la France

Blog 32 SOLDIERING: Part 6,      la France: Sampigny (SamPeeNee) to Gay Paris (Paree)

    “Privates-first class Smith, Bliss and Anderson reporting for duty.”

     First-Sergeant Kellogg’s bleary eyes blinked with a haze of confusion, like someone taken unawares by the appearance of guests he forgot he had invited that day. He paused ceremoniously to blow his bulbous Mr. McGoo red nose and shuffled some papers on the desk before him. He glanced for help across the tent to the company clerk who attempted to hide his great amusement. “Sergeant LeClaire?”

    With LeClaire’s help, Sgt. Kellogg found the documentation confirming the orders we presented to him and found he had enough empty bunks for us to spend the night. “Pick up your bedding at Quartermaster, the tent next door and report back tomorrow after morning mess.” He sank back in this desk chair and added, “We’ll find something for you to do. You are free on the base until then.”

    After a week of sweeping dirt roads with Bliss and Smith, I happily accepted assignment managing personnel records for K-Company at Battalion Headquarters, the only permanent structure on base, a converted horse barn with stone walls and low ceilings. Somehow, shuffling Army paperwork in an abandoned horse stall seemed entirely appropriate to me.

    The names, ranks and origins on the records I managed here were far more diverse than those of the Midwesterners I had trained with at boot camp. Here the enlisted men included blacks and whites from New York to California. A small group of Puerto Ricans occupied their separate tent and spoke their own language. Many of the characters I came to know there live still in memory—perhaps another time.

    I discovered that the officer and non-com cadre was a more homogeneous lot in some ways.  Nearly all were nearing retirement or atoning for some blemish on their performance evaluations by serving in this inaccessible post—not what you would call a crack outfit, more like a military assisted living facility.

    Sampigny Chemical Depot was a munitions repository and testing site, a supply link for many US Army units deployed throughout Europe during the cold war with the USSR. It lay in a rural stretch of the peaceful Meuse valley of France, roughly equidistant from the towns of Verdun, Metz and Nancy. The remote base performed an essential function but was well off the beaten path for regular inspections from visiting brass. A less rigid military disciple had gradually crept in and taken hold. Just do your job and don’t make trouble—it worked for me. The absence of elitism fit my laid-back nature well, and I had no problem adjusting to the often-leisurely pace at this obscure hole in the French countryside.

    Movies were shown in the mess hall, a large wooden and canvas structure, once or twice each week. The Enlisted Men’s Club, run by Sergeant Sweeny, served cold, bottled beer and hosted a USO show at Christmas. Another tent was reserved as a recreation room with pool and ping pong tables. Otherwise, we were free every night to walk up Rue St Mihiel, the narrow, pitted road with scattered animal droppings that fronted the base, into Sampigny, the collection of low stone structures that hardly qualified to be called a town. For a few restless hours, we visited one of the three small bars for whom the army base was a goldmine, sampling the god-awful local beer, rejecting those occasional bottles with floating matter visible within the brew.

   Wine was another matter. The French know how to make wine. Even the most humble and raw local fermentations were far superior to anything I had drunk before in America, and here, in this un-deodorized armpit of France, I developed a life-long appreciation for reds and whites, roses and champagnes.

    I developed a friendship with Marty, George Martin Bliss, who had bounced into the base with me in the back of the deuce-and-a-half Army truck from Verdun. It was a friendship that carried over into our return to civilian life. He served as best man for my wedding in 1955 and a few years later, I for his. We remained close but distant friends until his early death from cancer 25 years later.

    Marty was often my companion of choice both on the base and on excursions that eventually reached throughout France and into other corners of Europe. Sgt. Rene LeClaire was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, spoke fluent French, married a local mademoiselle and lived off base in her house in Sampigny. Rene often invited Marty and me for an evening of wine drinking and talk. Most of the words his wife, Monique, spoke remained a mystery even after I learned a few essential words and phrases, like “comment allez-vous?” “qu’est que vous dites?” and “voulez-vous?” this or that.

    I learned to ask “combien?” before ordering a meal and wondering, “qu’est-ce que cest?” after it was served.  French cuisine is incredible, even in its simplest forms, and I forsook the Army mess in favor of it whenever I could afford the luxury of eating in town. A local merchant was allowed to bring his pushcart full of delicacies onto the base every Sunday morning.  A few francs bought my favorite Sunday breakfast of French bread, salami and beer with a custard-filled, flaky Napoleon to top it off.

    Unless I pulled guard duty or the entire base was restricted for an occasional special event like a dress parade, required baseball game or an athletic competition, weekend passes were available for the asking. Four or five of us with a few francs to spend took the unreliable bus five or ten kilometers into Lerouville or Commercy, towns with little more to offer than Sampigny, except for a change of scenery. The same bad beer was served in Lerouville, but the small dance hall offered hours of melancholy French concertina music and a chance to attempt conversation with some local mademoiselles.

    When 3-day passes could be had at the discretion of Sergeant Kellogg, Marty and I explored places a bit more distant—St Mihiel, Verdun, Metz, Nancy, or sections of the Maginot Line with its massive concrete bunkers, awesome sites where two World Wars had raged years earlier. We visited the humble, five-century-old birthplace of Joan d’Arc in Domremy. France dotes on its history. Rightly so.

    Even trips to Paris, 280 kilometers to the west by train, could be done on a 3-day pass and could be financed by the sale of American cigarettes in the bars of Place Pigalle under the blazing white byzantine domes of Sacre Coeur basilica on Montmartre. On my first trip to the famous French capital I emerged from the Metro, the Paris subway, to behold the Arc de Triomphe, towering 160 feet above the Champs-Elysees and brightly lighted against the night sky. More than the skyscrapers of New York City, it was an indescribable thrill, the entrance to a new world.

    I viewed the city from atop the Eiffel Tower. I rode the Metro throughout its underground maze on an eclectic exploration of French culture. Eyes a-poppin’, I saw statuesque nudes dance on stage at the folies Bergere and the Moulin Rouge. At the Louvre, my eyes drank in fabled masterpieces like da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and ancient Greek sculptures—the headless Winged Victory of Samothrace and the armless Venus de Milo, almost 20 centuries old and still awesomely beautiful.

    Adding a few days of leave, Marty and I visited Munich, Germany and marveled at how clean it was compared to the poor French towns around the Chemical Depot, even though many of its streets were still filled with rubble from a war that had ended almost a decade earlier. For a Milwaukee boy with German roots, the food was wonderful; a taste of home, the beer was a welcome far cry from the local French swill we had become accustomed to, but it was no Paris.

(Next: Odyssey Italia)

ProetryPlace Blog 32, Soldiering, a Memoir, Part 6: la France

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