HotelKilo
Inactive Member
For weeks now units had been mustering in armories across the nation, drill halls, rented warehouses, and any space large enough to house a body of troops. Trains ran all night, relayed across the country at top priority to a scene of fighting that was not this time over the seas in Cuba or Europe. It hearkened back to the grim days of 1861 but this time there were few well-wishers along the route, and not just because the train had moved mostly at night, though that hadn't helped. The 183rd Regimental Combat Team had departed Staunton, where it had camped outside the city in a makeshift training camp, aboard hastily assembled equipment rounded up from all corners of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway system.
Day and night they had rattled through yards, over bridges, stopped for inordinate amounts of time, been herded on and off like cattle to eat. Chicago had been a noisy, foggy mess in the dark with arc-lights casting the whole web of iron and moving machines under a flash bulb like glare. Here a company had been rousted out with their arms and issued ammunition for the first time to guard the train as the Rock Island crew took over.
Then they were on their way to Des Moines. Day had dawned when the trains pulled into the long, low Rock Island station with the clock tower rising high above the still-dark fall skies as the sun struggled to break through persistent fall clouds. Here the guard work was done for them; watchful uniformed Des Moines Police and brassard wearing auxiliary policemen that stood in the background as the arriving troops thronged the platforms.
Shouting officers from the Iowa Military District's overworked Transportation office shepherded officers and enlisted alike through the concourse and onto trucks, a never ending wave that washed all along in its wake. When it ended, the men and women of the 183rd Infantry and 118th Cavalry found themselves in nearly freezing temporary tent accommodations among the hive of activity at Camp Dodge.
Here on full display was American military might that seemed uncomfortably familiar to veterans of the Great War mobilizations; rows and rows of barracks temporary offices, shops, stables, storerooms, and endless fields of tents to house more soldiers then ever seemed to be expected. In this uncomfortable existence the 183rd RCT drilled further. Cavalry, artillery, and infantry got used to road marches in the flat Iowa countryside, took turns guarding the vast military city as it sprawled out north of Des Moines, and rotating roadblock duties with other camp inhabitants.
This was not their final stop, as all officers had been informed almost as soon as they had arrived. The Army was building strength. Assembling and marshaling units that were to be sent to the seat of insurrection. It took two weeks before junior officers and senior NCOs started to receive orders by company to report for 'Civil Affairs and Riot' instruction at the main post of the Des Moines military city.
Fort Des Moines wasn't a very old post. Compared to the centuries of occupation at Fort Monroe, or Jefferson Barracks, thirty years was no time at all. It had been constructed as a fairly small cavalry post and was now completely swamped with soldiers as it accommodated the district headquarters and Mobile Force. The spaces between quarters held temporary stables, improvised machine shops, and the blocky shapes of armored cars.
Open areas being at a premium, trainees were being cycled through one of the galleries in the Cavalry Drill Hall, a massive brick structure converted for the duration to office and barracks space. 2nd Lt. Zoller, Warrant Officer Burke, and Master Sergeant John Young found themselves mixed in with a dozen other officers and NCOs from a handful of regiments in the relatively cramped quarters.
The seating was improvised benchwork facing a table and large tarp covered.... Something. Up front a slender woman sat at the edge of the table, legs crossed to show off riding boots to better effect it seemed, in full service uniform, complete with Sam Browne belt and sidearm as required in the 'zone of emergency'. On her collar was the wing and propeller insignia of the Army Air Corps, her shoulder straps had some unknown distinctive insignia and 1st Lieutenant silver bars. Over her left breast was a pair of aviators wings framing a balloon.
She didn't make a great show of checking her watch, but it was clear enough to her milling audience that their instructor was keeping an eye on the time.
Day and night they had rattled through yards, over bridges, stopped for inordinate amounts of time, been herded on and off like cattle to eat. Chicago had been a noisy, foggy mess in the dark with arc-lights casting the whole web of iron and moving machines under a flash bulb like glare. Here a company had been rousted out with their arms and issued ammunition for the first time to guard the train as the Rock Island crew took over.
Then they were on their way to Des Moines. Day had dawned when the trains pulled into the long, low Rock Island station with the clock tower rising high above the still-dark fall skies as the sun struggled to break through persistent fall clouds. Here the guard work was done for them; watchful uniformed Des Moines Police and brassard wearing auxiliary policemen that stood in the background as the arriving troops thronged the platforms.
Shouting officers from the Iowa Military District's overworked Transportation office shepherded officers and enlisted alike through the concourse and onto trucks, a never ending wave that washed all along in its wake. When it ended, the men and women of the 183rd Infantry and 118th Cavalry found themselves in nearly freezing temporary tent accommodations among the hive of activity at Camp Dodge.
Here on full display was American military might that seemed uncomfortably familiar to veterans of the Great War mobilizations; rows and rows of barracks temporary offices, shops, stables, storerooms, and endless fields of tents to house more soldiers then ever seemed to be expected. In this uncomfortable existence the 183rd RCT drilled further. Cavalry, artillery, and infantry got used to road marches in the flat Iowa countryside, took turns guarding the vast military city as it sprawled out north of Des Moines, and rotating roadblock duties with other camp inhabitants.
This was not their final stop, as all officers had been informed almost as soon as they had arrived. The Army was building strength. Assembling and marshaling units that were to be sent to the seat of insurrection. It took two weeks before junior officers and senior NCOs started to receive orders by company to report for 'Civil Affairs and Riot' instruction at the main post of the Des Moines military city.
Fort Des Moines wasn't a very old post. Compared to the centuries of occupation at Fort Monroe, or Jefferson Barracks, thirty years was no time at all. It had been constructed as a fairly small cavalry post and was now completely swamped with soldiers as it accommodated the district headquarters and Mobile Force. The spaces between quarters held temporary stables, improvised machine shops, and the blocky shapes of armored cars.
Open areas being at a premium, trainees were being cycled through one of the galleries in the Cavalry Drill Hall, a massive brick structure converted for the duration to office and barracks space. 2nd Lt. Zoller, Warrant Officer Burke, and Master Sergeant John Young found themselves mixed in with a dozen other officers and NCOs from a handful of regiments in the relatively cramped quarters.
The seating was improvised benchwork facing a table and large tarp covered.... Something. Up front a slender woman sat at the edge of the table, legs crossed to show off riding boots to better effect it seemed, in full service uniform, complete with Sam Browne belt and sidearm as required in the 'zone of emergency'. On her collar was the wing and propeller insignia of the Army Air Corps, her shoulder straps had some unknown distinctive insignia and 1st Lieutenant silver bars. Over her left breast was a pair of aviators wings framing a balloon.
She didn't make a great show of checking her watch, but it was clear enough to her milling audience that their instructor was keeping an eye on the time.
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