When our truckload of recruits stopped in the small parking lot just outside the headquarters building of the Detached Enlisted Men’s List at Fort Eustis, Virginia, during World War II, I saw Sheffield nonchalantly resting his elbow on the laid-down tailgate of another army truck. To me he looked an exotic, swarthy skin, dimpled chin, and long sideburns, back in the days when most Regular Army sergeants wore their hair butch style. In his gray-green fatigues, he was a mustachioed Spanish don. I was frightened. Not my kind. For the last two weeks of my new life I had been sensing that I was square, and he was obviously all rounded and loose. We had to jump down from the truck. Calculating the distance to the ground, I wondered if with backpack and heavy duffle bag I would be able to land gracefully. I made it without stumbling, but the jolt to my spine unnerved me further. Sheffield didn’t line us up and call us to attention as I expected, but simply said, “O.K., you guys, follow me to the barracks.” He took us to the first building in the row and said, “I’ll be back in an hour to show you how to make your bunks. In the meantime, draw your blankets and sheets at the supply room.” In those first minutes at a permanent post, every act and word struck me in the face as the beginning of a series of actions that might end with my death in battle. At the time, I had no idea that Sheffield understood that most of us were feeling as awkward as we ever had in our lives. Not until months later did I realize that without clock or written schedule, Sheffield was timing our lives so we would learn at a pace we could handle. He had absented himself so we would have time to examine our digs, use the latrine, stretch out on our mattresses, and renew our courage. He was not a proper non-commissioned officer trying to break our spirit so that we would thoughtlessly obey all commands, including the one to advance under fire.
