The vision took me back to a time over three decades ago when a spoken acronym defined my life. A1 TUSAMFSS represented Company A, First Battalion, The United States Army Medical Field Service School. As company clerk, I was required to answer the phone with the abbreviated identification dozens of times each day. I could rattle off the letters as fast as some could say hello.

Part of my job as Company Clerk was the compilation of the daily morning report which is the second most important single document in any military command. It is a daily accounting of everything that concerns a particular unit. Civilians are apt to dismiss it as nothing more than a classroom attendance roster. Nothing could be further from the truth, most particularly when it comes to the accounting of personnel.

There came a day when Platoon Sergeant Nathan Bittle put a mark in the Absent Without Authorized Leave column of his chart. A one and the name PVT Jonathon D. Horton was penciled in below as a reference. This was the first time Private Horton entered my personal realm of concern. I knew the name from the company roster but had never actually seen him. The only thing I really knew about him was that he bunked away from the regular barracks in an alcove at one end of the supply room. As heartless as it may seem, his unexplained absence created a void that far outweighed any immediate concern about his person or well being. A mark in the AWOL column was the sort of thing that ruined my much guarded peace.

In the Army a person can miss work and have a friend cover the absence just like the real world. When that absence reaches the pages of a morning report, however, it triggers responses that ricochet up and down the chain of command. Since the basic function of a military organization involves life and death, a dismissal such as maybe the missing person just might have missed the bus is not an acceptable resolution.

"What has been done about it?" becomes a lingering, living question that for lack of anyone else to burden, becomes the responsibility of the company clerk to answer.

At the time we had a new Company Commander, a Captain Larry L. Lawrence. No, that was not a stutter. His name is the only reason I remember him at all. We were assigned a new CO every three months or so and once we got two new ones in one week. Our company was populated mostly by soldiers who were ending their career, killing the last few months of an enlistment or waiting for an assignment elsewhere.

Sergeant First Class Herb Gartner and I were two of the few permanent personnel. By virtue of the fact that he and I were the only ones who knew the way to the file cabinets, we both held titles. Mine I've mentioned. Despite the fact that he was one stripe short of the usual rank for the position, Gartner usually held the title of First Sergeant. Yes, I mean usually. Each time we were assigned a non-com that out-ranked him, we had a ceremony to appoint the new arrival to the position. Each time the Top Sergeant slot became empty, we reassigned Herb to the job. He liked to joke that he was shooting for an Army record for most appointments to First Sergeant. Besides, each ceremony gave him another excuse to celebrate.

Gartner had an affinity for chilled vodka. He kept a supply in a freezer located in the aformentioned supply room which was in another building. Which meant I sometimes went a week or two without seeing him at all. There were temporary clerks that came and went, but for a year and a half it was mostly just me in the company Orderly Room,

I called Sergeant Major Jordon at battalion headquarters that morning to give him the heads up about the morning report with Private Horton listed as AWOL. There was not time enough for silence before he told me not to file the report. He and Lieutenant Colonel Banders, the Battalion Commander, were standing in front of my desk in the time it took to drive a jeep, "Digger Horton is on leave," they said in an unexpected unison that obviously embarrassed them both.

I should mention that during that time, I would do most anything to keep anyone that I even thought had any relationship with my chain of command out of my orderly room. I immediately shuffled up some paperwork that authorized Private Horton's absence with a leave effective the last thing before the morning report was to be filed, no problem. I forged the new Company Commander's signature to the papers and slipped them into a courier envelope. When I handed the envelope to Sergeant Major Jordon, he and the colonel left pleased. I was happy to have the room back to myself, especially since I no longer had an AWOL that required explanation.

I spent the remainder of the day in the kind of euphoria that can be brought on only by experiencing unexpected relief. I thought briefly about seeking out First Sergeant Gartner and his chilled chear but felt it wise to leave the matter closed, or rather, unopened. A good company clerk learns to exercise and even appreciate a degree of reclusive discretion. Such is a requirement to the position. Besides, Sergeant Bittle was unlikely to protest a correction to the headcount that launched the worry.

The nickname, Digger, did tweak my curiosity a bit, but I knew enough to let an explanation find its way to me. Most all company facts had a way of ending up on my desk anyway. It was not until I found myself in that job, that I realized just how important patience can be. When dealing with military personnel, the concept is beyond all virtue.

A few weeks later a slim fellow appeared at my desk. He was dressed in what I can only describe as backwoodsy charm. He wore a faded, wrinkle-free flannel shirt, baggy but oddly pressed corduroy pants and polished clodhopper boots. I do mean he appeared. Suddenly. There were a dozen or so men milling about who had gathered early for payday. He entered so quietly and unobtrusively that no one seemed to notice his entering.

"I'm Private Horton," he said. "Where do I sign-in?"

"So you're Digger," I said. The jumbled background noise of the room fell to silence. Horton and I were immediately alone. I had never seen a room clear so quickly. Horton seemed to take it as a natural occurrence.

"Here's the sign-in sheet," I said pushing the clipboard his way.

He signed with the crooked lettered scrawl of a person unfamiliar with writing. When I greeted him, he gave a very engaging smile but no response. The moment I took my eyes off of him to hang the clipboard back on its nail, he was gone. He became a strain to my curiosity.

A week after his return, Colonel Banders was back in the orderly room. Before I could call the room to attention, he motioned for me to come with him for an outside walk. "I want to thank you for the way you handled the Digger thing."

"But it was nothing, sir."

"No, it was everything."

Once outside he kept an inspection look on me as we walked. It was as if he were deciding what to tell me. He pointed toward the supply room. The discomforted shuffeling in his walk made it obvious that he was about to tell me more than he felt comfortable saying. We reached the supply room entry before he stopped to speak to me again.

"Digger is from my hometown. Ours is a very small town," he said. "While he is here it is up to me to look out for him."

"That's good of you, sir." I said. "Everyone needs a little looking after once in a while."

"That we do," said Colonel Banders. "Digger more than most."

The Colonel kept looking from me to nothing and back with the tilted head, twisted kneck look that was a quirk unique to him. There was a long silence but I knew that for an enlisted to ask questions of a thinking Colonel only invites trouble.

"Digger is the gravedigger for our town," said the Colonel. "That's how he got his name."

"Yes, sir," I said. "And I bet he's good at what he does."

"He is," said the Colonel. "And, there is more to his job than most understand. To our way of thinking, so long as there is humanity there is a gravedigger. Digger is the Gravedigger, the only Gravedigger. His uncle was the Gravedigger before him and his grandfather before him. The position has been in his family since before the Revolution."

"Then anytime he is not here, sir, I'll assume that he is about in his duty," I said.

"That's the idea. But sometimes, just sometimes, he buries people most others, including me, don't know about. Like this last time," said the Colonel.

"I understand, sir," I said. "I'll be sure to clear things up for Digger in case you are not around."

The Colonel gave me another of his inspection looks, this time he ended with a smile. "Now that I know I can count on you for that, I will thank you for it. Bring me some promotion papers for yourself. And, while you are at it, bring some for Digger. I think it is high time for him to be a Private First Class. I'll sign the promotions as soon as they are on my desk."

"Yes, sir. And I'll be thanking you, sir."

"You already have," said Colonel Banders. He motioned to the supply room door. "You don't suppose Sergeant Gartner left anything in there we can use for a toast do you?"

patrig