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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

My talent at playing the trumpet seemed to appreciated by the other guys, and this was a blessing to me
lor my sense of well-being and self esteem.

When we reached Ft. McClellan we were assigned to a barracks and company, and you would think that
I would remember the name of the company, but I don’t remember if it was Company A, B, C, D, or E
rd
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or F, but I do know that it was in the 5 division of the 3 Army.
After being assigned a bed in the barracks, and assigned a position in the platoon, our basic training
began. Lights went out in the barracks promptly at 10:00 every night, and there was no further activity
permitted. However, our company street lay within about a quarter of a mile of the uninhabited portion
ol Fort McClellan, and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains came down into this area. There was
a small foothill, or small mountain, less than a half of mile from the barracks I was assigned to, and after
lights out I would slip around and pick up my trumpet case and take it behind that little mountain and
would practice for 30 or 40 minutes in the dark. 1 had no way of practicing actual music, but 1 did
enough lip exercises, and played enough music that I had already memorized, to keep my lip in good
condition.

I was supposed to have been required to have 13 weeks of boot camp, or basic training, but after about 3
weeks, on a Saturday afternoon, one of the instructor Sergeants in our company came to the barracks
where we had just finished scrubbing it down and cleaning up everything, and sa-id who is Private Dicks.
1 reported that I was Private Dicks and he said “Private Dicks the Company Commander wants to see
you up in his office right away”

Well, 1 was astounded and flabbergasted and quite fearful, because the infantry captain who was our
Company Commander was a rough son of a gun, having been in the army for almost 30 years already
and he was the kind of fellow that took no s—.

I went up to the Company Commander’s office and reported in “Private Dicks reporting Sir”, and he
responded by saying “ Private Dicks I have been told that there is some crazy son of a bitch going from
this company up into the edge of the mountains at night playing a G—D— trumpet. Do you know
anything about this?” I replied that I did know about it and that I was the guilty party. I explained, or
tried to explain to him, that I wanted to keep up my lip strength and my agility on the trumpet in the
hope that after basic training I would be allowed to apply to become a member of one of the army bands.
His reply was “Well Private Dicks this gentleman here (and he pointed to a warrant officer sitting in his
office) is Warrant Officer John Thomas and he is the Leader of the Division band. For some crazy
reason he wants to hear you play”. After a brief discussion with Warrant Officer John Thomas, who at
that time had already been in the army for 35 years, and further being a native of Jacksonville, asked me
if I would get my trumpet and come over to the band headquarters and let him hear me play. 1 probably
haven’t moved as fast in my life as I did in going back to the barracks to get my trumpet and get in with
him and his driver in the back of a truck and go to the band building.

He took me in his office and asked me to play various technical things such as Scales and Arpeggios and
different technical things on the trumpet, and then he asked me “how do you sight read”? Inasmuch as I
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had spent at least a part of a day ever since I was in the 7 grade trying to play some piece of music 1
had never played before, I had learned to play most music very well at the very first reading, and I told
him to pull out whatever he wanted to hear me play and 1 would play it. So he pulled out 2 selections
(the trumpet parts on some band numbers) and I played them for him and he said to me, “Are you
serious about wanting to get in the band”? I said “yes sir I am deadly serious about it, but I’ve got 10
more weeks basic training”. He said “well your company commander has told me that he will allow you
to skip the remaining 10 weeks of your basic training and if 1 need you 1 can have you. Well I need you,

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