Remembering Fort Holabird, Blaze Starr and Sgt. Poncho

I met Sgt. Poncho that summer a half century ago at the now-defunct Fort Holabird in Dundalk.

It was, well, an experience—almost as discordant as playing in the Holabird band, where our members regularly finished "The Star Spangled Banner" on the parade grounds each Friday on a different note.

Anyhow, in these troubled times, I often think of that simple Dundalk summer of 1958, eons before terrorists, computers and recessions. We had only the Soviets to worry about and that was why I was in this blue-collar town, then a thriving industrial hub, as a draftee in the Army Intelligence School.

We were going to learn how to save the country from Soviet attempts to steal our military secrets.

Sgt. Poncho was a squat fireplug of a man in his 30s. He had an abundance of energy and a paucity of English. Like so many sergeants, he had come from a Spanish-speaking section of the country, most likely Puerto Rico. The Army was his way up the ladder.

But we draftees were the children of  privilege. Native-born Americans, we were all college graduates. Many of us were Ivy Leaguers. Some had graduate or law degrees. We clearly thought we were superior to Sgt. Poncho. Self-important young men, we humiliated him regularly and then laughed about it at the Travelers’ bar across from the base each night.

We had to wait a month before starting classes, and Sgt. Poncho’s role was to keep us busy with menial labor like stacking the shelves at the PX or sweeping the gym floor.

Every morning, we showed up for Sgt. Poncho’s assignments. Some of the brighter wits signed up as Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln. Poncho did not recognize those national giants and called them out for assignment only to find out that no one stepped forward.

We even invented an imaginary soldier, Pvt. Gorman Hadley, who signed up every day but never showed up. That was a fiction that went overseas with some of our grads. “Hadley” shipped out to Germany and made such a hit at 66th Counterintelligence Corps headquarters that the Army opened an investigation on him, without success.

That summer in Baltimore—we were all in our early 20s—was the first time many of us had been away from home. We were full of ourselves.

We enjoyed Baltimore’s leading cultural attraction—Blaze Starr baring nearly all at her club on East Baltimore Street. Blaze, an ivory-skinned dancer with fire engine red hair, was truly a star. She even tossed lollipops to us starving troops.

But as for me, I wonder if Poncho ever became an American success story. Or did he spend his life being ridiculed by the privileged?