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Everybody’s Danish – The smell, the romance of mail call
By fred | April 9, 2010
Sorry Gang, I have been swamped working on my eBay Jewelry store listings. Sales really took off with eBay’s new search started March 30th that allows all store listings to go world wide with no restrictions. Doubled my sales, so had to get better organized with that.
Mail call, something anyone that was in the armed services will always remember – here is a bit about ours. —-
THE SMELL, THE ROMANCE OF MAIL CALL
Mail Call, nothing can fill you with as much hope, anticipation, or can dash that hope and be as depressing as an Army Mail Call, especially for raw recruits all longing for home.
Usually Mail Call would be at the end of the day, when we were lined up in front of the company street, waiting to be dismissed from the morning’s activities before lunch. Or if we were in the field and it would be run out to us. With out Mail Call the troops would have probably revolted.
The bad part of Mail Call was the guys that seldom if ever, got a letter. Many did not have girl friends, and their folks just seemed too busy to write. A few of the guy’s folks couldn’t write some of the guys in the fourth platoon from the deep South we found had this problem. It was tough on these guys, as soon as Mail Call was called, they would move to the back of the group, never out of hearing range, but making room for the rest of us that had a chance at a letter.
If we were in the barracks all day on a ‘restricted to barracks’ exercise for a few days, the Mail Call for our First and Second Platoon would be in the hall on the bottom floor. The company clerk would yell up the stairwell, “Mail Call, come and get it.” The Platoon areas on both the second and third floors would empty in seconds.
You would see the guys that never got mail, causally leaning on the stair railings, or standing up on the second or third floor acting sort of casual, but hoping, just hoping that maybe someone would send them a letter.
Why did it mean so much? Beats the hell out of me, but it did. Just a little piece of home, someone gives a damn for you, whatever, it was something you wanted. A letter could get read so many times the damn thing would be ready to fall apart.
We have been talking about those that very seldom got a letter. Now let’s talk about those that never missed. Lopez never missed. He was a good looking guy, the black hair finally growing out to its former glory, before the ‘shave’ we all got when inducted. Just mentioning Mail Call to him and you would get that dreamy look. He had something to dream about, that’s for sure. Lopez had pictures of his girl in his foot locker, in his wallet, his shirt pocket, and God knows where else. She was a beauty all right, with curves in all the right places, and she posed in every position possible. If we were feeling low we would ask Lopez to look at his pictures. We are talking about a drool for, mouth watering, female, and she was all his. After a while, we nicknamed him, ‘Lover Boy.’ Even the sergeants and officers called him that, seemed like the right name to use.
That girl must have written him a letter every hour, pages and pages or the most sickening, lovely dove stuff, you have ever read. Oh, we were never given any letter to read by Lover Boy, but once in a while when he was entranced, holding a letter in his hand, looking off into space, someone would peak over his shoulder and then later repeat word for word, “I love you so, every minute away from you is a thousand years.” “I ache for the sound of your voice.” And so forth and so forth. He did get a little pissed off, but he knew most of the guys were just jealous.
Not only did that son of a bitch get the most mail but it was easy to identify. First she used a large square, card like, bright pink envelop. Second, that lady must have poured on the perfume. Not dabbed it on, I mean poured it on. We used to beg Lopez to just pass the damn envelop around, just for a smell.
When Eckard was the Company Clerk he would lay odds that he could pick all of Lopez’s letters from his girl out of the mail bag blindfolded. We tried it and he was right. Blindfolded he would first stack all the mail then take out the different letters, the larger ones, then he would smell each letter, neatly putting all of ‘Lover Boy’s’ letters on the right, the rest on the left. He never missed. Eventually, some of the other guys asked their girls to put some perfume on their letters. Eckard could still tell which perfume belonged to Lover Boy’s letters. Never missed!
I was fairly lucky, Mom would write about once a week, once in awhile I got a letter form one of my buddies like Hugo, telling me about all the fun they were having while I was away in the army, but what I wanted was letters from Sally.
I had started to date Sally seriously before I went into the Army. I had been graduated for a year and started dating her, she was in her senior year of high school. She asked if I would escort her to the dance when she had been voted May Queen. She also asked me to be her date for her senior prom. We had more or less agreed, her idea not mine, that while I was in the army we both could date other guys and ladies. We, or rather “she,” had figured that sort of ‘mature’ ‘adult’ approach to our separation was the only fair thing for both of us. I was hoping nothing would happen in that one, hopefully short year.
I have to say here that I was thinking of her in terms of far more than affection. Sally was just as beautiful as ‘Lover Boys’ girl, maybe a bit more reserved, but when she walked on the campus every male with an eye for pure beauty knew where and who she was. THAT is what concerned me – turning her loose could not be in my best interest!
Sally would write once or twice a week, sometimes more, but always sign her letters – ‘Affectionately’ or some such thing – never ‘Love’ like I signed my letters to her. She would drive me nuts, however you can’t demand ‘love’ in a letter. I would write and in every way possible attempt to write and express my feelings for her and I would get back a wonderful letter, you got it, signed ‘Affectionately yours.’
She must of figured I was nuts when I asked her to put a little perfume on the letter, but she did. Nothing like ‘Lover Boy’s’ letters, but a faint fragrance that was wonderful, she laughed when I told her years later that I put her letters under my bunk pillow, hey a lot of guys did.
A period of over a week went by and no letter from Sally. Worried, you damn right I was worried, I figured some other guy was making time, I figured I at least deserved a letter about the whole thing. After two weeks I wrote a nasty letter, lets say upset letter, I don’t remember wanting to cut our affair or whatever you could call it at the time, but I wanted some consideration and was really feeling sorry for myself after weeks of no letters.
At the end of the second week I got a letter from Sally’s Aunt, Val. Val said that Sally was in the hospital with Infantile Paralysis. You can’t believe how I felt, a complete asshole, here my girl, the girl I dreamed about, was in the hospital, and I am sending her nasty letters.
Worst of all some jerk had gotten himself lost in the Olympic mountain area, and the whole Division was on Alert. The First Battalion, our battalion was restricted. No one was aloud to leave the Company building, we were all restricted to barracks. What happened was that if these lost souls weren’t found, sometimes various elements of the Division would have to go and help in the search for him or her. Some sort of ‘military’ discipline thing I never could figure out.
I was able to phone down and found that she was doing fine, they hoped it was a mild attack but it was still early, hard to tell she was in the hospital. All I could think about was wiring down some flowers. I was looking out the window and saw a couple of guys walking down the street in front of the company building. I opened the window and yelled at them, and they came across the grass and asked what I wanted. I had about thirty dollars in my pocket and I asked if they could go to the PX and wire flowers to my girl, I explained about her being sick and in the hospital. They said, “Sure, why not.”
I asked them to wait and ran us the stairs to get Val, Sally’s aunt’s letter, with the address of the hospital, then ran to the window of the Rec. Room. They were still waiting. I gave them the address on a piece of paper and the thirty dollars.
A buddy, said later, “Fred, did you know those guys? I’ll bet you never see them again, and she never gets the flowers.” He was wrong!
About an hour later, one of the guys from the Second Platoon that was down stairs yelled up the stairs, “Get Nielsen down here some guys are outside the window asking for him.” Sure enough it was the same two guys, they said they had sent the flowers and wanted to give me eight dollars back in change.
I told them how much I appreciated what they had done and would they do me another favor. They looked at me kind of funny, and said, “I guess so.” I said, “Go down to the beer hall and have a pitcher or two on me you deserve it.”
Fortunately, Sally’s Infantile Paralysis was a mild case, scary, threatening, but thank God she was going to be O. K. after some mild therapy.
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