[PRCo] Re: Coatesville Arson

Sat Feb 21 13:04:23 EST 2009

We didn't have those kind in basic in the army or at least not in my  
basic training company that John describes in the Marines.

Unfortunately, my basic training company had a bad commander and the  
whole unit was allowed to do things that should not have been done.    
When 30% of the company is AWOL from the formation after breakfast  
(the first training or work call formation), you cannot very well  
hang 30% of the men.   At that point you have to string up the  
commander for letting it go that far and he knew it.   I'm serious,  
John.   Wednesday of the eight week of Basic Training, the XO came  
out and thought the formation looked a little lean.  So he had a role  
call.   It started with a man named Abendroth.   No one knew where he  
was.   He was sleeping in a motel in Wrightstown, NJ.  Next guy was  
there.   Bartholomew was missing.  and so forth.  Fred Schneider was  
hiding in the library.

The XO went out and rounded up all the troops and double times them  
back.   He took over.   He didn't get me because I was in the john at  
the library when I heard someone come dashing into the head next to  
me.   I turned myself in at lunch time.   The only punishment they  
could get away with, without having it show on the records of the  
commander, was unit level off the books ... extra duty.   So everyone  
had extra KP.   I had extra furnace fireman time.   What the hell.    
That wasn't punishment.   I could bank the fires during the day and  
go back to the library.

But after I got out of basic and got around other people I found out  
how the army should be run.

We had a poor soul in Germany who was an alcoholic.   Poor man would  
not have hurt a flea.   But when he had something to drink, he was in  
trouble.  Pay days he was also soused.   In the two years I was in  
Germany, Loveletti accumulated about six months good time.  The rest  
was in the stockade in Mannheim because that was how the military, in  
those days, handled alcoholics.   Just before I came home, he was  
released from prison.   He was given the two weeks back pay that he  
had accumulated before his last incarceration.   He got bombed  
again.   He stole a jeep.   He abandoned it when it wouldn't go  
anymore.   It wouldn't go anymore because it he tried to drive it in  
a lake.   It didn't like being driven under water.   When I came home  
to the U. S. A., Loveletti was back in the stockade in Mannheim.   At  
some point, I'm sure the army got tired of the cost of continual  
incarcerations and gave him a discharge ... bad conduct or conduct  
unfit for the military.

In those days employers asked if you were in the military.   They  
preferred that you have it "done and over" before they hired you.    
They also asked what kind of a discharge you had.   If it has not  
honorable, they didn't want you either.   I knew enough to come home  
with a good conduct medal.

John and I have also discussed this before.   He has explained to me  
that you could switch branches from Navy to Army to Air Force or from  
Marines to those other services without going through basic training  
all over again.  But you could not go from any other branch into the  
Marines without going through Marine boot camp.   They were  
apparently very different.  John's memories and mine will be  
different.     I was army for 36 months.   John started in the  
marines and then moved to the army.

He is also about six or seven years younger than me and during that  
period there was a considerable effort to make the services more  
pleasant ... more human.   What I saw and what he saw might have  
changed.   I remember Bill Middleton grumbling about 1970 or 1971  
about the change to an all-volunteer service and how it was going to  
affect the quality of the people they would get (a lot of the navy  
people before that enlisted because if they didn't, the army would  
draft them).

Some units were better than others.   Some were pretty nice.   My  
time in Germany wasn't particularly great.  I didn't love the army  
but if I did what I was told to do, there were no problems.   I had  
an acceptable unit office and a great unit sergeant.  No  
complaints.   I also had enough wisdom to recognize that there were  
similarities between the military and the outside world ... in the  
outside world if you have a responsible job, you let people know  
where you are on the weekends so they can get you if they need you.    
In the army it is mandatory.   In the outside, you keep your room  
clean.   In the army, you do it for health reasons.  No big deal.   I  
also understood that I was just putting in time in case of war and  
that sitting around doing nothing was part of waiting.

But there were also bad units. There was an engineering battalion  
down the street with a commander who knew only how to harass his men  
until they would breakdown and then he would courts martial them and  
send them to jail.   He would win.   They would loose.   He would  
take them out for field exercises all week.   Bring them back Friday  
around midnight.   Then schedule a full field inspection of their  
equipment and barracks for the next morning at 9 a.m.   Then if they  
weren't ready by 9 a.m., he would work them Sunday. Then the next  
week would start on Monday.   His unit routinely accounted for one  
out of every ten people in the USAREUR  stockade in Mannheim.    To  
the best of my knowldge, we only had one man there in two years and  
he could have been handled differently.

On Feb 21, 2009, at 12:00 PM, John Swindler wrote:

>
>
>
>
> They weren't locked up in the good old days.  Those marine recruits  
> that didn't want to get with the program were sent to the 'bad  
> boys' platoon.  They were up and out on the road around 3-4 in the  
> morning for a walk around Parris Island with full sack.  The tour  
> included the swamps, and an admonition to avoid the snakes.  Of  
> course they had to be given a break every few hours.  That's when  
> PT would be scheduled.
>
>
>
> After a few weeks and no signs of change in attitude, would be  
> given a bad conduct discharge.
>
>
>
> Ahhh, the good old days.
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Coatesville Arson
>> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:33:13 -0500
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>
>> They arrested a second goon today for doing the same thing in Chester
>> County.
>>
>> The sad thing is that one of these characters killed an 80+ year old
>> lady in one of the fires but I guess they will call it manslaughter
>> because he wasn't trying to kill, only to burn down a home.
>>
>> I think we need the draft restored. After you have been in the army
>> doing senseless busy work (digging a hole, then filling it, then
>> digging it again and saying yes sir, be to happy to sir every time
>> your told to) you are really happy just to have a normal life  
>> afterward.
>>
>> I don't like war. The insanity of it appalls me. But there is
>> nothing better than military discipline to make a kid grow up. And
>> I'm thinking of the this man's army, not the new polite army.
>> Right John? I don't have any time for this new army that discharges
>> people for the good of the army. I rather liked my army that
>> locked up first for disobeying rules, then discharged you. The
>> example made sure a few thousand others didn't step out of line.
>>
>>
>> On Feb 20, 2009, at 2:35 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:
>>
>>> This made nation news as well.
>>>
>>>
>>> Phil
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: John Swindler <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 6:46:13 AM
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: [PRCo]
>>>>
>>>> Motive? Didn't have a life, and way too much free time on his
>>>> hands. There's a
>>>> lot of that going around. Our society has become way too wealthy.
>>>>
>>>> It was some 35+ years ago that Geissenheimer commented "didn't
>>>> know any young
>>>> railfans that got themselves into trouble". Of course the nit-
>>>> pickers will come
>>>> up with exceptions, but what Harold was trying to say was that
>>>> hobbies and
>>>> sports, etc can help keep kids out of trouble. I doubt if there
>>>> are any ax
>>>> murderers or arsonist on THIS list.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>>>>> Subject: [PRCo]
>>>>> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:13:29 -0500
>>>>>
>>>>> Since this was on this website, I'll ask John Swindler openly  
>>>>> if he
>>>>> saw the news today ...
>>>>>
>>>>> This didn't break in time to make the Lancaster papers but it  
>>>>> is on
>>>>> Comcast's home page late tonight ...
>>>>>
>>>>> Roger Barlow, age 19, was arrest for setting 7 arson fires in
>>>>> Coatesville in the last year. He is considered a "pyromaniac  
>>>>> who set
>>>>> the fires so he could watch the homes burn." He is in jail in lieu
>>>>> of $9,000,000 bail. That's a lot of zeros. No motive given.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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