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Upstarts
This was symptomatic of his whole character. He was a rebel and non-
conformist, a truly rugged individualist. When, after months of training with a rifle,
learning the contorted positions you were supposed to get yourself into to fire, learning to
aim and to set your sights to correct for windage, we went to the rifle range to actually
fire, Martitegui's comment was pungent. "In Spain, we shoot at men. Here you shoot at
paper targets. This is a paper war!"
At the end of the basic training cycle and right after the monthly pay day,
Lieutenant Derrough, the new commander of Battery C, decided to reward his men by
taking them on a recreational camping trip.
Texas was a local-option state: each county got to choose whether to permit sale
of alcoholic beverages. The county which included Camp Barkeley and Abilene was dry.
Lt Derrough led his battery into a neighboring county which was not. They pitched pup
tents in an empty field on the edge of a small town and spent the night there. On the
following day all the men not needed for "the necessary guard and fatigue duties" were
permitted to go into the town for rest and recreation, with the admonition that they were
to be back in camp by 5:00 p.m.
Derrough, a prudent man, took the precaution of deputizing a few non-coms of
good character and sober habits as acting MP's, with orders to patrol the town and
admonish or arrest any men indulging in actions "prejudicial to good order and
discipline." That is, who were obviously drunk or were annoying the local civilians. Little
trouble was expected: these recruits were drawing only $21.00 a month less deductions,
and even in 1942, that wasn't enough to paint the town any more than pale pink.
About mid-afternoon, two MP's found Pvt Martitegui in a local diner, forcing his
apparently unwelcome attentions on a waitress. They told him to release the girl and go
back to camp, but he refused to do so, speaking vehemently in two languages. Eventually
they grabbed him by the arms and frog-walked him back to Lt Derrough, who put him in
arrest and drew up court-martial charges against him for refusal to obey the MP's,
resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct.
I wasn't on the court-martial board, but Lt Thomson, who was, was impressed and
amused by Pvt Martitegui' s statement in his own defense:
I was making lof to the waitress - playing weeth her teats … The bottery
commonder says we can stay out to fife o'clock. The MPs say I must come
back at three o'clock. Who is the bottery cornmonder: the MP's, or the
bottery commonder?
He was sentenced to three months confinement, but immediately put on
probation. We were starting on field exercises during that time, and Col Pierce didn't
want anybody to get out of the privations of field exercises by staying in the comfortable
stockade.
We were still doing field exercises a few months later, when I assumed command
of B Battery. At that time C Battery was on a special project to train another batch of
recruits, and most of their already-trained men were spread out among the other batteries.
I was not pleased to hear that, in addition to Phillip Yazzie, the little Navajo who could
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