Those From Whom We Learn by Fred Marshall

My thanks to Jackie J. for passing this on to me:

Those From Whom We Learn

By Fred Marshall, Jr

In my formal but unscripted farewell speech when I retired from the Army, I mentioned that we all ought to look in the mirror occasionally and ask “Who am I?” The answer, I went on, is that we are little more than the grand sum total - - a composite, if you will - - of all the people we have known in our lives. As we live, we observe others. We take what we see that we like and try to emulate it. What we don’t like, we repudiate and avoid doing. For example, by the time I had become a First Sergeant, I had served under several of them, so I tried to combine the best of what I had seen in all of them, and then that was who I was when it came my turn. Of course I added a few twists of my own but, essentially, I was the grand sum total of the First Sergeants I had known.

Whenever you see a musician or movie star or professional athlete interviewed, the question is usually asked “Who had the greatest influence upon your (music) (acting) (playing) career?” They will each name one or more professionals who preceded them. And so it goes.

My military career was exceptionally successful and, while some might accuse me of bragging, I’m really quite proud but in an humble sort of way. Very little of that success was due to anything I did that was original or really innovative on my part, though it often appeared to be. Most of it was just reacting to situations in ways I had seen others successfully react. I’ve previously mentioned, in considerable detail, the impact the late Sergeant Major of the Army George W. Dunaway had upon my career and my life. Now, keenly aware that there are so many stories in us that we’ll never get to tell, I want to pay tribute to a U.S. Army Engineer named Earl Calvin Pope. He retired in the late 60s as a Command Sergeant Major at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

On October 10th, 1962, I signed out of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell with orders for Germany. I had a 14-day leave en route, which I took with my wife and first son at my Mom’s in Humboldt, Tennessee. On October 15th, I received a telegram from the Army at my Mom’s address instructing me to stay where I am until further notice. The Cuban Missile Crisis was underway, though the telegram didn’t say that.

The Crisis ended on October 28th but, a week later, I had received no further orders. Here I was out here in “no man’s land,” having already enjoyed what I hoped the Army would count as free leave time, and I wondered how long it would be before I would continue on to Germany. After two more weeks of hearing nothing, I went to Fort Campbell, records in hand, and learned that I had just been inadvertently overlooked. Makes a fella feel really important, huh?

Instead of sending me on to Germany, they made me sign back in so they could develop a new assignment for me. Overseas levies took four to six months in those days, that is, assignments developed today were to fill vacancies expected to occur four to six months hence. So, they assigned me to work at Post Engineers, a non-airborne slot with no jump pay to my chagrin, until a new assignment to Germany could be developed.

The Chief enlisted man there was Earl Calvin Pope, a 6 2 redheaded Master Sergeant who had a command and intimidating presence. I disliked him from the first time I laid eyes on him until shortly before I left for Germany five months later. Only with the passage of time would I come to appreciate this giant of a man. He smoked corncob pipes which he bought at the PX for ten cents apiece. They smelled awful, and he went through two a week, tossing and replacing them with new ones. In those days, smokers smoked at their desks all day long.

His job title was Chief Clerk, Post Engineers. He was responsible to the Post Engineer (a full colonel named Shelley, a professional engineer) for all the administration of Post Engineers, and he was over all the enlisted men who worked in the various departments and shops. I would come to learn over time that he was a walking calculator, encyclopedia, dictionary, index of Army Regulations, and a master carpenter and cabinet maker.

My background at that time had been all Infantry, with the exception of the 20 months I had spent as a jump school instructor. I knew absolutely nothing about administration, but I was about to learn, and what I would learn from Pope would prove to be a tremendous advantage in the coming years in my successive assignments.

Pope’s admin office was spacious. His desk sat where everyone who walked into the main entrance to the PE office had to walk past it. He had another desk brought in for me and placed it about six feet directly behind his and facing the same direction. That put me to looking at the back of his head all day, and that in itself was miserable. Behind me was a wall of bookshelves filled with Army Regulations, DA Pamphlets, Circulars, a wide variety of Army publications, and a ton of engineer specifications. I think Pope had every word of all of them committed to memory.

One day Colonel Shelley stepped out of his office and addressed Pope. He said “Sergeant Pope, somewhere there is a regulation related to the specifications for air conditioning in Capehart housing. Would you get it for me?”

Pope leaned back in his chair, looked into space halfway to the ceiling for a few moments, then he turned to me and said “Marshall, get me AR 385 dash 216 point 1 dash 4 (not the actual number). I went to a bookshelf, found a huge binder labeled “AR 385-216 and opened it up to section 1-4 and there the title read “Specifications for air conditioning in Capehart military housing.”

In high school I had taken typing, to avoid Latin or Physics I think, and had been a 70 wpm man at one time. Pope had found that information when screening my records to determine where to employ me for a few months. However, the Infantry doesn’t involve a helluva lot of typing practice, so I was rusty. But it didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things though, as a Staff Sergeant, I found typing and clerical work to be beneath my dignity. I hated it, and I despised Pope.

The Army has a correspondence manual which gives every detail of Army correspondence of all kinds, from letters to memorandums to you name it. Everything is standardized, with margins and spacing specified precisely for every type of written communication known to mankind. I had never seen a copy.

Pope would frequently hand me three or four lined-tablet pages of handwritten material someone had drafted and say “Type that up in one original and three carbon copies. After I learned the lingo, he’d simply say “one and three.” The way he would “hand” them to me was he’d lean back in his chair without turning around, he’d extend his left arm up and to the left, holding the papers, and say “Here you go.” That meant I was to get up and get to his hand before he had to turn around. I hated that.

When I’d finish a paper, and take it to him, he’d look at it briefly and say “It isn’t correct, redo it correctly, and hand it back to me.” In the beginning I’d ask “What’s wrong with it?” to which he’d reply, “Get the manual out and see what’s wrong with it.”

If the matter were urgent, Pope would pull out a retractable well in his desk, which held a portable typewriter, and he would type it himself and take it in to Colonel Shelley for signature and dispatch it. He typed at least 80 wpm. But he would make me retype it till I got it right. When it appeared that I had a paper done at least close to properly, he’d pluck a four-inch ruler from his shirt pocket and measure all four margins. When it was letter-perfect, then he’d toss it in the trash can. God, how I hated him. But I learned Army correspondence, from A to Z, and then some.

I also learned the Army’s Functional Filing System (TAFFS) from A to Z. It was an ingenious - - though complex - - and efficient system for the few who understood it. As a First Sergeant, I would later teach the system formally to first sergeant candidates, company clerks, company commanders, and others. I was considered Fort Benning’s “resident expert” on the system.

My wife, son and I had, by sheer chance, moved back into the very same set of family government quarters we had vacated when we had departed for Germany before the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the “down time,” the quarters had been refurbished and renovated and were much nicer than we had left them. That was about the only nice thing - - as I saw it then - - about having to wait those extra five months.

One morning I was scheduled for a dental appointment at 8:30. Office hours began at 8:00. I overslept that morning and awakened at ten minutes to eight, and had no way in hell of getting to the office by 8:00. So I called the office - - Pope was always there at a quarter to eight, so I knew he would answer the phone.

Trying to sound as casual as possible, I said “Sergeant Pope, I just wanted to remind you that I have a dental appointment at 8:30, so I’ll just go directly to the dental clinic, since it’s between here and the office, and be on to work as soon as I’m finished.” He sensed that I had overslept. He said, “Yes, I have that on my schedule, just be here at eight and I’ll send you along to the dental clinic.” He knew I couldn’t make it, so I had to admit I had overslept. I could make the appointment by 8:30, but I couldn’t be at the office at eight. So, I was caught when I had intended to lie my way out of oversleeping.

When I arrived at work around 10:30, he waited till I was settled into my desk. Then he picked up his cap and said, “Grab your hat and let’s go.” I asked, “Where are we going?” to which he repeated “Grab your hat.” I followed him to his car, a deep orange Opel stationwagon (German made) that was the most god-awful color I’d ever seen on a car. He drove to the PX, went in with me in tow, and bought a dozen corncob pipes, a box of pipe cleaners and some pipe tobacco. The purpose of taking me with him was to “counsel” me for oversleeping. Having me in the car with him guaranteed that I would have to listen to every word. It also took away the formality of being across his desk from him. His was a technique I would use many times, both with soldiers and with my children.

One Friday night, my wife and I got into a spat about something minor and she called the military police. There had been no physical contact, just a little yelling at each other. They arrested me and took me to the MP station, and I was furious. In such cases, the procedure was to call a supervisor or commander to come and pick up the arrested soldier. I had never been arrested by the military before. Once someone came in and signed for the “prisoner,” he was normally set free. I had them call Pope. He drove in, about 10 miles - - he lived in a new subdivision on the outskirts of Clarksville - - and picked me up. When he headed back off post, I said “I live here on post.” He said “I’ll take you to your quarters Sunday afternoon, after church, around 2 P.M. You’re going to meet the Pope family and cool off first. “But,” I said, I don’t have any clothes, underwear or toilet articles.” He said, “We’ll fix that, but you aren’t going home, so you may as well get used to the idea.”

Off post, he stopped at an all-night drug store and bought (and paid for) a complete set of toilet articles for me. He put me into his spare bedroom for the night. The next morning he gave me two sets of brand new boxer shorts and tee shirts. Saturday afternoon, he called my wife and dropped by - - without me - - and picked up a suit, white shirt, tie, shoes and socks, etc., for church. Most all day Saturday I watched him work on custom-made piece of furniture he was crafting. Sunday I went to church with his family and then he took me home.

Though we worked for Colonel Shelley, we were assigned to a headquarters company commanded by a captain. He was our commander. He approved our leaves and signed any personnel actions we might submit, or which might be submitted by others (such as recommendations for promotions, etc.).

One Friday afternoon, early in my fifth month with Pope, he called me outside the building for a smoke. We already knew my scheduled departure date was just a couple of weeks away. He told me he was taking leave all the following week and, though he would be at home constructing a storage building, he didn’t want to be bothered unless the President of the United States called. But if some emergency should arise, he would be at home. He made it clear to me that I would be running the office and that he did not want to be bothered.

Monday I sat at his desk. The day passed without incident. Around 9 A.M. on Tuesday morning, Colonel Shelley walked out to my (Pope’s) desk. He said “Where is Sergeant Pope?’ I said “He’s on leave this week, sir, but he’s at home if you need him.” He said, “I didn’t approve a leave for him, get him on the phone for me.”

I could already hear the ass-chewing that was coming, and I reveled at the thought of it. I reached Pope on the phone, alerted the colonel and waited for him to pick up. When he did, I hung up so they both heard my receiver hit the cradle. Then I quietly eased my receiver back up. I just HAD to hear this. This would, as Dirty Harry said, “make my day.”

Colonel Shelley: “Why aren’t you in the office, Sergeant Pope?’
Pope: “I’m on leave, sir, I’m doing a couple of projects at home.”
Colonel Shelley: “I didn’t approve a leave for you.”
Pope: “You don’t approve my leaves, sir, my company commander does that.”
Colonel Shelley: (after a brief pause) “How long do you plan to be gone?”
Pope: “All week sir.”
Colonel Shelley: “Well, who’s going to run the office and take care of all the things you handle so well?”
Pope: “If you’ll look at my desk, sir, you’ll find a young sergeant sitting there. Just give him anything you would give me and then don’t worry about it, it will be taken care of. He’s completely competent and, if he encounters anything unusually heavy, he can call me but I have instructed him not to.”
Colonel Shelley: “Well, why isn’t Master Sergeant Bledsoe sitting out there, he’s the next senior isn’t he?”
Pope: “Yes sir, but he has a full time job running his own section and, besides, Marshall’s more qualified to run your office for you than anyone in Post Engineers. I’ve already told all the NCOs that Marshall is in charge while I’m gone, and that’s that.”
Colonel Shelley: “I ought to call you back in off leave for not letting me know in advance.”
Pope: “You can certainly do that, sir, but may I suggest that you wait until you encounter a problem Marshall can’t handle, then I’ll deserve it. But in the meantime, just relax and go about your important business and call on Marshall whenever you need assistance in the little things I normally handle for you.”

At that point I quietly hung up my phone, totally in shock. I had never heard any kind of sergeant talk to a full colonel in such an authoritative, matter-of-fact yet with all due respect manner before….one more lesson that would serve me well in the future.

What I learned from Earl Calvin Pope (his wife called him Calvin) was invaluable. The acquired knowledge and proficiency in Army administration would open a lot of doors for me in the future, putting me head and shoulders above most of my peers, time and time again. It got me out of the Infantry for a few years - - I returned at my own request, because that’s where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where troop leadership is best practiced - - and into administering the 8th Division’s sports program in Germany, and a couple of special assignments, including one top-secret assignment in 1966 which directly led to my promotion to Sergeant First Class and, almost immediately, my first assignment as a First Sergeant long before I had achieved the rank of First Sergeant.

Earl Calvin Pope. I departed his world and went to Germany for the next four years. He was promoted to Sergeant Major and was later among the Army’s first batch of Command Sergeants Major when the new rank debuted in 1968. He retired in 1969. I was never to see or communicate with him again during my Army career. In fact, it would be 38 years before we talked again.

In 2000, while living in Columbus, Georgia, I attended a five-day reunion of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team at Fort Campbell, actually in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to be more specific. While glancing through a Clarksville, Tennessee, area telephone book, I found “Earl C. Pope” listed in Palmyra, Tennessee, just outside Clarksville. I called. The man I sought answered. After nearly four decades, he remembered me in greater detail than I had ever dreamed. I could never forget him. We chatted and he met me the next morning at Shoney’s for breakfast and then led me to his home.

He was in his mid seventies. His wife had died. His children were grown. He lived alone, and most of the things in his home he had built himself, from cabinets to chests of drawers to coffee tables and end tables to dining room table and china cabinet to a kitchenette, complete with chairs, to bookshelves to a picnic table and benches, all of which he designed and built. The place was very unique and comfortable beyond belief. We spent the day talking. He loved beer (I had not remembered any beer in his home in 1962). I don’t care for beer, but I drank four that day and lived with the bloating for the next 24 hours. What a marvelous and heart-warming experience that day was.

I wanted this man to know that he had played more than a pivotal role in the successes I had enjoyed. I had learned so much from him, I couldn’t begin to itemize the ways and the times that I benefited from what he had taught me. I told him how much I had despised him at the time. He already knew it. But then he told me, “You’re among the top of my best success stories. You’ve paid me back tenfold by teaching and helping people as I taught and helped you. It doesn’t matter whether you liked me or not, it matters that you learned and taught others.”

That day will live with me till I die, as will all the lessons I learned from him. Earl Calvin Pope died in 2005, in the house he built and furnished. But he died knowing that, by teaching me, he taught (by proxy) a lot of very fine soldiers a lot of very valuable lessons of life. Rest in peace, Earl Calvin Pope. You’re gone, but you are remembered, and your influence on me is appreciated by people who never knew you.

In closing, Dear Hearts, most people die never knowing the many lives they have touched. If there is someone in your life who has impacted you in positive ways, who is still alive, let him/her know how much you appreciate him/her - - while you can.

Copyright August 2009
Fred Marshall Jr.
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