Draftee Remembers 1950s Service At Yuma Test Station by U.S. Army Mark Schauer, Yuma Proving Ground
August 4, 2021
The year was 1954.
Dwight Eisenhower
was president, "Rear Window" was a box office smash and Marilyn
Monroe was a popular idol. The population of Yuma, Ariz. numbered
15,000.
The
memories came flooding back to the now 91-year old Herbert Rosenberg
when he approached U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground's main gate
for the first time in decades.
“There was a curve on the highway coming in
we called ‘the Coca Cola’ curve,” he recalled. “A Coca-Cola truck
had overturned on it not long before I arrived.”
Many of the
buildings of the era still stand, albeit remodeled and with
different uses. The barracks Rosenberg once slept in still exists as
an office building on YPG’s Howard Cantonment Area. The dining hall,
now- long gone, was a short walk away.
“Some guys wouldn’t walk to the dining hall, they
had to drive,” Rosenberg said with a smile. “These were Californians
who didn’t know how to walk.”
The regular Army of that era
was quite different before becoming an all-volunteer force in the
early 1970s. Young men who weren’t in college were eligible to be
drafted, a position in which Rosenberg found himself after earning
his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in 1952. With the
Korean War still in progress, he was sent to basic training at Fort
Sill, Okla. in December of that year.
At that time, the
Undersecretary of the Army was Anna Rosenberg, the first woman to
hold the post. Undersecretary Rosenberg, not related to Pvt.
Rosenberg, was a human resources expert whose World War II-era
manpower recommendations had earned her the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. She had, however, been branded a communist sympathizer by
Sen. Joseph McCarthy in an effort to derail her nomination to the
position in 1950. The attempt failed, but McCarthy’s smear campaign
had tarnished her.
“At Fort Sill, Rosenberg wasn’t as common
a name as in other parts of the country,” said Rosenberg. “They were
convinced we had to be related, and they despised her. I had a rough
time.”
His degree in business administration resulted in his
being classified among scientific and professional personnel, a
category where orders were sent directly from Washington, DC. When
he graduated from basic training, Rosenberg was the only individual
from his group assigned to Yuma Test Station.
“It was because
I was classified scientific and professional, but to half the people
in the battalion it was proof that I was related to Anna Rosenberg,”
he said.
Arriving at Yuma Test Station was another culture
shock, though in a different way.
“The test station was an
informal place,” he said. “You did things you never would have done
at Fort Sill or elsewhere in the Army. Everyone was on a first-name
basis.”
Rosenberg’s primary job at Yuma Test Station was to
reimburse incoming test teams for their travel mileage and per
diems. The typical rate was 6 cents per mile and the per diem was
calculated in quarter days.
“The finance office job had
nothing to do with accounting or auditing, the things I had been
trained to perform,” he said. “The test teams traveled all kinds of
ways, but the mileage and rate of pay was calculated by using
railroad mileage tables. The only time I ever saw them was when they
came to collect their money.”
Yet Rosenberg didn’t lack for
things to do. During his stay, he acted in a lavish production of
Moss Hart’s Broadway play "Light Up the Sky" at the post’s outdoor
theater and hitchhiked to Los Angeles as often as possible on
weekends. Like many of his fellow Soldiers, he also spent time at
the post recreation center, located in the main post building that
later served as commissary. During Rosenberg’s tenure, a contest was
held to name the building, with a suitcase, sports shirt and pair of
pants as prizes.
“I submitted several names and thought the
winning entry, ‘The Test Rest,’ was the worst of them,” Rosenberg
said with a laugh.
Nonetheless, he won, and a reference to
him in an issue of the post newspaper, then called "The Sidewinder,"
included ‘Test Rest’ as his nickname. The prizes for his winning
entry were donated and presented by noted Yuma department store
owner and Arizona state senator Harold G. Giss, who later became
majority leader.
“I was aware that Giss was a merchant and
significant figure in Yuma, but I didn't know the details of his
impressive political career,” said Rosenberg.
A number of his
buddies went on to distinguished careers in the civilian world. One,
Paul Caponigro, became a noted landscape photographer.
“This
guy was a magnificent photographer who won an Army award while we
were at Yuma Test Station,” Rosenberg said. “He gave me a photo and
I wish I could find it. His work sells for big bucks now.”
Though Rosenberg enjoyed his time at Yuma Test Station, he wanted to
return to civilian life.
“When the Korean War ended, the Army
allowed draftees to leave a two year term up to three months early,”
Rosenberg recalled. “I took them up on it. I would have been
promoted to sergeant in another week, but it was okay.”
His
final week at the test station was a whirlwind, though.
“My
most eventful day occurred in my last week,” Rosenberg said. “In the
morning, I was a witness in a divorce case in town, at noon I had to
talk myself out of a court-martial for being away without leave, and
at 1700 hours I was best man at a wedding at the post chapel.”
The groom was Rosenberg’s buddy Bill Kimball, who was marrying
Jean Veith, the stepdaughter of the finance officer, after a
whirlwind courtship. The marriage was not only a major event on a
post that experienced few weddings, but had great longevity:
Rosenberg and his wife were surprise guests at the Kimballs’ 50th
wedding anniversary celebration in 2004.
Back in the civilian
world, Rosenberg graduated from Columbia Law School and practiced
law until retiring in 1999. He married his wife, Janet, in 1962, and
they had two children.
Though he has led an eventful life,
Rosenberg said the experience of serving with a diverse group of
Soldiers at Yuma Test Station was valuable to his personal
development.
“I loved it there. I had come from a very
religious Eastern European family and my whole world had been New
York,” Rosenberg said. “For me, serving at Yuma Test Station was an
extraordinary learning experience. I grew up there.”
Our Valiant Troops |
I Am The One |
Veterans |
Citizens Like Us
U.S. Army Gifts |
U.S. Army
| Army
National Guard |
U.S. Department
of Defense
|
|