 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Francisco Martitegui
hardly speak English, I was now getting the battalion's other linguistic problem child,
Francisco Martitegui, who chose not to. Yazzie wasn't a real problem. He at least tried.
Martitegui worked at being trying.
There were other Spanish-speaking men in the outfit, of course, but they spoke an
American brand of Spanish, which he made fun of. They didn't like that, or him, and
were reluctant to act as interpreters. In fact the only member of the 915th who could talk
to him in his own tongue was Lt Col Pierce, who had served a hitch as assistant military
attache to Spain and had also taught Spanish at West Point. And Pierce did talk to him on
occasion, but it was not practical to bring in the battalion commander every time an order
had to be given to a private, and Martitegui made a fetish of misunderstanding
unwelcome orders.
When Pvt Martitegui was reported absent at reveille one morning, instead of
being properly indignant, I felt relieved. Maybe he wouldn't come back. With any luck,
he might not even be apprehended and brought back!
Nevertheless, I made the necessary reports to authorities and wrote a letter to his
next of kin - a sister - urging her to turn him in if he showed up on her doorstep.
Somewhat to my surprise, she sent a reply in excellent English, expressing concern that
her brother "Frank" was missing and asking me to let her know if he came back.
And, surprisingly, he did. I was in my command car, leading my battery out to the
Hankins Ranch for a field exercise, when he suddenly appeared on the shoulder of the
road, holding up his thumb hitchhiker style. Being in the lead vehicle, I didn't want to
stop the whole battery column so I could pick him up, so I radioed back to Lt Smith at the
end of the column to get him and return him to duty with his howitzer section.
Then I got involved in the mechanics of the mock war we were fighting and
forgot about Martitegui. Not much I could do about him until we returned to barracks
anyhow. The day turned warm for November, somewhere in the high 70's, and I had
worn my woolen underwear, so by midafternoon I was sweating and prickly. But then
about dusk, a breeze sprang up out of the north. Within a half hour the wind was a gale,
the temperature had dived into the 20's, and everyone was piling on all the clothes he
could find. During the night, Maj Gen Terrell, the Division Commander, called off the
exercise because of the weather, and we shivered our way back to Camp Barkeley first
thing in the morning. I was wearing four layers of clothes and had a blanket wrapped
around my legs.
But Francisco Martitegui did not fare so well. He did not have woolen underwear
-
claimed he had never been issued any - he had lost his field jacket and had left his
overcoat somewhere while he was AWOL. He had not stopped to pick up his blankets
before joining us in the field. In short, he had been out all night with nothing but a thin
cotton fatigue jacket and trousers between him and a sub-freezing Texas Blue Norther.
I was appalled when I found out. "Couldn't somebody have lent him something to
wear?" I asked my assembled non-coms.
99
|
 |
|