Bombs Away by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online Page B

incalculable—supplies of food and uniforms and games, supplies of bombs and practice bombs—and at the same time that it is a training Air Force, it must also be a fighting Air Force. Our bombers and pursuit planes are in action in Australia, in the Orient, in Europe, and in Africa. Every day the papers have accounts of Air Force action in some part of the world, and every day, truckloads of boys who have applied for entrance to the Air Force are picked up at the station and brought to the induction centers to enter the hard and satisfying training of the Air Force. They are di sheveled and tired when they arrive at the induction centers and they are dressed in all manner of clothes, some in overalls, some in sweaters and slacks, and some more fortunate arrive in their own cars and they have suitcases, bundles, and brief cases and those last gifts which doting parents bestow on their sons. Some of them are a little uneasy and a little homesick and nearly all of them are slightly apprehensive because they do not know what is going to happen to them next. It is part of the purpose of this book to tell them in advance what is going to happen to them next, to tell them the process by which they will become members of the Air Force. So far there has been no way for them to find out before induction. Every move has its purpose but until now there has not been time to tell the in ductees in advance the purpose of each move.
    Suppose a young farmer from South Carolina and a young graduate of a small college looking for a job and an Idaho trumpet player all have made applications for the Air Force, have been accepted for induction, have been given their orders and their transportation, so that they end up at last with two hundred and fifty others at a railroad station near an induction center. They have ridden a long time and they are tired, dusty, and dispirited. The two hundred and fifty are a long way from home, they haven’t had time to make friends. Their speech has affectual accents of Maine, of the Middle West, of the South, and the Southwest, and each one thinks the rest sound rather funny and each one is a little bit afraid of all the rest and feels that he is among strangers. They get down at the station, carrying their miscellaneous baggage. There they are met by an officer who checks their names against his list, lines them up, and assigns them to trucks, and loaded in the Army trucks they are taken to the induction center.
    At the induction center, the cadet master takes them in hand and from now on they will have little time to be lonely or dispirited. Quickly they are lined up and assigned to quarters and then they are marched to the barber shop where they suffer what to a civilian is an indignity—their hair is cut short. These haircuts soon come to be affectionately known by the names of their fields, such as the Randolph Roach or the Kelly Clip. If it is summer, they have abandoned their civilian coats by now and their shirts, and some of them have abandoned their undershirts and they march now to a most searching physical examination.
    The medical specialists are arranged by sections. Eyes are rigidly tested not only for weakness, but for color blindness. Ears are examined. Chests are X-rayed for any pulmonary weakness. Bones and feet are examined for any deformity. Blood tests are taken to determine any venereal disease. They sit a time with the psychiatrist who questions them closely to see whether they might not have some fixation which would unfit them for the Service, some fear of heights or closed places, some psychic abnormality. They are questioned about past illnesses, diseases, which might have left a degenerative scar. Quick though it is, few men have ever been more closely inspected, and when it is complete their medical history is compiled and their health background established. If something is wrong with an applicant which can be treated, treatment is prescribed and begun. And when the