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Donel D White

Name    Donel D White
Rank   
White
      Donel
      D.
      Debbie
      2825 Manse Ave
      Lincoln
      NB
      68502
      [H] 402-474-3240
      DOES NOT HAVE A COMPUTER
      MAIL UPDATES TO ADDRESS
              
Letters


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23 Aug 13 

Steve,

What Baumholder O-club downstairs bar? Maybe you carried me to one if there 
really was one. Wait a minute. Seem to recall lots of glasses neatly aligned
on a remote table somewhere the night before standing my first IG. You know,
like in getting prepared for inspection? Maybe that would have been one of
those middle-of-the weekers you mentioned that was executed prior to the 
Army's official "de-glorification of alcohol" program. The next day's 
inspection must have worked out okay though, because also remember being in 
the same place on the next night, which could well have been in the same 
basement, doing the same thing with a job still to go to, and the O-club 
still being a fun place for all kinds of Lieutenant-level unholy behavior. As 
for names of basements in O-clubs, the only one that comes to mind is the 
"Snakepit" at Benning in June 1970. Now, I cannot recall that degree of 
unholy in Baumholder.
A note to Pete: It is beyond my comprehension to believe that you have put me 
in yet another position for a possible date with Cece. But with unbearable 
reluctance, must yet decline. When I asked permission from the little 5'3" 
blue-eyed gal that has shared with me the almost identical audit experienced 
by Beth, she unhesitatingly and flatly replied, "No."
Pete, please relay to Cece that she is very fondly remembered by a too 
country boy from Texas, and that she represents one of life's very sweet 
regrets.
A change of thought back to Steve: Since you have decided to put together 
some web pages and include my previous letters to my old Bunkie, request that 
you also include the enclosed copy of a letter I sent to Ralph Mullens near 
the end of July. The material I sent to him was for him personally, but I 
don't think he'd mind if I shared the letter with all the guys. I know they 
too have their own memories of his talents and Leadership, as still evidenced 
today, while he has diligently tried to find all platoons of the Company 
again, without leaving anyone behind.

Don

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Letter from Don White to Ralph Mullens

Near the end of July 2013 (or whenever I got back to Texas to get the 
picture) 

Ralph,

1.  Looks can be deceiving. The blonde was Pete Wasson's girlfriend from New 
York state. Pete had tried to line me up with the blonde's brunette friend 
(no picture yet) who would accompany said blonde from New York for a double 
date at our end-of-tour party, that I think was to be in E-town at some 
Ramada. Pete had asked me at least twice about a month ahead to join him on 
the date, and I'd said "no" each time (grounds for my immediate dismissal 
from the threshold of program completion for lack of judgment). The little 
brunette wound up as Ron Thomure's date and I tried to steal her at the 
party. The last time I saw her she and I had been all cuddled up dancing on 
an otherwise deserted late evening dance floor when Ron darted into the room,
grabbed her arm, and disappeared with her through the door by which he'd 
entered as quickly and deftly as the lightening bolt displayed on our 
shoulder patches. Ron's practical exercise of tactical genius and maneuver 
(no credit though for courage under fire because we were good friends) (all's 
fair in love and war) should have clinched for him the title of Honor 
Graduate.
2.   A quick and lasting memory of your leadership and lessons (a sample):
As it happened, not long into the basic phase (before green), three of my 
four wisdom teeth decided it was time to come out. So they came out at the 
hands of two dentists down the street in green pants. It was a struggle, with 
one of them obtaining leverage with his knee on my chest. By that evening, my 
head was blue. You put me on some kind of "recovery" status by arranging 
special meals in the kitchen (whatever I thought I could eat) instead of me 
sitting with another three at a table in the usual dining room configuration, 
and subject to guilt in "eyeballing," to include the dastardly problems 
associated with such an infraction of justice. I ate scrambled eggs specially 
prepared for me by the Cookie three meals a day for, as I recall, well over a 
week. While everyone else double-timed, I was allowed to walk (whoever heard 
of such a thing?), to include arriving at class as soon as I could stroll to 
it. No harassment of any kind. Was as though I was invisible to you in that 
regard.
But back to the beginning of the story for the lesson: I was allowed to miss 
class for a few days immediately following surgery (and what surgery). The 
empty platoon bay that had been prepared for your morning inspection, while 
everyone else was in class, found me alone and lying on my side in my bottom 
bunk looking in the opposite direction from the door at the other end of the 
bay by which you had entered and had started your inspection. With everything 
else going on you must have forgotten I would have been there. There, lying 
in my bunk as you began inspecting, I felt the wave of crashing wall lockers, 
and heard the tinkle of tent pegs that had been atop those lockers; and the 
clatter of footlockers being dumped on a glass floor; and desk displays being 
unraveled and scattered in all directions. And as I was yet undetected,
sensed you getting closer to my position.
Then it all suddenly stopped because your eyes were burning a hole in my 
back. Then, boot steps approached my backside:
"Candidate White?.....Candidate White?" Very softly and concerned. Didn't 
recognize your tone.
If not so ill of sorts, maybe I'd have given my position away by hopping up 
and joining in conversation (or at least rolling over). Instead, did the 
tactical thing and played opossum.
You can't guess how often I've thought of and used the lesson on the sound of 
your tiptoes immediately leaving the room, and the almost inaudible click of 
the gently closing door behind you. You had in one instance summarized the 
Army for me, and the sometimes necessarily hidden compassion of troop 
leadership. Hidden or not, the compassion remains true and always present in 
the makeup of any who find it   The individual soldier invaribly recognizes 
true care and will reciprocate in all kinds of ways that can defy 
imagination, even at zero-one-thirty with a thrown track to the inside, in 
the frozen and greasy mud.
No, this is no sermon on fundamentals to the demonstrator. Just want you to 
know that after almost 50 years I still remember that you ended your 
inspection of the entire platoon, not long after it began, just because of 
me.
**#
"Candidate White, are you ready to resume your normal duties?" "Yessir"
"Are you sure that you are ready?" "Yessir."
"Okay Goat, fall-in!"
Put in 30 or so years in Armor. During that time, my given name of "Donel" 
became my nickname, "Don-L." It's been a long time since I've signed off with 
the name my friends called me in our time. As I would remember you through 
the years, wished you'd known this story.
Hope you consider this letter to be the value it is intended to be, and that 
it and the enclosed picture complete your copy of our class photo.
Don

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July 10, 2013 

Steve,
	Can recall being there but can't imagine ever being as young as all 
	those guys pictured. Especially can't figure dropping 10 for a 
	high-school-sophomore-looking Ralph-e Mullins.
	What a rip! Had no idea all these years that class pictures existed. 
	And, no, I'm not in either of them because my wife Debbie confirmed 
	it by saying, "Donnie, your little round head is not in any of these 
	pictures." Undoubtedly taken on a couple of Saturday mornings before 
	or after parade drill with me at the every Saturday morning class 
	presidents' coordination meet. Just another case of one soldier left 
	behind. Next time I see Ralph I'll mark him as "Inadequate" in command, 
	control and supervision.
	But do have a couple of photos in Eastland from this era that I'll 
	send to you. Somebody took a camera on one of our FTXs, and there's a 
	shot of me at our end-of-tour party that probably happened in E-town 
	at some Ramada. Remembered you being tall, lanky and very 
	short-light-haired (no hair god) and that's about it. However, when 
	seeing your picture, could have identified you from a cast of thousands. 
	Maybe you'll see what I mean when I get back to Texas around the end of 
	July and drop some pictures in the mail.
	Okay. As said, what a rip! Mind began to rock and reels began to spin 
	when seeing our black knight mascot. When focusing on the unpainted 
	head sitting by your desk display awaiting the arrival of the rest of 
	himself, I immediately envisioned the yellow ink-blotter type paper 
	desk pad and knew that if I opened the drawer to your desk that your 
	display would look exactly like mine. Just like your footlocker and 
	wall locker display would look exactly like mine. And that your name 
	tags and edges of your triangular shoulder patches had been blackened-in 
	after each laundry with a magic marker just like mine. And that all your 
	coat hangers were hooked in the same direction and that your visible 
	sleeves hanging on those hangers were overlapped in the same way, just 
	like mine.
	So, here's a question for you. Think back to all the evening barracks 
	racket with it dark outside and all the lights on inside. All the 
	hustle and buffer bustle in prep for Mullins' next morning inspection 
	when we'd return to find that most wall lockers had been pushed over 
	with all the tent pegs and such that had been on top of them scattered 
	all over the floor. As you think of yourself there at this time, look 
	at what you're wearing. You are in an OD T-shirt with your name stenciled 
	in black across your chest, your T-shirt is tucked inside a belted pair of 
	unbloused fatigue pants, and sticking out of the legs of those pants are 
	your two feet inside a pair of OD boot socks. So here's the rhetorical 
	question: how many times in your life have you run your index finger between 
	your big and next toe to crease those socks before you put your shower shoes on?
	Long before Class 17-67, I'd baby-sit the little girl next door when her 
	folks would go out for bingo night. She was 6 and I was almost 14. Debbie 
	and I have now been married for 42 years this September and have a son 
	Cordell who's already 35. When he was born at Fort Hood I mused that when 
	he was 35 I'd be 70. My arithmetic proved accurate this last June.
	Second Squadron? Walked into the Third Herd about a week before you did 
	and filled the XO slot at Regimental HHT next door to the Regimental HQ 
	"pink palace" in Baumholder. Think if you'd been in First Squadron at 
	Baumholder I'd have known it. But since I don't remember you assigned 
	in Baumholder, and you think I might have been in Second Squadron in 
	Kaiserslautern, that might place you in Third Squadron in K-town. You 
	might get a kick in knowing that I joined the CAV once again as CO 3/3 
	ACR 86-88 at Bliss. First Regimental Cavalry to take on the OPFOR at 
	the National Training Center, Fort Irwin.
	Don't recall you saying anything about pole vaulting before, but do 
	know that is not the kind of discipline people normally start getting 
	into after high school. So you must have been leaping tall buildings 
	with a pole all the time and just didn't say anything about it. Too, 
	glad to hear that your wrists and shoulders are obviously still in great 
	shape. I haven't even done a legitimate push-up in years. But I do drive 
	a Harley FLSTF Fatboy.
    As for your claim of an untrained voice: just remember that any formal 
    instruction I ever got was from you while in the shower with Hank. So you 
    can see what Debbie has had to put up with.
	Can't believe that I've got an autographed novel by a published author. 
	And that the author is my former bunkie. Now how cool is that! Didn't 
	get it until yesterday so can't yet give you my rave review. But will. 
	And by the way, if I've learned anything since we last met, I'm quite 
	confident your Dad has read it.                     
	

August 10, 2013
	
	Steve,

1.   Looks can be deceiving. The blonde was Pete Wasson's girlfriend from New 
York state. Pete had tried to line me up with the blonde's brunette friend 
(no picture yet) who was to accompany said blonde from New York for a double 
date at our end-of-tour party, that I think was to be in E-town at some 
Ramada. Pete had asked me at least twice about a month ahead to join him on 
the date, and I'd said "no" each time (grounds for my immediate dismissal 
from the threshold of program completion for lack of judgment). The little 
brunette wound up as Ron Thomure's date and I tried to steal her at the 
party. The last time I saw her she and I had been all cuddled up dancing on 
an otherwise deserted late evening dance floor when Ron darted into the room, 
grabbed her arm, and disappeared with her through the door by which he'd 
entered as quickly and deftly as the lightening bolt displayed on our 
shoulder patches. Ron's practical exercise of tactical genius and maneuver 
(no credit though for courage under fire because we were good friends) (all's 
fair in love and war) should have clinched for him the title of Honor 
Graduate.

2.   Somebody brought a camera along on one of our FTX's. VC would have loved 
to have been there for that live shot of a world observer.

3.   The snapshot of me in front of an old building in Louisville (maybe 
sometime during AIT) completes the only pictures I have during this era at 
Knox.

4.   Thoughts from KADAKAS IV:

a.  A small edit: If the Colonel had used that language in the 1CD TOC, there 
would not have been enough grease left in the puddle of his bodily fluids to 
waterproof the flap through which he had just entered. Ergo, to get around 
this minor unreality in prose, to settle certain sensitivities usually found 
in and around such places, and to keep in mind the politics of military 
careerism, I suggest that you might eliminate the word "STUPID" from the 
dialog on p.4.

b.   Since Sci-fi is considered by some to be only a stone's-throw ahead of 
reality, I'm wasting no time in laying out a spread sheet for the development 
of a Standing Procedure for the SP (SPSOP). So far it looks like this:

(1)  Rule #1 - Prior to coding and any other button-pushing in the booth 
(BPITB), ensure you are not in the booth for a trip to Jupiter (ATTJ). This 
will necessitate the development of an advanced remote control device, so 
let's name it the "warrwhite," or maybe to be simply and commonly called, the 
pocket-sized "WW."

(2)  Rule #2 - Ensure the WW is always glued to your head while driving motor 
vehicles on earth or on distant stars.

(3) Rule #3 - Same as rule #1, but the focus here is on abandoned jeeps on 
distant planets, or in Texas (AJODPOIT).

c.   Great mix of reality and fiction. But I recall seeing everything you 
wrote at least once while in the Army, except dancing nipples inside sheer 
form-hugging dresses. You might also consider a re-write on the dress thing 
so's not to cloud the mind of an inflexible and seriously focused young 
soldier bucking for hard-stripe E-5, or the collective brain of today's 
truth-seeking political liberals.

d.   After considering the sum total of governmental intent and talent 
currently practiced at all local, state and federal levels, I've just ordered 
all WUZZIES in my immediate neighborhood to assume Alert status.

***

e.   Your book surpasses most novels (and ties the rest) written by that 
elite storyteller and communist who wrote and resided on US soil, Isaac 
Asimov. I've been a sci-fi fan a long time. Even once belonged to a science 
fiction book club.

f.   Read (more than) the last half of your book without putting it down. 
Didn't want it to end. So, I started over. If it were my call, you and Kathy 
would be worrying over those million dollar movie contracts.

***

I've been considering some fiction of my own now that you've gotten me all 
fired up. For example, how about a story of two troops determined to defend a 
free society: (1) The good old boy greasy in the frozen mud hanging in the 
air on the end of a tankers' bar beside a tank that has a track thrown to the 
inside, and (2) The presidential aide-de-camp riding horseback with Reagan 
out on the ranch. My purely speculative thinking would be, for the sake and 
interest of the reader, that no matter what else the equestrian might do in 
the rest of his career, he will prevail as the system's choice. I would fancy 
that even blowing up a Black Horse engineer squad playing with explosives in 
an electrical storm wouldn't slow him down.
As the story unfolds, we eventually find the equestrian assembled and poised 
south of the LD as the Army's available golden boy to run Saddam Hussain's 
right flank and roll up the Republican Guard. However, several weeks before 
the attack begins, and for the sake of a "better security posture," the 
system's select consolidates his Regimental basic load in only one location, 
and when the pile suddenly blows near the dawning hour, the death toll 
eliminates everyone in the organization who has any inkling of a sentry's 
first General Order. For added literary interest, this act also generates the 
largest report of survey in Army history. With the entire world patiently 
awaiting the "mother of all battles," the final chapter attention-getter 
finds our good old boy still hanging on a crowbar somewhere, and finds our 
equestrian Phd Harvard hero, after years of tearing up the CG's new asphalt 
with his tanks, and dumping at least one deuce-na-half full of troops headed 
for the range, immediately relieved, retired, and released to teach history 
at Johns Hopkins before he does anything too ignorant, due merely to the 
absence of current intelligence.
Now, I fully realize that my opening premise of "nothing can stop him" is 
unsupported with this concluding chapter; however, as you so aptly 
demonstrated in your novel, any civilians who might read my book could find 
the quest for separating fact from fiction, or fact or fiction, to be 
entertaining.
And I'll remember what I preached and not use the word "STUPID" anywhere in 
the text IAW para 4a above.
Like I said, enjoyed your book.

Don