The Stolen Blankets Story

                                          The Stolen Blankets Story

                                                        1962

                              A true story that scared the hell out of me.

                              Written 2013 and Rewritten 01/18/2016

                                               Howard Yasgar

After enlisting in the Army Reserves, I completed my eight weeks of basic training at Fort Dix New Jersey.

Then I completed the 6 months of my active duty requirement.

After that  I was required to do two weeks of summer refresher training every year.

I had to do the two week refresher course until my 6 year Army Reserve enlistment time was up.

Since my unit from New Haven Connecticut was a fuel tanker unit, every year I was always attached to an Army unit that needed truck drivers.

I never knew where the army would send me for summer training until I received my official orders in the mail. Those papers when received, were called our “Marching Orders”.

So in the summer of 1962, I received my marching orders to report to Fort Drum, in New York State, I was being attached to an Army Reserve unit consisting of truck drivers coming in from New York City.

Because Fort Drum was about a five hour drive from my home in Westville Connecticut, I opted to use the Government’s travel vouchers rather than use my own car.

That had its down side, it meant that I would have no car to drive anywhere in the evenings unless I met someone there that had brought a car.  

Once I arrived at Fort Drum I was directed to a army barrack where I quickly met up with several other guys that were just like me, had come to Fort Drum from all around the country to do their two weeks of refresher training.

Besides from those fellows, there were about thirty rough and tough looking guys from New York City. They had arrived by military truck convoy the previous day.

When these New York guys talked to us, they all had such heavy New York accents,  we could hardly understand them.

By the afternoon of the first day, all the reservists, like me, had shown up, and I was happy to see a few had brought their own cars, so if I knew that if I made friends with them, I wouldn’t be trapped on the base in the evenings when we were off duty.

On the afternoon of the first day, the Captain of the New York Reserve unit got us all together and gave us an orientation talk. He like all the others from New York City had a heavy accent, but his wasn’t quite so  thick, and we all able to understand him.

He explained to us what our mission at Fort Drum was going to be.

He told us that there was a field hospital unit that was also coming to Fort Drum the next day. Their mission was to set up an entire field hospital at night, and do it as if they were under battlefield conditions.

Our mission as a trucking unit, was to support them by hauling all their equipment at night by convoy.

Once the hospital was up and had passed inspection, our trucks were supposed to go back and haul everything back to Fort Drum.

The Captain said that all of this was to be done late at night, with all of us driving under total blackout conditions, just as if it were a real war.

What that meant to us truck drivers was that it was going to be a very boring exercise.  we all had nothing to do with our free time, once we delivered the stuff to set up the hospital. We were free until they were ready for us to pick the hospital up a few days later.

So for the entire next day, we all spent our time checking out all the trucks that were going to be in the Convoy.

We did all the regular maintenance things.

By the middle of the week they had loaded up the entire field hospital onto all the military cargo trucks. Then we drove at night in a convoy to deliver them to a large field where the medics had a team of men that unloaded all the hospital supplies from our trucks.

After they unloaded the trucks, all of us drivers headed back to Fort Drum, where we had nothing to do but sit and wait until the following Monday.

By Saturday afternoon every one of the truck drivers was bored to death, so I asked if anyone had ever been to Montreal Canada?  

I was very familiar with Montreal because I had been driving there regularly from Connecticut with my cousin Allen, we went there to visit his relatives, who all lived in Montreal North.

I told all the guys how our U.S. money was worth 25 % more there, and I told them how cheap and how good Canadian Molsons beer was.

I told them how I had a favorite bar called the Devon, and how it was located on St Catherine Street. I said the Devon never asked our age, and they had free pork sandwiches to eat.

Once I told all this to the other guys, they all got excited and said, “Let’s all go to Montreal and have a Molsons beer and a free pork sandwich.”

So on Sunday morning two cars with eight of us truck drivers left Fort Drum heading for Montreal.

Montreal was about a three hour drive from Fort Drum so by lunch time we were all standing in front of the Devon bar on Saint Catherine Street, but it was Sunday and the Devon bar was closed up tight.

Now, depressed and with nothing to do, all eight of us, just sat on the curb, with our feet in the street. We were just all sitting in front of the Devon bar, considering what was to be our next move.

As we all sat there, a middle aged couple came walking down the sidewalk.

They stopped and the man asked us in a heavy Scottish brogue “What are all you young fella’s doing here?” I said, we are with the U.S. Army sir, “With the American Army now are ya ” He said. “Yes sir we all replied.”

“Well what’s your problem, he asked”. I told him we had come from Fort Drum in upstate New York and drove three hours for a Molson beer, but the Devon bar was closed. He looked at his wife and then said, “Follow us boys.”

There was a doorway in between the stores on Saint Catherine Street, and we followed them up a flight of stairs to the second floor, which then opened up into a big all with over 100 people in it. It appeared like a big party going on.

There was a long table with chairs, and on the table were bottles of all kinds of scotch whiskey and all kinds of food as well.

At the end of the table, there was a bar set up and a bartender opening bottles of Molson Canadian beer, and he was also making mixed drinks.

The fellow who brought us up, announced to everyone, “Listen everyone I got the whole American Army with me, and he welcomed us to the Montreal Scottish American     Club.

I think these guys had all been Canadian Scottish soldiers, at one time or another and they said “Eat and drink all you want boys, for the American Army it’s all on the house”,

The next day, we were all back at Fort Drum.

We were all just waiting for orders to pick up the hospital unit.

As I waited, a couple of the tough wise guys from the New York City Army Reserve unit came over to me.

“Listen up you, they said”, I listened.

They said, “Tomorrow night when we pick up the hospital unit, the truck in front of you is going to turn off on a side road. You pick up speed and close up the convoy and make believe nothing happened, do you hear me?

I understood exactly what they said, these guys were going to steal a whole truckload of something from the hospital and they were making me into a crook.

As we loaded up the hospital, I saw the truck in front of me was full of army blankets. The brown wool ones with the big USA letters in the middle.

I didn’t want to do it, but I really had no choice, and before I knew it, the truck in front of me had already made a right hand turn on a small dirt road so I closed up the gap in the convoy with my truck just like the missing truck was never there.

I couldn’t sleep that night worrying about it, because I knew there had to be some kind of an investigation sooner or later.

I knew that the army couldn’t just miss a whole truckload of blankets.

I knew that each truck in the convoy had a convoy number, so I knew they had to come and question me sooner or later.

I worried so much about it that by ten in the morning I had myself convinced that I would be going to jail forever for stealing army property.

How could I have been so stupid to let these guys bully me into helping them steal. I even wondered how long I would have to go to Leavenworth prison.

I was sitting on my bunk looking out the barracks window, when I saw the Captain of the medical unit approach the Captain of the New York trucking unit that I was attached to.

Then I saw they were having an animated conversation, the officer from the medical unit was waving his arms around. I just knew they were talking about the stolen blankets.

I started sweating profusely and my heart was beating rapidly as I saw both of them walking towards our barracks.

I was 100% certain they were going to question me about the blankets. Worse than that, I thought they were going to say I stole them.

As they entered the barracks, I was ready to confess to everything, and tell them that I knew who stole the blankets. By now my heart was beating o loud I thought the could hear it.

As we all stood at attention, the Captain from the medical unit said. “Hey fellows, I accidently left my field jacket on the seat of one of your trucks, has anyone here seen my jacket”?

By the end of the week, I left Fort Drum for home, and I never heard another word about the truck load of missing blankets.