistan.

In looking at how the Signal Corps has grown through time one must necessarily avoid getting bogged down in detail. Yet often, that's where the fun and interesting things are found... in the details. In the article that follows we look at some of those details—the history of the Signal OCS training program at Ft. Monmouth during the second world war period.

The core content of what follows was extracted nearly verbatim from a longer treatise called the History of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey 1917-1946. Written and published at Fort Monmouth at the end of World War II, this government book tells the story of the U.S. Army Signal Corps' schools and technology programs at Ft. Monmouth since the establishment of Camp Little Silver at the Monmouth site in 1917. While the book covers all facets of Monmouth's Signal efforts from training to carrier pigeons, technical development, aircraft radio communication, and other forms of communication based tactical operations and strategic defense, what follows here covers only the Signal OCS program at Monmouth during World War II.

MAJ (R) Richard Green has kindly taken the time to extract what follows from the original book's text and clean it up for presentation here. Only minor editing has been provided to what follows.

Signal Officer Candidates 

Leadership is a prerequisite in the successful prosecution of war. Military operations require split-second decisions that must be derived from a solid foundation of cogent reasoning to insure satisfactory completion of a mission.

Ft. Monmoutn Signal Corps School

Although the non-commissioned officer is a vital link in the chain of command, it is equally important that an Army have qualified and well trained commissioned personnel to implement the operational plans.

[At the beginning of the second world war it became obvious that] the unprecedented size of the new Army following the passage of the Selective Service Act would require an unusually large number of commissioned officers and it was early recognized that the training of suitable personnel would be a task of high priority. Looking to the procurement of some thousands of new lieutenants in the first year, the preparatory work on an officer candidate school was begun in April 1941 when a group of officers in the Signal Corps School at Fort Monmouth prepared a series of course outlines for a suggested curriculum. This work was under the supervision of Captain Charles F. Olin, assisted by 1st Lt. William B. Latta. The Officer Candidate Department of the School was officially activated on 2 June 1941, with Major George L. Richon's appointment as Director.

Planned as a three-month course, the first class began 3 July 1941 with 490 candidates reporting. Of these, 52 were denied admittance and reclassified. The remaining 438 were divided into 12 academic sections for instructional purposes.

Continue reading...

 


January's Crossword Puzzle

Army Signal CorpsTheme: Signal Corps In Korean WarArmy Signal Corps

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Footnotes:

[1] Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780 – 1831), a Prussian soldier and German military theorist, studied and published a dialectic on the moral and political aspects of war. His work Vom Kriege (On War) famously stated "War is the continuation of policy by other means." To return to your place in the text, click here: Return to Text

[2] As we know today, for one country to “contain” another country’s ambitions, a commitment of both military, fiscal, and popular support for the effort must be made by the people of that country… a commitment to stay the course in all three of these areas for a period in the order of 30–50 years or more. Time and again it has been proven that while the American people will allow a limited use of its youth (military) in support of a cause against another country, and its money (fiscal), it will not support a 50 year commitment to the cause. Why? Simply because the cost in terms of youth and money is too great for most Americans to stomach, no matter how worthy the cause. In simple terms, gone are the days of the American people supporting the kind of 50 year occupation that it unknowingly set in motion, and therein allowed to happen, in the cases of Japan and Germany. – To return to your place in the text, click here: Return to Text

[3] In addition to the two issues previously listed as a source of encouragement for a communist leaning country to undertake military action against US interests, in the case of North Korea some also cite as an incentive for them to invade South Korea an address to the National Press Club on January 12, 1950, by then US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, wherein he described the boundaries of U.S. interests in a manner that made support for South Korea appear ambiguous. Presumably, since the U.S., which was so hell bent on stopping communism that it listed all the areas of the world where it would intervene militarily to stop its spread, did not include Korea, then that meant that the North could press its case by military means, with impunity, and without fear of a military response from the U.S. To return to your place in the text, click here: Return to Text